Sanaullah declared dead after attack by Indian inmates

A Pakistani prisoner jailed in India has died after he was attacked by another inmate in an apparent revenge attack for the death of an Indian prisoner in Pakistani jail.

Sanaullah Haq, also known as Sanaullah Ranjay, who was admitted to a hospital in northern Indian city of Chandigarh with serious head injuries, had suffered renal failure late on Wednesday, the doctor said on Thursday.

“His condition was extremely critical. He died early morning,” a senior doctor at the government hospital said on condition of anonymity.

“Although it’s scant consolation I’d like to offer a sincere apology to the family of Sanaullah Haq and my sympathies for their loss,” Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state where Haq had been imprisoned since 1999, wrote on Twitter
on Thursday.

Last week, Pakistan said the assault was “condemnable” and called on India to punish the attacker. India said it regretted the incident and gave consular access to Ranjay.

The hospital would hand over the body to two of his relatives who had arrived in India from Pakistani city of Sialkot “as per the instructions of the government”, the doctor said.

Ranjay, who has been serving jail term for a 1990s bomb attack that killed 10 people, was attacked by a prisoner identified as a former Indian army soldier just 24 hours after Sarabjit Singh’s death in a Lahore jail that drew strong reaction from India.

Last weekend demonstrators took to the streets in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to protest against the attack on Ranjay.

The prison violence could fuel tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, whose relations were hit by a border flare-up earlier this year.

The neighbours have fought two of their three wars over the disputed region of Kashmir, which they each control in part but claim in full.

New Delhi says 535 Indian prisoners, including 483 fishermen, are in Pakistani jails, while 272 Pakistani prisoners are behind bars in India.

New US drone strike on Pakistan after two months

Two people suspected of being militants were killed Sunday morning in the volatile North Waziristan tribal region by what Pakistani and Taliban officials said was a drone strike.

If confirmed, the attack could be the first American strike in Waziristan in two months – one of the longest operational pauses since the drone campaign started in earnest in mid-2008. American and Pakistani officials are at odds over whether two previous attacks this year were American drone strikes or some other kind of violence.

Two Pakistani officials, one in Peshawar and another in the tribal belt, said that missiles fired from a drone operated by the C.I.A. hit the two people in the village of Degan, about 20 miles from Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.

“Details are sketchy,” the senior official in Peshawar said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We don’t know the identity of those killed, and our local contacts say the bodies were unrecognizable and beyond recognition. We don’t know if they were locals or foreign militants.” That official said the two people who were killed had been traveling on a motorcycle when the missile struck, but the official in the tribal belt said they were on horseback. There were some reports that three people were killed in the attack.

A Taliban spokesman in Miram Shah confirmed that two militants on a motorcycle had been killed in a drone strike. “I cannot confirm their nationality and group affiliation at the moment,” the spokesman said by telephone.

The timing and nature of the previous two reported strikes in Waziristan have become a matter of controversy between Pakistan and the United States.

Last week, American officials denied any involvement in two strikes that Pakistani officials and the news media had reported as C.I.A. drone strikes, on Feb. 6 and Feb. 8. Afterward, an American official quoted in The New York Times said that at least one of the attacks could have been a conventional airstrike by the Pakistani military. That claim was rejected by Pakistani officials.

The last drone attack that was recognized by both Pakistan and the United States, albeit unofficially, was on Jan. 10.

Separately, the police in Lahore said that they had arrested 150 men in connection with an attack on a Christian colony on Saturday in which about 170 homes and 2 churches were burned.

THE IGNORED REALITY

By: Ghalib Sultan
ZoneAsia-Pk

If there is democracy and people are the most important factor in a democracy then there is something seriously wrong.

There is a news story in Pakistan Today (11.1.12) about the travails of an ex soldier. This unfortunate man made the mistake of helping the police in thwarting a bomb attack on a shrine. In retaliation his son was kidnapped and delivered dead in a gunny bag when no one helped him. Then his other son was kidnapped and given such strong drugs that he died of blood cancer. No one helped him. Now his teenage daughter has been kidnapped since May 2011 and once again no law enforcing or investigative agency is willing to help him. The kidnappers have demanded a huge ransom. The family has hit rock bottom and dead end.

A few days ago a stampede after a musical concert caused the death of three young girls. The concert venue was over crowded with complete disregard for safety. Who is responsible for this tragedy?

Power outages and gas shut downs are causing unimaginable suffering to the common man. No one has an answer. Long lines of cars wait patiently for CNG at gas stations. Businesses are shutting down. Industry is closed. Unemployment is rampant. Trains run erratically if at all and the service is abominable. The national airline is a laughing stock. Poverty stalks the land. No one has any pride left-not in their work, not in themselves and not in the country.

The masses watch helplessly as trivia like the ‘memo’ and NRO take up all the time of the institutions that should be giving them governance, security and justice. No one watches the useless debates on TV—everyone is hooked on the plays even if their themes are depressing. Anything to escape reality.

Drone attacks have restarted with this years first one on January 10th– as have bomb blasts. The horrifying details of 10 soldiers mutilated, beheaded and thrown callously in a ravine did not even make it to the headlines. Bomb blasts are back with 30 killed in Jamrud in just one attack and several injured in other attacks. Surely these events are more important than the shenanigans of those jockeying for power or those trying to survive.

Democracy without the rule of law is chaos. The people matter more than anything else. The reality on the street cannot be ignored any longer. Its time to focus on real democracy and that means addressing the grievances of the people-the sooner this happens the better. The Arab Spring came when the people were driven to the street and were fed up of being ignored.

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

9/11 conspiracy theories

It may be 10 years since the attacks in the US on 11 September, but conspiracy theories have not faded over time, says Mike Rudin.

Numerous official reports have been published since the Twin Towers fell, but just when a piece of evidence casts doubt on one theory, the focus then shifts to the next “unanswered question”.

Here are five of the most prominent 9/11 conspiracy theories circulating in online communities.

1. Failure to intercept the hijacked planes

The question: Why did the world’s most powerful air force fail to intercept any of the four hijacked planes?

Conspiracy theorists say: The then US Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the military to stand down and not to intercept the planes.

Fighter jets failed to intercept the hijacked planes

Official reports say: This was a highly unusual multiple hijacking with violence on board, and where the transponder, which provides the exact location of the plane, was turned off or changed.

What is more, a routine military training exercise happened to be taking place that day at US air defence command.

Air traffic controller Colin Scoggins was in constant contact with the military and did not see any lack of response. There was confusion and a lack of communication between the civilian air traffic control (FAA) and the military.

The military’s equipment was also outdated and designed to look out over the ocean to deal with a Cold War threat.

2. Collapse of the Twin Towers

The question: Why did the Twin Towers collapse so quickly, within their own footprint, after fires on a few floors that lasted only for an hour or two?

Conspiracy theorists say: The Twin Towers were destroyed by controlled demolitions. Theories relate to the rapid collapse (about 10 seconds), the relatively short-lived fires (56 minutes in World Trade Center 2 or 102 minutes in World Trade Center 1), reports of the sounds of explosions shortly before the collapse, and the violent ejections that could be seen at some windows many floors below the collapse.

Five new skyscrapers are being built on the World Trade Center site

Official reports say: An extensive inquiry by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that the planes severed and damaged support columns and dislodged fire-proofing.

Around 10,000 gallons of jet fuel were spewed over many floors starting widespread fires. Temperatures of up to 1,000C caused the floors to sag and the perimeter columns to bend, causing the sounds of “explosions”.

The massive weight of the floors dropped, creating a dynamic load far in excess of what the columns were designed for. Debris was forced out of the windows as the floors above collapsed.

Controlled demolition is always carried out from the bottom floors up, yet this collapse started at the top.

No evidence has ever been found of explosive charges despite the extensive hand searches and there is no evidence of any pre-cutting of columns or walls, which is routinely carried out in a controlled demolition.

3. Attack on the Pentagon

The question: How could an amateur pilot fly a commercial plane in a complicated manoeuvre and crash it into the headquarters of the world’s most powerful military, 78 minutes after the first report of a possible hijack and leave no trace?

A memorial in the grounds of the Pentagon marks the deaths of those who died when Flight 77 crashed

Conspiracy theorists say: A commercial Boeing 757 did not hit the building but instead a missile, a small aircraft or an unmanned drone was used. But since evidence has increasingly shown that the American Airlines Flight 77 did hit the building, the emphasis has shifted to questioning the difficult approach manoeuvre. It is argued it was not under the control of al-Qaeda but the Pentagon itself.

Official reports say: Airplane wreckage, including the black boxes, were recovered from the scene and they were catalogued by the FBI.

Although some early video did not show much wreckage, there is a good deal of video and still photography which shows plane wreckage and evidence of the flight path, such as broken lamp posts.

The remains of crew and passengers on the plane were found and positively identified by DNA. Witnesses also saw the plane strike the Pentagon.

4. The fourth plane – United Airlines flight 93

The question: Why was the crash site at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, so small and why was the aircraft debris not visible?

Conspiracy theorists argue: United Airlines flight 93 was shot down by a missile and disintegrated in mid air, scattering the wreckage over a large area.

Forty-four people died when Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania

Official reports say: There are clear photographs showing aircraft wreckage and the cockpit voice recorder, which showed there had been a passenger revolt and the hijackers had deliberately crashed the plane.

Initial theories that heavy debris was scattered many miles from the main crash site turned out to be false. In fact the wind had blown light debris such as paper and insulation just over a mile.

Another theory was based on a misquote from the local coroner, Wally Miller, who said he stopped being a coroner after about 20 minutes because there were no bodies. What he also said was that he quickly realised it was a plane crash and there would have to be a large funeral service for the many victims.

In addition, the military never gave orders to the air force to shoot the commercial airliner down.

5. Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7

The question: How could a skyscraper, which was not hit by a plane, collapse so quickly and symmetrically, when no other steel-framed skyscraper has collapsed because of fire?

Offices for civil emergencies, the CIA and the Secret Service were based in World Trade Center Building 7

Conspiracy theorists say: The World Trade Center Building 7 was destroyed by a controlled demolition using both explosives and incendiaries.

Initially the focus was on the phrase “pull it” used by the owner, Larry Silverstein, in a TV interview. But in fact he was talking about pulling firefighters back. (Demolition experts do not use the term “pull it” as slang for setting off explosives.)

Now the focus has shifted to the speed of the collapse which reached near free fall for 2.25 seconds. It is argued only explosives could make it collapse so quickly and symmetrically.

Some scientists, who are sceptical of the official account, have examined four dust samples from Ground Zero and claim to have found thermitic material which reacts violently when heated up. They claim tonnes of thermite and conventional explosives were rigged inside, not just WTC7, but also the Twin Towers.

Official reports say: A three-year investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that the building collapsed because of uncontrolled fires, started by the collapse of the nearby North Tower, and which burnt for seven hours.

The mains water feeding the emergency sprinkler system was severed. No evidence has ever been found of explosive charges and there are no recordings of a series of very loud explosions that would have been expected with controlled demolition.

Furthermore, there is an alternative explanation for the “thermitic material” the sceptical scientists found in the dust – it is just a type of primer paint. It’s calculated 1,200,000 tonnes of building materials were pulverised at the World Trade Center and most minerals are present in the dust (not necessarily in a large quantity). More extensive sampling of the dust has not found any evidence of thermite or explosives, says a report from the US Geological Survey and another from RJ Lee.

The Kabul Intercontinental Attack: The Taliban’s Clear Message

Ali Omar and his son Ali Omar had returned to Kabul for a visit. The father had moved to the U.S. years ago and the son was born there. On Tuesday, they were having dinner by the pool of the Intercontinental Hotel in the Afghan capital where they were staying during their trip. It was a festive evening with several parties of well-to-do Afghans celebrating birthdays and other occasions. Then came the sound of gunfire. “The police told us it was some kids messing around and not to worry about it,” says Ali Omar the younger, the owner of an Afghan restaurant in Fremont, California. “Then the gunshots kept getting closer and closer.” His father adds, “At first, it was one or two shots from far away. After 15-16 minutes it was wild. War. Everyone was escaping.”

Smoke and flames rise from the Intercontinental hotel during a battle between NATO-led forces and suicide bombers and Taliban insurgents in Kabul June 29, 2011.

Nine Taliban fighters had entered the heavily fortified Intercontinental Hotel in a brazen attack on foreigners and Afghan provincial officials who were in town to prepare for the wind-down of coalition forces set to begin in July. Once the intruders got past three heavily defended security checkpoints up a winding road and into the hotel – still decorated in a decaying, late 1970s style of plate glass windows, marble and heavy velvet curtains – there was chaos. Ali Omar the restaurant owner began videotaping what he saw. “I recorded it up to the point where a guy came in and started shooting into the crowd, then it was a free-for-all,” he says. The video shows police standing on the pool deck with AK-47 rifles. People walk by the camera and Omar points out a policeman who he said was shot and killed minutes later. The tape cuts off as a loud explosion is heard.

Eyewitnesses say about 60-to-70 people, including women and children, were on the pool deck having dinner when men in white headscarves, carrying AK-47s and grenades and apparently suicide vests ran in shouting in Pashto and started shooting. The people on the pool deck all ran and jumped off the back wall, onto a steep, wooded hillside that leads down to a main road. The crowd had to knock down a section of a wall topped with barbwire to make it to safety on the street, according to the younger Omar, who recounted the episode, still in a blood spattered shalwar kimeez. Diners and hotel guests tell TIME the attack began around 10 p.m. Most of the fighting did not end until around 4 a.m., after NATO helicopter gunships killed three insurgents on the roof of the hotel. But the siege only came to a close early in the morning when the last bomber, who had been hiding out in the hotel, blew himself up.

The assault left between 18 and 21 dead and 13 wounded, Ministry of Interior spokesman Sadiq Sadiqi told TIME. Local news said nine civilians, two policemen, one Spanish national and nine suicide bombers were killed and that 13 civilians, five government officials and two NATO soldiers were wounded.

The Taliban had its official version. The group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tells TIME that “eight suicide attackers entered from the west gate of the Intercontinental Hotel. One of them blew himself up at the gate. He killed some guards and police and destroyed the gate.” Mujahid tells TIME that “only 13 foreigners were killed” without mentioning any Afghan fatalities. “The suicide attackers were contacting me while they were attacking and told me how many foreigners they were killing.” He continues, “then they heard the helicopters coming. They went to the windows to shoot at them and they were killed by the helicopters. It was around 4 AM when we lost connection with them. Every five minutes they were calling us to tell us about the casualties.”

The attack came a day after the end of a high-level meeting in Kabul that was preparing for the Bonn 2 Conference, a 50-nation meeting that will be held to discuss the upcoming security transition in July and the withdrawal of foreign military forces in 2014. Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, told TIME that the target of the attack was guests staying at the hotel: governors and mayors from the three provinces and four cities – Kabul, Bamyan and Panjsher provinces and the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Lashkar Gah and Mehtarlam – that will be the first to see the security transitions from coalition to Afghan forces in July.

As the transition draws near, the attack on the hotel has only reinforced the belief of Afghans and foreigners that Afghan forces are not ready to take over security responsibilities. “We heard shooting and we saw the police dropping their weapons and running from the area,” says Noor Mohammad, a member of the National Directorate of Security who was still in uniform and had been at the hotel for his boss’ birthday party. “I can’t trust them. How can I trust them? They dropped their weapons because they heard some shooting. How can they ensure security for us? How can they fight against the Taliban? No way, I don’t trust them at all,” he says quietly as he cradled a hand that had been cut by barbwire as he helped his boss’ children escape down the hillside.

“In any way possible, the program will be successfully implemented. Our enemies know that they don’t have the capability to hurt our national intention,” said Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, the Chief of the Security Transition Program. “Our country is ready to take any sacrifice necessary on this path,” Ahmadzai said today at the government’s first security handover conference, Tolo TV reported. But in light of today’s attack many Afghans will continue to disagree.

Sahel Wafa, an Afghan who now works for a pharmaceutical company in London after having fled the fighting in the 1980s, watched the attack unfold from the roof of his parents’ house. He saw the entire assault and the police reaction from his vantage point across the street from the entrance to the hotel. “I don’t think they’re ready to take over security. I suppose that as soon as the Americans troops leave, you will see a lot of chaos. Not only from the Taliban, but within the Afghan people, the society. I don’t think the security forces are ready to take over at all.”

Al-Qaida says al-Zawahri has succeeded bin Laden

By HAMZA HENDAWI

CAIRO — Al-Qaida has selected its longtime No. 2 to succeed Osama bin Laden following last month’s U.S. commando raid that killed the terror leader, according to a statement posted Thursday on a website affiliated with the network.

Ayman al-Zawahri, who will turn 60 next week, is believed to be operating from somewhere near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

He is the son of an upper middle class Egyptian family of doctors and scholars. His father was a pharmacology professor at Cairo University’s medical school and his grandfather was the grand imam of Al-Azhar University, a premier center of religious study.

In a videotaped eulogy released earlier this month, al-Zawahri warned that America faces not individual terrorists or groups but an international community of Muslims that seek to destroy it and its allies.

“Today, praise God, America is not facing an individual, a group or a faction,” he said, wearing a white robe and turban with an assault rifle leaned on a wall behind him. “It is facing a nation than is in revolt, having risen from its lethargy to a renaissance of jihad.”

Al-Zawahri also heaped praise on bin Laden, who was killed in a May 2 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad, and criticized the U.S. for burying him at sea.

“He went to his God as a martyr, the man who terrified America while alive and terrifies it in death, so much so that they trembled at the idea of his having tomb,” he said.

Al-Qaida gave no details about the selection process for bin Laden’s successor but said that it was the best tribute to the memory of its “martyrs.”

The statement announcing al-Zawahri’s succession was filled with the terror network’s usual rhetoric, vowing to continue the fight against what it called “conquering infidels, led by America and its stooge Israel, who attack the homes of Islam.”

The group also said it will never accept Israel’s legitimacy and will continue to support Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and North Africa.

The al-Qaida statement also stated the group’s support for this year’s popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria and Libya.

“We encourage the people of Islam to rise up and continue the struggle, persistence and devotion until all the corrupt and oppressive regimes imposed by the West are gone,” it said.

Attack on Abbottabad House (New Revelations)

General Mirza Aslam Beg
Former Chief of Army Staff

From the cool comfort of the White House Obama watched the drama of raid on the house in Abbottabad. This was a CIA operation, meant to fool the world and embarrass Pakistan but the fact of the matter is that the whole exercise was a fake and a lie, same as the 9/11 episode was to find an excuse to launch the Crusade against the Muslim World. On the day of attack, that is 2nd May, I made the comment to the Pakistani media, that “It was a drama and a lie, to embarrass Pakistan. There was no Osama there, attack helicopters came from Tarbela base, carrying an Osama look-alike and killed him in cold blood, in front of his family members who were living in the house.” And that is coming true.

And now, as more information is coming through, it is getting clearer that Osama was killed in 2009 and his bullet ridden photo was published and the same picture was shown on 2nd May 2011, but was immediately withdrawn, when the mistake was realized. The Iranian President, in his recent statement, has said “Osama was captured a few years back and now they have played the drama of killing him in Pakistan for political gains.”

Some of our eminent journalists, who visited the sites and interviewed eye-witnesses, have something very interesting to reveal: “The people from village Kund Hassan Zai of Kala Dhaka, claim that the two helicopters came from the direction of Tarbela, midnight ½ May, flying low, along the river and landed in the fields of Manab Khan, stayed there for about thirty minutes and flew away in the direction of Mansehra. In the morning we saw wheel marks of the helicopters and some trash also.” The locals of Abbottabad living in the proximity of the house said that “The two helicopters came over the house and as they hovered, we saw fire in the compound of the house, which soon got extinguished. If a helicopter had crashed and caught fire, the fire could not have been extinguished in such a short time. Later on, when we visited the site we saw burnt-up plastic pieces with letter ‘NSA’ written on one of the piece. There was no trace of a burnt-out helicopter.”

The local school teacher Muhammad Asif revealed: “There is no question of Osama living here for the last five years. This house is located a little away from the main road, on a lower ground. It has no telephone connection and no other communication facility. Other houses also have high boundary walls and we just cannot believe that such a high value target was living there, with no security cover at all.” A neighbour, said: “On several occasions I met Khan Sahib, his brother and children, living in this house but never saw any elderly person. They spoke Pashto, but spoke to us in Urdu. It appears the Americans brought here some one other than Osama and killed him, for a specific purpose.”

A neighbour, Latif Akbar says “on night 01/2 May, due to load shedding, there was no light when the two helicopters came over the house from the PMA side, past mid night. One helicopter threw a flare, which lit-up the area of Thanda Choa – Bilal Town. As the two helicopters hovered over the house, we came-out of our houses and saw about 20-25 soldiers jump-out, close to the outer wall of the house, while soldiers from the second helicopter, came sliding down the ropes inside the house compound. In the meantime, some 20-25 of us neighbours had collected in the lane leading to the house. Suddenly the lights were switched on and one of the soldiers shouted in Pashto: “Lights-off Laka” and soon the lights were switched-off. In the meantime, we heard three explosions and a portion of the boundary wall fell-down. Some of the people who had collected there, rushed inside through the gap, thinking it was Pak Army helicopter, which needed rescue but soon rushed back as they saw the foreigners. A few of these were taken prisoner and whisked away. We heard shots being fired from inside. The operation continued till about one thirty at night. Pak troops came later, when the two helicopters had flown away in the direction of Mansehra. Its surprising that for the next two days, the residents of the area and the media, had free access into the house.”

It is rather unfortunate that the government of Pakistan and the institutions fell victim to this ploy and accepted security lapses without finding answer, to these basic questions:

· This house was raided in 2009, to capture Abul Faraj and why couldn’t they find Osama then, if he and his family were living there since 2006?

· Reportedly, two of our fighter aircrafts scrambled, within thirty minutes of the raid, but failed to intercept. Why?

· Our civilian intelligence apparatus, such as the IB, CID and the SAC (Special Anti Crime) units have the prime responsibility for the security of the urban and rural population. What was their role and why the entire blame has fallen on the ISI?

· The USA had been our ally for the last half a century and we also earned the title of “most allied ally, and the non-NATO ally of USA” and yet we have been stabbed in the back and are being blamed for failing to protect ourselves, from this “friendly deceit.”

Senator John Karry is in town and the joint declaration says: “Jointly we shall undertake such actions in the future”, which means that the drone attacks will continue and now we will be asked to capture Aiman-al-Zawahari and after him, the next and the next and the blood of innocent Pakistanis will continue to be spilled. Why can’t we have the courage to tell the Americans to lay-off because Osama, the source of all terrorism is dead? In fact terrorism started with the occupation of Afghanistan and will end when occupation ends, and that should have been the crux of the declaration, i.e., “the end game and the time frame of exit.”

After America kills Osama, Taliban strike Pakistan in revenge

Bloody revenge

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for a pair of suicide bombings on a Frontier Constabulary training center in Charsadda that left at least 80 dead in what the militant group said was in revenge for the “Abbottabad incident,” referring to the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (Reuters, AFP, AP, Dawn, NYT, Guardian, WSJ, Post). Pakistani police officials, however, were skeptical that the attack, the deadliest in Pakistan since November, was the work of the TTP, and suggested it may have been orchestrated by Omar Khalid’s group, which is currently fighting the Pakistani Army in Mohmand. At least 140 were wounded (BBC, CNN). Yesterday in Karachi, Pakistani police said they arrested four TTP militants who were also affiliated with a Punjabi Taliban group (DT, AFP). And a suspected U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan has just killed at least three (AP, AFP).

Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is briefing the Pakistani parliament later today on bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad and the May 2 U.S. raid that killed him, and some who have met with Kayani recently say he is unlikely to respond to U.S. demands to go after other militant leaders in Pakistan (Dawn, NYT, Reuters). Pakistan said it is launching an inter-agency review to “clearly define the parameters of our cooperation with the U.S. in counterterrorism,” as Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani suggested, for the first time in public, that he is open to the possibility of U.S. drone strikes in the tribal areas, given more Pakistani control of the program (AFP, AFP, Time). Declan Walsh has today’s must-read, asking, “Whose side is Pakistan’s ISI [intelligence service] really on?” (Guardian).

Details continue to trickle out about the Abbottabad raid and bin Laden’s life in the compound: U.S. officials say there is no indication bin Laden had a ready escape plan, suggesting he may have become “complacent” (CNN); each of the 25 Navy SEALs who carried out the raid recorded it with a tiny helmet cam (CBS); Frontier Corps officials tell Geo that two U.S. helicopters landed in Swat before heading to Abbottabad, which the government of Khyber-Puktunkhwa said it knew nothing about (Geo); and intelligence analysts continue to dig through the more than 200 million pages recovered from the compound (Tel, Times, Independent). U.S. intelligence has reportedly been able to interview the three bin Laden widows, who were said to be “hostile,” and one of whom may be the daughter of an Afghan Taliban commander (CNN, AP). There have been conflicting reports about the nationalities and identities of the women living in bin Laden’s compound.

The AP recounts bin Laden’s trail from September 11, 2001 to early 2003, revising several Western conventional wisdoms about bin Laden’s movements, and Reuters investigates U.S. attempts to hunt the al-Qaeda leader over the years (AP, Reuters). And the NYT assesses that jihadi reactions to bin Laden’s death indicate a void in the group’s leadership (NYT).

Deepening partnerships

As expected, yesterday Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh pledged an additional $500 million in aid to Afghanistan, bringing India’s total investment in the country to some $2 billion, in a move that “is likely to fuel Pakistani suspicions of Indian meddling in what Islamabad sees as its own backyard” (NYT, Tolo, WSJ, AJE). Singh also said India is “not like the U.S.” when asked by a reporter if India would launch a raid similar to the U.S.’s in Abbottabad (ET).

Five people were reportedly killed in a cross-border clash between Pakistani tribesmen and Afghan security forces yesterday (Dawn). NATO has apologized for the death of a 12 year old Afghan girl, who was killed along with her uncle in a night raid outside of the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad (NYT). A man wearing an Afghan police uniform has killed an American soldier in Helmand (Pajhwok).

Virtual battleground

Video game developers have already released several games in which users can reenact bin Laden’s last stand, and in one version, players can choose whether to defend bin Laden or play as the Navy SEALs who carried out the raid (AFP, Kokatu, Toronto Star, NYDN, Wired). One of the games has already been downloaded at least 9,000 times (BBC).

‘Huffing and Puffing’ from Washington

The current statements emanating from Washington remind us of a little story that we learned in the 3rd grade-”Well, he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, and he puffed and huffed; but he could not get the house down. When he found that he could not, with all his huffing and puffing, blow the house down…

“Pakistan was once called the most allied ally of the United States. We are now the most non-allied.”Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (As quoted in The New York Times(6 July 1973).

The current threats are all about the US defeat in Afghanistan and a face saving exit out of Kabul-and very little to do with Pakistan. The same sort of threats were doled out to Cambodia and Laos when the American General faced imminent eviction from Saigon.

The first time the US threatened Pakistan was in the Sixties when Ayub Khan shut down the US Badabare Air Force base near Peashawar (http://rupeenews.com/?p=578). Johns also threatened Ayub Khan and asked him to throw Bhutto out of his cabinet. More threats came from Nixon, Carter and then Bush’s famous “We will bomb you to the stone age”.

President Musharraf “agreed” to the seven demands but was always criticized for not living up to the promises. Since then there have been accusations and counter-accusations between Islamabad and Washington.

Mountbatten, Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi, Indira, Kruschev, Johnson, Carter, Kissinger (Nixon), Gorbachev, Clinton, Armitage, Vajpayee, Singh, Petraeus, Obama have all threatened Pakistan: The Pakistanis are used to it…so what else is new?

Khrushchev had red-lined Peshawar and threatened to obliterate Peshawar and Pakistan. The old story goes that on 17th December 1971 during the bleakest period of Islamabad’s history, the Kremlin sent a viscous telegram informing the Pakistanis that those who mess with the Soviets face a horrid end. The story also gos that on 17th December 1991, the day the USSR collapsed, the Pakistanis sent a mirror image of the old telegram back to Moscow, informing them that those who mess with Pakistan face an ignominious end-the Soviet Empire disintegrated after the USSR was defeated in Afghanistan.

A month ago a US drone strike killed 40 innocent tribal leaders who were discussing a domestic issues. That attack came one day after “Raymond Davis” was released. The dip in relations is palpable. Some think that “U.S.- Pakistan ties are entering an even more dangerous phase”. The rhetoric on both sides has increased and much of the “smoke and mirrors and some of it could be bluff and bluster” has been in public.

Foreign Policy magazine makes the explosive revelation that “Pakistani leaders want the United States to ‘bleed a little like the Soviets’ in Afghanistan”. According to “FP”, if the US continues the indiscriminate drone strikes unofficial Pakistanis are planning to disrupt NATO supply lines to Afghanistan.

As America prepares to withdraw from the country, the Pakistanis know that Washington will abandon the region once again. It therefore prepares for the future, a tighter relationship with China, closer ties with the Central Asian states, and deeper economic links with Turkey and Iran.

“The capacity of Pakistan to sustain some fifteen major disarticulations in polity, power, and structure and still preserve a national identity is a phenomenon one is tempted to explain by recourse to the supernatural Pakistan which has been pummelled by external events (three wars with India, (Bharati supported) secession of Bangladesh, 3.5 million Afghan refugees) and disrupted by (foreign instigated) fissures…to a degree which no other state established since 1945 has suffered. In this respect it stands as an exemplar of a nation whose adversities “common sense” might suggest make its viability impossible. Yet its continued existence defies the reality induced by such speculation. The enormity and persistence of these difficulties and the resilience of the nation in absorbing and somehow surviving them must be regarded with awe if not admiration.” Ralph Brainbanti. Add to this 30 years of US imposed war in Afghanistan, one of the biggest earthquakes in South Asia history, the 2009 floods, one of the worst natural calamity in human history, and bordered by a hegemony seeking country called India. All this makes Pakistani resilience the strongest on the planet-which Newsweek magazine called “The bravest Nation on Earth”.

The Wall Street Journal editorial wants Washington to give Pakistan another “Ultimatum” similar to the one Richard Armitage doled out in the aftermath of Sept. 11 attacks. The newspaper known for its right wing hawkish views as enunciated by the Rupert Murdock network has rankled feather in Islamabad. Its editorial titled “The Pakistan Ultimatum” is seen as the epitome of the “Yankee hubris” as represented in “The Ugly American”.

A dose of humility is in order-”I remember the atmosphere. It was: Well, here we are on top of the world, and we have arrived at this peak to stay there forever. There is, of course, a thing called history, but history is something unpleasant that happens to other people. We are comfortably outside all of that I am sure.” Arnold Toynbee, recounting his feelings at the age of eight when he was watching a parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s ascension to the British throne.

In typical imperialist fashion the WSJ “Pakistan Ultimatum” goes something like this “Pakistan can choose to cooperate in that fight and reap the benefits of an American alliance. Or it can oppose the U.S. and reap the consequences, including the loss of military aid, special-ops and drone incursions into their frontier areas, and in particular a more robust U.S. military alliance with India.” It continues like this “In the wake of 9/11, the Bush Administration famously sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to Islamabad to explain that the U.S. was going to act forcefully to protect itself, and that Pakistan had to choose whose side it was on. It’s time to present Pakistan with the same choice again. With that kind of mood in Washington, it’s hard to see the allies burying the feud anytime soon.”

President Obama’s rhetoric in Delhi had no substance except to rile the Pakistanis. The Delhi card didn’t quite work. The Chinese Premier visited Islamabad and pledged $20 billion in investment in Pakistan during the next five years. How about them apples? The Pakistani retort is what it has always been we need “Friends Not Masters”.

Britain as a colonial power practiced “Divide and rule” pitting religious and ethnic differences in the Middle East to rule continents. Bhutto famously theorized that the post-colonial powers were working on a “unite and rule” strategy forcing Pakistan to work with India against China.

“The idea of becoming subservient to India is abhorrent and that of cooperation with India, with the object of promoting tension with China, equally repugnant.” Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Speaking to the West in Christian terms. Grandfather Bhutto does this eloquently.

“For Christians, the teaching and directives of Christ are more Sacred than those of a Messenger of God. According to the Christians, those teaching and directives are of God Himself. Most of the problems of the Third World would be solved if the Christian West implemented in letter and spirit only one directive of Jesus Christ.

The directive to “Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and to God that which belongs to God”.

The Third World only want what belongs to it and nothing more. For over two hundred years, the Christian civilization of the West has been mercilessly violating this directive of Jesus Christ. The West has been taking everything belonging to Ceasar and everything belonging to God. The West is not dividing the share equitably. It is not rendering to us what belongs to us. This division relates to the economic, social, racial and political rights of the Third World.” Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto A letter from the Death Cell (2007) p. 72

Washington is free to play the Delhi card whenever it desires-however it should be able to face the Tehran, Moscow an Beijing card which Pakistan holds near to its chest. Perhaps Bernard Lewis was right-maybe the Muslim alliance with the Confucian power is the future of the world. Rupert Murdock and the Neocons are more than most welcome to test it.

After all the huffing and puffing, the big bad wolf continue to threaten-and this is how the story ends.. “Then the wolf was very angry indeed, and declared he would eat up the little one, and that he would get down the chimney after him. When the little one saw what he was about, he hung on the pot full of water, and made up a blazing fire, and, just as the wolf was coming down, took off the cover, and in fell the wolf; so the little pig put on the cover again in an instant, boiled him up, and ate him for supper, and lived happy ever afterwards.”

Most Pakistanis don’t want closer relations with Washington-they want to build closer relations with Beijing, and work on creating the Muslim Union (similar to the European Union) in Central Asia. Links with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey are key to the future of Pakistan.

Islamabad is moving ever closer to China, both militarily and economically- and that’s a fact Jack.

Books by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto:

Peace-Keeping by the United Nations. Pakistan Publishing House, Karachi. – 1967
Political Situation in Pakistan, Veshasher Prakashan, New Dehli. – 1968
The Myth of Independence, Oxford University Press, Karachi and Lahore. – 1969
The Great Tragedy, Pakistan People’s Party, Karachi. – 1971
Politics of the People (speeches, statements and articles),edited by Hamid Jalal and Khalid Hasan: Pakistan Publications, Rawalpindi. – 1948-1971
Speeches and Statements, Government of Pakistan, Karachi. – 1971-75
Bilateralism: New Directions. Government of Pakistan, Islamabad – 1976
The Third World: New Directions. Quartet Books, London. – 1977
My Pakistan.Biswin Sadi Publications, New Dehli. – 1979
If I am Assassinated,Vikas, New Dehli. – 1979
My Execution.Musawaat Weekly International, London – 1980
New Directions.Narmara Publishers, London. – 1980