US policies encourage ethnic rivalry

WASHINGTON: The US policies and the army action in Swat could lead Pakistan to an ethnic crisis which would be difficult to control, argues Selig S. Harrison, the author of a report, ‘Pakistan: The State of the Union.’

The report, based on a six-month study of ethnic tensions in Pakistan, makes six recommendations to the US administration: 1. Support Civilian Governance, 2. Promote Demilitarisation, 3. Encourage Respect for the Constitution, 4. “Pashtunise” the War against al Qaeda, 5. Earmark US Aid for Sind and Baluchistan.

The author former Washington Post bureau chief in South Asia who also has written five books on the region, notes that to American eyes the struggle raging in Pakistan with the Taliban is about religious fanaticism.

‘But in Pakistan it is about an explosive fusion of Islamist zeal and simmering ethnic tensions that have been exacerbated by US pressures for military action against the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies.’

Mr Harrison argues that understanding the ethnic dimension of the conflict is the key to a successful strategy for separating the Taliban from al Qaeda and stabilising multiethnic Pakistan politically.

Pushing for a major military operation into the Pashtun territory, Mr Harrison says, moves Pakistan ever closer to an ethnically defined civil war, strengthening Pashtun sentiment for an independent ‘Pashtunistan’ that would embrace 41 million people in big chunks of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

‘This is one of the main reasons the army initially favored a peace deal with a Taliban offshoot in the Swat Valley and has resisted US pressure to go all out against jihadist advances into neighboring districts.’

While the Pakistan army leaders, says the author, fear the long-term dangers of a Taliban link-up with Islamist forces in the heartland of Pakistan, ‘they are more worried about what they see as the looming danger of Pashtun separatism.’

The author argues that fears of Pashtunistan led Pakistan to support jihadist surrogates in the Afghan resistance during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and, later, to build up the Taliban.

‘Ironically, during its rule in Kabul the Taliban refused to endorse the Durand Line despite pressure from Islamabad. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also resisted, calling it ‘a line of hatred that raised a wall between the two brothers.’

How should the Obama administration proceed?
The author urges the United States to lower its military profile by ending airstrikes. He points out that by arousing a Pashtun sense of victimisation at the hands of outside forces, the conduct of the ‘war on terror’ in Fata has strengthened the jihadist groups the US seeks to defeat.

Politically, US policy should be revised to demonstrate that ‘America supports the Pashtun desire for a stronger position in relation to the government in Islamabad.’

The United States should support Pashtun demands to merge the NWFP and Fata, followed by the consolidation of those areas and Pashtun enclaves in Baluchistan and the Punjab into a single unified ‘Pashtunkhwa’ province that enjoys the autonomy envisaged in the inoperative 1973 Pakistan constitution.

In the meantime, instead of permitting Islamabad to administer the huge sums of US aid going into Fata, the Obama administration should condition the aid’s continuance on most of it being dispensed in conjunction with the NWFP provincial government.

The United States should welcome any new peace initiatives by the secular Pashtun leaders of the Awami National Party designed to separate Taliban and Taliban-allied Islamist factions from al Qaeda. As in Swat, military force should be a last resort.

The author notes that on March 1, 2007, former Pakistani ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani, said at a seminar at the Pakistan Embassy, ‘I hope the Taliban and Pashtun nationalism don’t merge. If that happens, we’ve had it, and we’re on the verge of that.’

by Anwar Iqbal Dawn.com

Worldview: KARACHI’S POWDER KEG

By Trudy Rubin

Inquirer Opinion Columnist

KARACHI, Pakistan – The mayor of this country’s largest city was driving me through its slums, and he was furious. He was looking at yet another illegally built religious school, or madrassa, run by hard-line clerics who are brainwashing boys and young men.

“There are more than 3,000 madrassas here in Karachi, all students from the northern areas [near the Afghan border],” Syed Mustafa Kamal complained bitterly. “Twenty percent of their students are potential jihadis.”

Welcome to Karachi, population 18 million, a city of fascinating and dangerous contradictions. Most U.S. supplies for the war in Afghanistan pass through its Arabian seaports, and so, reportedly, does the huge volume of Afghan heroin exported by networks of Taliban and criminals.

Karachi is the cultural and financial center of Pakistan and is tightly linked to Arab Gulf states. It is also a port gateway to Central Asia. And, says Kamal, it is the place where the Taliban may strike next.

The world is focused on the Taliban’s advance in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas, but their stealthy encroachment in Karachi gets little attention. Yet if they shut this city down, the jihadis could bring a nuclear-armed Pakistan to its knees.

The energetic Kamal, 37, who was minister for information technology in Sind province before becoming mayor, has been trying to bring more services to his city. Named one of three global “mayors of the moment” by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2008 for innovative urban planning, he shows me the city’s first computerized complaint center, where every caller gets an answer.

But, as we drive along flanked by two police vans with gunners peering through the roofs, the problems he faces seem overwhelming. Kamal points out illegal slums being built all over the city by new migrants, mostly Pashtuns from the tribal regions along the Afghan border. In these slums, he says, terrorists lie in wait.

There is a pattern: First, government-owned land is seized illegally, often carved out of hillsides overlooking the city. Then a mosque and religious school go up with money coming from the Arab Gulf. Then small houses pop up around the mosque complex and the area becomes a no-go zone for law enforcement.

Red flags ring the hilltops above these shantytowns. Red flags fly from shacks and run along the roofs of rundown apartment blocks; red flags are waved by a truckload of teenagers zooming by us. The flags stand for the Awami National Party (ANP), a Pashtun secular group from tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Kamal says the ANP label is being used as a cover by religious militants, who are biding their time before they strike.

At the right moment, he believes, on orders from radical clerics, they will come down from the hills and out of their schools and throw the city into turmoil. Maybe they couldn’t take full control of Karachi. But, Kamal says, “they can bring the city to a halt.”

Some Pakistani analysts claim Kamal’s fears are overheated. He belongs to the controversial MQM political party, which was founded to represent Muslim refugees (known as muhajirs) who left India for Pakistan after the 1947 partition. The party has been accused of violent tactics and resentment toward Pashtuns who might threaten its longtime electoral hold on Karachi, the base of the party.

But there is plenty of evidence to back Kamal’s claims that militants have penetrated Karachi’s slums, including bomb attacks, assassinations, and a spate of recent arrests of terrorist suspects. Indeed, on Thursday, shortly after my visit, militants firing from those very hills killed two MQM party workers, deliberately sparking violence that claimed dozens of lives.

Many of Karachi’s madrassas are linked to hard-line Sunni religious parties; their curriculum extols jihad and breeds hatred for Shiites. Efforts by former President Pervez Musharraf to reform madrassa curriculum failed abysmally.

Some big madrassas have links with jihadi organizations. Several are painted pink, in solidarity with the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad that was stormed by police in 2007. Kamal drives me by the huge, white, multistory Jamia Ashrafiya, which hosts thousands of students; the body of slain journalist Daniel Pearl was dumped near here.

“There is no control over these madrassas, and they are in strategic areas,” Kamal says. “They are places where recruitment happens.”

Because city police are run by the provincial government, which is controlled by a different party, Kamal has no authority to push back against the illegal expansion of these religious schools. However, provincial and federal officials show no interest in reining in the madrassas. And so they continue to indoctrinate young minds.

MQM was the only Pakistani political party that took a strong stand against the “peace deal” with the Taliban in the valley of Swat that gave the militants a foothold in a strategic region. “We believe that this country ought to be a secular, moderate, progressive, civilized democracy,” says MQM parliamentary leader Farrooq Sattar, “and not an extremist or fanatic, terrorist state.”

Militants have issued death threats against MQM’s leaders in Karachi, but Kamal is just as worried about his city’s future. When urging Pakistani leaders to halt Taliban gains near the Afghan border, President Obama should stress the need to save Karachi, as well.

Are Pakistani Taliban finding new foothold in south?

Karachi, Pakistan – Rows of jingle trucks and shanties line either side of the Super Highway as it pushes north from sea-swept Karachi into Pakistan’s dusty interior. These are the homes and work vehicles of the city’s growing ethnic Pashtun population – and, according to Haider Abbas Rizvi, they form a Taliban haven.

“I cannot dare enter this place. Nobody can, not even the police and the Rangers,” says Mr. Rizvi, a member of Parliament with the secular MQM party. “This summer is going to be very hot – I don’t know if [the fight] is going to be happening in the North [of Pakistan] or down here.”

Though the Taliban operate mainly in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal agencies and are battling the military near there, MQM leaders in this southern city are sounding the alarm that Pakistan’s financial capital and main port will be the militants’ next battleground.

They point to internal police memos and journalist reports that the Taliban are finding new sanctuary for their leadership, raising funds through criminal activities, and – with the influx of Pashtun refugees from Pakistan’s war zones – deepening their pool of recruits by tapping into religious seminaries.

Some analysts caution that the MQM is overlaying anti-Taliban rhetoric on a long-running ethnic struggle within the city. Yet the ethnic divides here are cause for concern because they create rallying cries for organized violence, conditions the Taliban could exploit to disrupt this port on the Arabian Sea – and the nation’s trade.

“If the Taliban wanted to destabilize Karachi, ethnic riots would be one of the first things they would do,” says Ahmed Rashid, author of “Descent into Chaos.” “By taking charge of the political leadership of that political movement, they could start taking over large chunks of Karachi.”

Potential recruiting ground

For years, Karachi has been rocked by ethnic violence between Pashtuns and the dominant Mohajir community. Just last week, street fighting killed at least 30 people. Mr. Rashid echoes other analysts who see little new in this violence – but he would worry if the young men in religious seminaries, or madrasas, get involved.

“The madrasas are full of Taliban. The madrasas were not given a call to come out in the streets and take control of the streets, which they could do very easily,” he says.

Karachi has an estimated 3,500 madrasas containing tens of thousands of students.

Mitigating the fears of Talibanization, though, is that madrasa students here come from other ethnic backgrounds, and that many Pashtuns have no use for the Taliban, notes Rashid.

“The majority of Pashtuns are moderates,” he says. “They don’t support the extremist Taliban.”

Many of the 3.5 million Pashtuns in this city of 18 million have been in Karachi since the 1980s. They are primarily manual laborers and truckers running goods from the port to the rest of the country, including NATO supplies into Afghanistan.

Now, more Pashtuns are coming to Karachi due to the fighting in the Swat Valley and neighboring Bajaur. An additional half million civilians are expected to flee Swat following Tuesday’s government-ordered evacuation. On Wednesday helicopter gunships and mortars pounded Taliban positions, with the military saying it killed about 35 militants in Swat and 27 in neighboring Buner. Four soldiers also died in the fighting.

Incoming Pashtuns have not been integrated smoothly into this deeply segregated city. Instead, ethnic-based land mafias battle in the streets over new areas to settle. In this struggle, the Pashtuns view the MQM-led government as stacked against them.

‘Talibanization’ as pretext?

Known as the Muttahida Quami Movement, the MQM rose to dominance over the city and wider region by representing the interests of the majority Mohajir community. The Mohajirs are Urdu-speakers who fled India when the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947.

The MQM has been after our lands and jobs for years and now they’re trying to make everyone scared of us,” says Yahya Khan, a Pashtun truck driver who lives in Orangi – Karachi’s largest slum, where both Pashtuns and Mojahirs live.

Some analysts agree. “It’s the MQM and the government that are targeting Pashtuns in the name of the Taliban,” says Riaz Ahmed, a Mojahir and local leader of the International Socialists of Pakistan.

Karachi’s mayor, Mustafa Kamal, flatly denies that the MQM is using the warnings of Talibanization to pick an ethnic fight. He says that 90 percent of the $2.5 billion the city has spent on infrastructure in recent years has gone into Pashtun pockets.

But, he says, city leaders cannot just wait “for the disaster to take place,” and have urged police and residents to work together to root out Taliban.

“I am not saying that the Taliban is here – everyone is saying that the Taliban is here,” says the mayor.

He produces newspaper clippings over the past 14 months reporting the arrests of more than 75 Taliban, Al Qaeda, or other Islamist suspects.

He also points to a leaked memo sent by city police to their provincial superiors. The memo cites “reliable sources” that Taliban under the command of Naib Ameer Hassan Mehsood are taking shelter in a neighborhood called Sohrab Goth.

“After every 30 to 35 days, 20 [to] 25 Mehsood [Mehsud] terrorists come from Waziristan – for rest as well as for generating funds,” reads the document, labeled “top secret.” They raise money, the document charges, through kidnapping for ransom, bank robbery, and street robbery.”

The report also warns of danger to the mayor and other MQM leaders, and says that late at night, everyone except Mehsud militants are barred from entering the Super Market area.

Pashtuns come for ‘place to stay’

However, the police chief who oversees Sohrab Goth downplays the concerns.

“It is not true that militants have infiltrated this area,” says Irfan Bahadur. “People think that all the refugees who have come [from FATA] are Taliban. But most of them are villagers who had family in Karachi and came here because they knew they would find a place to stay and help finding a job.”

Despite the recent ethnic violence, he says, “no new elements are causing trouble [and] the situation has not drastically changed in recent weeks.”

Still, there’s a recognition on all sides that ethnic street violence should not be allowed to fester. To that end, Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani came to Karachi on Friday to meet with politicians and police.

MQM wins anti-Taliban plaudits

Right now, the moderate Awami National Party (ANP) largely represents the Pashtuns in Karachi, and when it comes to Talibanization, the ANP and MQM disagree.

“There are no Taliban in Karachi,” says Muhammad Amin Khattak, general secretary of the ANP in Sindh Province.

He says the MQM has latched on to the issue to raise their status from a regional party to one that can play on the national and international stage. Indeed, the MQM has already won recognition as the only party in Pakistan to vote against the government’s peace deal with the Taliban in Swat, which is now defunct as the Army moves back into the area.

Yet the ANP and MQM did agree with Mr. Gilani to form a joint investigative team to more effectively crack down on criminal gang activity before it can escalate.

“We see a pattern emerging here, with small incidents building up to major conflagrations,” says Javed Jabbar, a former federal minister and lecturer at University of Karachi. “Ethnic trouble in Karachi doesn’t happen out of the blue. It is always part of a sequence of events.”

By Ben Arnoldy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
and Huma Yusuf | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Karachi City Council members demonstrates against power outages

Karachi City Council Members Demonstrates against ower outages

MQM: Suicidal attack on Rescue 15 Building in Lahore is a big tragedy -Altaf Hussain

Leader of MQM Altaf Hussain has condemned the Lahore blast in the strongest possible words and by terming this deadly attack as a real tragedy, has expressed his heartfelt sympathies with the bereaved families and on the killing of dozens of innocent people side by side with several law-enforcing agencies’ officials in the line of their duties.

Mr. Hussain recalled that it is already on the record that Taliban had threatened that if ongoing Swat operation could not be stopped then its retaliation and repercussions will be carried out in the entire length and breadth of the country and it is before the public that since the day Swat operation is continued the savage Taliban have blasted two big explosions in Peshawar as a reaction to Swat operation in which dozens of citizens were murdered and properties worth billions of rupees were damaged and today in continuation to that series of terror in Lahore near CCPO Office in the building of Rescue 15 a suicidal bomb attack was carried out which resulted in the death of dozens of innocent people along with government officials who lost their lives in the line of duty.

Mr. Altaf Hussain pointed out that today’s brutal attack has clearly exposed that anti-state Taliban neither have any attachment to Islam nor to Pakistan but they are merely bent upon breaking the country by unleashing a war against very existence of Pakistan and those religious as well as political outfits who are holding demonstrations in favour of such anti state Taliban, in fact, treading on the dangerous path of anti-Pakistan activities

Mr. Altaf Hussain asserted that in order to save Pakistan from such anti-state Taliban and to get rid of those elements that are supporting them without realizing the gravity of the situation, it is of utmost importance that we must shun all of our differences now and must join hands together so that such brutal and anti-state as well as anti-religious elements could be countered effectively

Mr. Altaf Hussain expressed his heartfelt sympathies with the bereaved families and prayed Almighty GOD to provide fortitude and courage to the members of the bereaved families to bear irreparable losses already done to them.

He also demanded of the government to take stern actions and make sure the safety and security of the people of Pakistan from the tyranny of anti-state and utterly savage Taliban and their cronies.

Quran Khawani For The Martyr of Pakka Qilla Hyderabad

Quran Khawani For The Martyr of Pakka Qilla Hyderabad

President promises to release the funds of the city governments

via the News:

President Asif Ali Zardari assured Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) that the funds to the city governments of Karachi and Hyderabad will be restored.

President Zardari also assured the MQM members that the ban on appointments in departments of education and health would be lifted.

These are two good news. Funds will help the City Nazimd of Karachi and Hyderabad  finish their projects on time.

MQM-Zardari meeting starts

via The News:

A delegation of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) is currently meeting President Asif Ali Zardari at the Governor House, reports Geo News.

Deputy Convener Dr. Farooq Sattar is heading the eight-member delegation and table MQM’s demands in today’s meeting.

Babar Ghauri, Wasim Aftab, Dr Sagheer, Mustafa Kamal and Syed Sardar Ahmed are in the delegation.

The MQM sources said the future relations of the party with Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) depended on today’s meeting.

The sources said that six-point agenda is being discussed in the meeting including Talabanisation, the arrival of Malakand affectees and the stumbling blocks between the federal and the provincial governments.

It is pertinent to mention here that MQM demands to end the ban on appointments in departments of education and health.

During the meeting, MQM delegation will also demand the issuance of funds to the city governments of Karachi and Hyderabad.

MQM also demands to restrict the movement of Swat emigrants to camps

Taliban Suicide Bombers Arrested in Karachi.

MQM Rabita Committee demands the registration of SWAT IDPs