Ansar Abbasi Shares an Intelligence Report

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Numbing statistics

By Muhammad Ali Siddiqi
THE statistics are numbing and mind-boggling and should make any Pakistani sit up: in 2008 the country saw 2,148 terrorist attacks, which caused 6,825 casualties — 2,267 of them fatal.

Suicide attacks alone killed nearly 1,000 people — 967 to be precise — and wounded or maimed for life over 2,000. Of the 63 suicide attacks countrywide, the highest — 32 — occurred in the NWFP, killing and wounding over 1,000 Pakistanis; 10 in Punjab (201, dead, 580 injured), and 16 in Fata (263 dead, 497 injured).

Compiled by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, these statistics do not include those who fell in ‘operational attacks’. According to the think-tanks’ report for 2008, more than 5,500 people were killed or injured in operational attacks (a minimum of 3,182 dead and 2,267 wounded).

What is scary is the steady rise over the years in the number of terrorist attacks and the consequent increase in casualties. In 2006, terrorist attacks left 907 dead and 1,543 injured; in 2007 there was a quantum jump in the figure for the dead — 3,448.

If to those killed in acts of terrorism we add those who died in operational attacks, sectarian and factional clashes and US drone attacks, the total number of civilians and security personnel killed in 2008 comes to a morbid 8,000, with the number of the injured approaching 10,000. The grand total for 2008, thus, comes to 18,000 Pakistani people getting killed or injured in acts of political violence.

Is the world aware of this Pakistani trauma? Going by the doubts cast on our commitment to fight terrorism and the ‘do more’ litany one doubts if we have been able to inform the world what this country and its people have been going through for years. In fact, it appears as if, barring US Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Richard Lugar in America and Foreign Secretary David Miliband in Britain, very few top personalities in the policymaking apparatus in the western world seem to be aware of Pakistan’s plight and the scourge which terrorism has become for us Pakistanis in our daily lives.

Our post-Mumbai diplomatic effort has not been all disaster. It did indeed succeed in convincing the world diplomatic community that Islamabad was not involved in the Mumbai crime. However, Pakistan’s advocacy of its case was characterised by diffidence. It failed to show our justifiable anger over India’s attempt to obfuscate the issue, and often we appeared to be pleading rather than telling.

Has India suffered anything even remotely resembling Pakistan’s trauma as seen in the cold statistics above? The answer is no, but the world evidently doesn’t think so. What the world does is to view the situation in terms of the ‘safe haven’ which is supposed to exist in Fata and elsewhere for the Taliban. That deprives us of the sympathy we deserve.

Read full opinion at DAWN - Opinion; January 26, 2009

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War on Terror: Time to pull out?

DAVID Miliband’s assertion that the ‘war on terror’ was a mistake, together with Nato’s Secretary-General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer’s criticism of pro-American Afghan President Hamid Karzai clearly indicates a rift between Europe and America towards Afghanistan and Pakistan.

International relations and global realities have changed tremendously since 9/11. The war on Iraq has exposed the limits of American military might. Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghuraib exposed the moral bankruptcy of American regime which tremendously weakened American political power.

The resurgence of Taliban in Afghanistan is testing the commitment of International Security Assistance Forces. The conflict between Georgia and Russia and now between Europe and Russia over gas supplies has marked the return of a belligerent anti-western power to the international stage.

The Iraq war and the recent butchery of Gazan Muslims in Palestine have exposed the bias inherent in international institutions such as the United Nations towards the West and its interests. And, above all, the most severe economic crisis has hit the West and crippled its economy, shattering the core capitalist principles of free market economy.

All of these factors have weakened western powers and their ability to influence states like Pakistan. Now is the time for Pakistan to review its foreign policy and make radical changes in it. The challenge on the eastern front provides Pakistan a golden opportunity to make a case for pulling out from the self-destructive war on terror.

The Pakistani government has already indicated that it would pull out from the war on terror if India isn’t reined in by the international community. After the rift increasing between America and Europe over the war on terror, Pakistan should actually move beyond just sending signals.

MOEZ MOBEEN
Islamabad

DAWN - Letters; January 22, 2009

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Mumbai Attacks and Indian Stupidity

Fahad Fazl sent a message to the members of Pakistan Tehreek i insaf on Facebook.

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Subject: Mumbai terror Attacks

First of all i will strongly condemn these brutal attacks on mumbai.

Recently an indian Army officer is found guilty of planning terror attacks on a train in india, the train name is Samjhota express which operate between india and Pakistan. In this train attack mostly Pakistanies were killed on indian side of region. And some army officers who are having some connections with hindu extremist organizations are found guilty.

Currently there are seperatest movements going on throughout india. India has around 600 districts out of which more than 200 districts have their sepratist movements. Every year thousand of people die in india in result of clashes between these movements and indian government. None of these movement has any link to PAkistan.

The point which i am trying to make is that india has so much terrorist movements in their homeland and still they are blamming on Pakistan without having any evidence.

On the otherside if we will see Pakistan's, they never pointed fingur towards india even after having very solid evidence of indian involvement in Balochistan and NWFP. It also doesnot make sense that why india has opened more than 25 offices in afghanistan along the pakistani border, it clearly shows that india is sending insurgents from Afghanistan side into the Pakistan who are de-stabilizing the tribal region of Pakistan and also inside Pakistan. There is a large increase in suicide attacks inside PAkistan, which is all due to that insurgency from Afghanistan side. But even having so many casualties in these suicide attacks for example the suicide attack of Marriot hotel destroyed whole hotel and killed alot of innocent people, Pakistan never blamed india because Pakistan want good diplomatic relations with India. But on the other side india never wants some good relations and always tried to invoke Pakistan by putting more and more terrorist inside Pakistan. These terrosit make
an excuse for USA to do more drone attacks inside Pakistan and US also want Pakistan to do military operations in tribal regions to kill alot of innocent civilians and at the end Pakistan suffers from all sides.

I was listening to BBC most of the time and i saw one common thing in Indian and International media that they all are pointing their fingures towards Pakistan without having any evidence.
So it looks similar to 9/11 when american media started blaming Alqaida and Taliban immediately and then whole international media did the same and then they wage a war against Afghanistan.
I think this mumbai attacks are also similar kind of practice and they want to build a case against Pakistan to wage war might be from western borders in tribal region or might be from eastern borders.

At this very moment Pakistanies should get ready for any kind of Indian stupidity and this time India will not be alone, all the western (US and NATO) will be along with india. So what i see unfortunately it seems that Pakistan is once again going to have some hard time. But inshAllah we will manage to get out of it. Be United, be faithful to your country and be desciplined thats all we need.

For people from other countries i just want to show the real ground truth and real situation to all of you. I hope you will not close your eyes and will not believe only on the media which is always biased. I hope you will look into all details and then will decide who is right and who is wrong. Unfortunately all the international media is always following a guideline given to them and they never do critical analysis of the situation.

Thanks for spending time to read this article
GOD BLESS U
Long Live Pakistan

Shocking Mumbai terror attacks : Oberoi , Taj Mahal Hotel & Chabad (Nariman) House secured

The world witnessed one of a kind terrorist activity in Mumbai, india. Painfully shocking and equally baffling attacks led to over 160 deaths and hundreds injured. From RiseOfPakistan blog team, LUMS students & Alumni, and Pakistani' s in general we console the families of the dead and the citizens of Mumbai. The heinous terrorist attacks aimed at destroying the urban fibre of one of the bigget and busiest cities in the world, and certainly to terrify and intimidate soon to be most populace nation, are tragic, deplorable and condemnable.

No city can probably brace for such an organised and disruptive activity. Mumbaikers as well as us watching the tragedy unfold on TV, were no doubt shocked beyond imagination. It's a sigh of relief to know that, finally, the painful ordeal is over.

Brought up in Karachi during troubled 90's and being in Lahore/Islamabad during the current wave of terror attacks, one can relate to what the Mumbaikers went through. It was certainly harsh and terrifying. If compared, hat happenned in Mumbai, to what our cities had been through, this single incident probably surpasses any individual terrorist activity. I just hope that its the end of this kind of experience for the people on the other side of the border, and they dont go through the continous and serial attacks that we are going through these days.

Be ready for more: US media warns of more attacks

US media warns of more attacks

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Sept 4: The US administration is officially refusing to comment on a cross-border raid into Pakistan that killed at least 15 people, but unnamed US officials are confirming that American troops entered Pakistan to target extremists and may continue to do so.

“In regards to the reports about that incident, we have not commented, and I won’t today,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters on Thursday. “I’m just not going to comment on the incident in any way.”

At the State Department, Secretary Condoleezza Rice made almost identical comments, saying: “I don’t have anything for you on Pakistan except to say that, obviously, we are working very closely with the civilian government there, the newly democratically elected, civilian government.”

Asked why was she reluctant to comment on the reported US strike, Ms Perino replied: “All I can tell you is that I am going to decline to comment on reports about that incident.”

But the US media, from newspapers to television and radio stations, are all quoting senior US officials as saying that American commandos entered Pakistan on Wednesday to attack an Al Qaeda target near Angoor Adda.

They also warned that the United States might conduct similar raids in future as well if it had “actionable intelligence” about the presence of Al Qaeda or Taliban commanders in a certain area.

US media warns of more attacks -DAWN - Top Stories; September 05, 2008

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Pakistan: A 'sovereign' state

ISI’s functions to be discussed in US

WASHINGTON, July 27: The government’s attempt to change internal functions of the ISI comes amid intense pressure from Washington to rein in the so-called rogue elements in the agency.

Diplomatic sources told Dawn that this issue would figure prominently in the talks Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani would be holding in Washington during his visit that begins officially on Monday.

According to the sources, while the Americans trust the senior Pakistani leadership, they believe that there are people within the ISI who still back militants, almost seven years after Pakistan joined the US-led war on terror.

The Americans also blame the so-called rogue elements in the agency for facilitating cross-border movement of the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants into Afghanistan.

In an article on the prime minister’s visit on Sunday, Washington Post noted that the US administration’s patience with Pakistan’s inability to end cross-border infiltrations into Afghanistan was running out. The newspaper said that the prime minister and his aides “should expect a testy reception on both ends of the Pennsylvania Avenue,” meaning the White House and Congress. “I’m not sure they’re ready for what they’re walking into,” said a senior administration official while talking to the Post.

Pakistan’s new civilian leadership, like its military predecessor, rejects all insinuations about the ISI’s alleged role in the militancy as incorrect but appears willing to discuss with the Americans measures for reforming the ISI. One of the proposals, that may also be included in a detailed notification expected to be issued in Islamabad soon, calls for taking away two major functions from the agency: internal security and coordination in the war on terror....
more on the following link

ISI’s functions to be discussed in US -DAWN - Top Stories; July 28, 2008

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No end to colonial governance

By Rubina Saigol

THE Defence of India Act of 1915 was an emergency criminal law enacted by the British Raj to curtail revolutionary and nationalist activities in India during the First World War.

The apparent intent was to prevent ‘terrorists’ from calling public meetings, publishing material inciting the people to revolt, disseminating revolutionary literature, and so forth. The act was designed to curtail actions by armed revolutionaries characterised as ‘terrorists’ and ‘extremists’ with links abroad.

However, the legislation was so wide in scope that it rendered “suspect all political activity that was even mildly critical of the British Government of India, and it put an effective end to whatever freedom of expression the Indian press had been allowed”. This act gave the government of British India special emergency powers to deal with German-inspired threats especially in Punjab. A special legal tribunal was established to deal with suspects who could be interned without warrant and had no recourse to appeal.

In March 1919, at the end of the war, the British extended the special ‘emergency powers’ by passing the recommendations of the Rowlatt Commission headed by a British judge, Sir Sydney Rowlatt. Under the guise of dealing with ‘public unrest’, ‘revolutionary activities’ and ‘terrorism’, especially in Bengal and Punjab, this act authorised the government to: 1) imprison suspects without trial; 2) arrest suspects without a warrant; 3) hold secret, in camera trials of suspects; 4) tell suspects where they should live; 5) quell sedition by silencing the press.

The reasons given for instituting such a draconian law were the following: 1) alleged assistance given to the revolutionary movement in India by the German government to destabilise the British government in India; 2) destabilisation of the political situation in neighbouring Afghanistan by inciting the emir to turn against British India and the possible links of this to Bolshevik Russia; and 3) civil and labour unrest in India due to the post-war recession which led to the Bombay Mill Workers’ strikes, unrest in Punjab due to several reasons including the havoc wrought by the Spanish flu epidemic causing the deaths of 13 million Indians.

The Rowlatt Act was met with immediate denunciation by Indian leaders. Gandhi organised strikes and demonstrations against the act and Jinnah resigned from the Legislative Council writing to the viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, that “the fundamental principles of justice have been uprooted”.

The unjust law sparked furious waves of protest particularly in Punjab where there were rapid disruptions in rail, telegraph and communication systems, government buildings were burnt and five Europeans including government employees and civilians were killed.

The protests reached a peak in April 1919 and according to one account “practically the whole of Lahore was on the streets, the immense crowd that passed through Anarkali was estimated to be around 20,000”. Several banks, government buildings and the railway station were attacked. By April 13, the British government had decided to place most of Punjab under martial law. A number of restrictions were placed on civil liberties including freedom of assembly and a ban on gatherings of more than four people.

On April 13, 1919, around 10,000 people gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to register their protest. The British feared an uprising along the lines of the 1857 revolt which began in the month of May. Under the command of Brigadier Reginald Dyer, British Indian soldiers opened fire on the unarmed crowd. The firing lasted for 10 minutes and 1,650 rounds, or 33 per soldier, were fired. Official British Raj placed the casualty figures at 379, however private sources revealed that over 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 injured. The civil surgeon Dr Smith claimed that there were over 1,800 casualties.

The Bagh was bounded on all sides by buildings and houses and the few narrow openings were locked. There was no escape. Some people tried desperately to clamber over the walls while others jumped into a well to escape the bullets. Around 120 bodies were dug out of the well.

A curfew was declared in Amritsar and Dyer reported to his superiors that he ‘had been confronted by a revolutionary army’ and was therefore obliged to ‘teach a moral lesson to the Punjab’. The lieutenant governor of Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer wrote back: “Your action is correct. Lieutenant Governor approves.” Jawaharlal Nehru, in his autobiography, reported hearing British soldiers saying that they “wanted to teach the bloody browns a lesson”.

In his testimony before the Hunter Commission formed to inquire into the massacre, Brigadier Dyer acknowledged that he could have dispersed the crowd without firing but he would have become a laughing stock if they re-converged on the Bagh and made a fool of him. He said that if he would have used machine guns if he could get them through the narrow gates, and that taking the wounded to hospital was not his responsibility. British officers applauded the suppression of ‘another Indian mutiny’ and the House of Lords commended Dyer.

However, the House of Commons censured him and Winston Churchill remarked: “The incident in Jallianwala Bagh was an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation.” Dyer was officially sanctioned by the British government and resigned in 1920. The British press nonetheless defended Dyer labelling him ‘Saviour of the Punjab’ and started a sympathy fund collecting £26,000 for him.

An American woman donated £100 saying, “I fear for the British women there now that Dyer has been dismissed.”

The events of 1919-20 bear an uncanny resemblance to contemporary times. We are all too familiar with laws similar to the Rowlatt Act, martial laws, indiscriminate killing of dissenters, curbs on the press, detention without warrant, in camera trials and sympathies for killers. The massacre of May 12, 2007, is still fresh in our memories.

The constant armed attacks on innocent populations in Balochistan and the tribal areas in the name of fleshing out militants and rooting out terrorists are all too familiar. Our post-independence history is replete with martial laws, press and publications ordinances, arrests without warrant and detentions of terror suspects. All this has been exacerbated after 9/11 in the name of the so-called war on terror.

The techniques of colonial governmentality persist as the nature of the state is essentially colonial. As some historians say, we never really achieved independence and only experienced a transfer of power from foreign to local masters. The continuities of history reveal to us the amazing consistency of the forms and application of power.

DAWN - Editorial; May 26, 2008

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Marsia of Our Time: The Story of Pakistan’s Missing

February 9th, 2008, by Muhammad

The most tragic part of Saud Memon’s story is the fact that he never told it. He never could. Not because of any curtailment of the freedom of speech, not because of political pressure, not because he didn’t want to. He could not tell the world about what goes on in Guantanamo or in ISI’s torture cells in Pakistan. He died before that.

In its 60-year history, the Supreme Court of Pakistan could not have witnessed a more tragic scene than what it saw on May 4, 2007: A 44-years-old emaciated man, reduced to 80-pounds, was produced before the Court, lying on a stretcher. Abducted by the security agencies in 2003, he had been kept in detention in Guantanamo Bay, then in Afghanistan and finally in ISI’s torture cells in Pakistan. He had survived Guantanamo. He survived Afghanistan. But ISI took him. Finally, as a result of a nationwide campaign by families of the missing people, and the Supreme Court’s suo mote intervention, the government was forced to release him. They dumped him in garbage heap near his house, after beating him to pulp. Some neighbors recognized him and brought him home. He could neither walk nor hold his head.

A week later he was presented before the country’s Supreme Court which had managed to make the ISI capitulate. As many in his audience were brought to tears, advocate Shaukat Akhtar Siddiqui proclaimed, “This skeleton of a man has a reward of Rs3 million on his head in the Red Book of our Interior Ministry,” pointing to the emaciated body of Saud Memon.The FBI had arrested Mr Memon, 44, on March 7, 2003, because Daniel Pearl’s body had been found on a plot of land owned by him. But there was so little evidence to link him with that crime that he could never even be indicted before any court, in Pakistan or the US. The governments in Pakistan and the United States, though, couldn’t care less. Daniel Pearl was dead and someone or another had to be framed. Saud Memon was unlucky enough.

On Saturday, May 18, 2007 only 20 days after his was finally released from illegal detention, he died of meningitis and brain TB - all that he had gone through in the US’s and Pakistan’s torture cells simply killed him.

As Muharram wanes, the victims of Karbala must not wither from our memories. We must also remember that here in the our midst, quite bemoaned remains a son of the nation, Saud Memon – one of the most tragic victims in Pakistan’s history - and hundreds of other missing people who still languish in torture cells. If the text-books that we teach our kids are to bear the names of martyrs and victims, then shoulder to shoulder with all those soldiers must stand (or lie down) this victim of the government’s brutality, and, perhaps, our own insensitivity. Indeed, the true marsia of our times is the story of Pakistan’s missing – a story that we must sit in majalis to weep over, in the hope that by this public admission of guilt and expression of remorse, a nation that has so brutally wronged so many of its sons and daughter may be forgiven. May it be that in this weeping, we find atonement for our sins.

This was essentially the message of an event arranged today by the Rule of Law Project and LUMS Law & Politics Society. Amina Masood Janjua and Zainab Bibi spoke to students and professors about the ‘disappearance’ of their loved ones, at the hands of Pakistan’s security agencies.

The Movie: Missing in Pakistan

The event started with a brief speech by law professor Roger Normand, which connected the travails of the Missing People and their families with the general trend of human rights abuses resulting out of the War on Terror, both in the USA and in other states which help the US in this war. Then followed the very famous documentary by Ziad Zaffar titled “Missing in Pakistan”, which shows a lot shocking footage. The documentary focuses on the ordeals of the hundred of disappeared people and also sheds light on rampant human rights abuses in the country. Amnesty International reports that more than 2/3rd of the people locked up in Guantanamo Bay were provided by the Pakistani state. Human rights experts agree that the current spree of disappearances in Pakistan and elsewhere are sponsored by the US, as it wages its ‘War on Terror, in defense of liberty’. The documentary also showed the oppression against media people, including the murder of Hayatullah Khan from Waziristan who was murdered by the Army because his pictures of wreckage of an American plane exposed the government false claim that no such planes has ever entered Pakistan’s airspace. Some of the pictures, including beating of women by policeman and their removal of a 15-year-old protesting boy’s shalwar by were so disturbing that they brought many in the audience to tears.

Faisal Faraz: The Aitchison/GIKI graduate

After the movie, Zainab bibi shared the story of her son, Faisal Faraz, a graduate of Aitchison College and GIKI, an engineer who was picked up by the security agencies for no reason and remains missing to date. She said they were fighting this battle all alone. They had knocked the rulers’ doors again and again but to no effect. She said that her husband had died when Faisal was still young and that like all parents, she had invested her life in her son. Now when she is 60 years old, the forces of evil have deprived her of her hope – her son. She said that we had destroyed the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, where even a 60-year-old widower could get no justice, no matter how loud she cried and how many doors she knocked. She appealed to the audience to join them in their struggle on the streets and stand up against the government’s injustice.

Amina Masood Janjua: An abducted philanthropist’s wife, Pakistan’s Truly Brave Daughter

Amina Janjua, a school teacher from Islamabad, who has been leading the struggle for the release of the missing people, ever since her husband went missing, more than two and a half years, also shared her own story of the evolution of this struggle.
30 July, 2005 was one fine day, when she bade farewell to her kind and loving husband, an engineer and philanthropist. While he was religious, used to pray and had a beard, he was not connected with any political or militant party. He was going to Peshawar with tablighi friends and promised to be back in 3 days. He never got back. He was picked up. Her father-in-law, a retired army man, tried to contact people in the army who had the audacity to tell a whole series of lies in such desperate times. The family knocked every door in the government and the army but to no avail.

Eventually Amina had no resort but to turn to the streets. She started to collect information about the families of other missing people through various means, including advertising her phone number in press. Eventually, they staged small protests in Islamabad. As news of the protests spread through the media, hundreds of families started contacting her. It turned out that while the nation slept, and General Musharraf proudly boasted selling people for bounty, disappearances had become a nation-wide phenomenon. Her list crossed a hundred, then two hundred… it only keeps increasing. By now, more than 500 such cases have been documented.

She said that back when the judiciary was free under the leadership of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, the Supreme Court took suo moto notice of the case of the disappeared and, eventually, more than one hundred people were freed from illegal detention. As the judiciary made senior ISI and IB officials accountable, they was still some hope for her. But, since the imposition of Emergency Plus on Nov 3 and the subsequent dismantling of the judiciary, all hope has been lost. She said that it was a pity that we had a President who had nothing better to boast of in his autobiography than the fact that he sold hundreds of people for the sake of bounty Both the aggrieved ladies appealed to LUMS community and to Pakistani civil society at large to come out of their apathy and to help them in any way possible.. They also urged people to vote only for leaders who were talking about human rights and judicial independence.
Twice in the event, people stood up in the hounour of Amina Janjua, I felt that she was someone all Pakistanis, in fact people all over the Muslim world, need to look up to. In times of immense personal tragedy, this devout Muslim woman rose above herself, allied with similarly aggrieved people and turned that constellation of oppressed into a potent protesting force. Despite the odd, in their struggle they made many strides ahead. Today, she comes to seek our support. Her struggle is truly a people’s struggle – the struggle of people around the Muslim world, being constantly brutalized by the War against Terror. Among other things, she is the icon of Muslim women’s resistance – in that sense too, she represents the hope of a lot of people.

What can you do to help

Amina Masood Janjua talked about the various ways in which students and civil society members could help the cause of the missing. One way is to join the protests. From now on, the Emergency Times (pakistanmartiallaw.blogspot.com) will keep you updated about an protests that the Missing People organize. Another is to help financially: many of the families who have lost members are desperately poor. She showed us of a tent which is where one such family is living. Set against the parched, cold loneliness of Balochistan’s deserts, the family and its tent looked extremely unprotected and vulnerable. Those people and many others need your money.
Finally, Amina Janjua told us that this odyssey has exposed her to so many of human rights abuses committed particularly in Pakistan’s jails (both the clandestine torture cells and the regular jails) that she has decided to set up an organization called Defense of Human Rights. The organization will initially focus on the missing people, gather information about them, document it and support remedial actions. She needs hundreds of young arms and some financial assistance to support this cause, but she was hopeful that amidst a general civil awakening in Pakistan, this would be possible.

If you are thinking about what to do this summer, you are unlikely to find any employment more meaningful or valuable than working with Amina Janjua in Defence of Human Rights. Specifice information will be posted soon. Stay tuned.

Further Reading:
1. May 5, 2007, SC seeks traced persons affidavits
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/may-2007/5/index3.php
2. May 5, 2007, ‘Skeleton of a man’ brought to court on stretcher: SC seeks affidavits on freed people
http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/05/top3.htm
2. May 19, 2007, KARACHI: Key suspect in Daniel Pearl case dies
http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/19/local3.htm

It won't be a surprise if Musharraf engineered terror attacks: General Chishti

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AFP)

A retired Pakistani General who opposes President Pervez Musharraf said he would "not be surprised" if Musharraf had engineered terror attacks to manipulate his image in the West. Former Lieutenant General Faiz Ali Chishti heads the influential Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society, which last week issued a blunt open letter signed by more than 100 senior officers calling on Musharraf to quit.

The statement fuelled Western speculation that Musharraf may be losing support in the military following his resignation as army chief in November, a potential blow with parliamentary elections only three weeks away.

"Musharraf is an intellectually dishonest person. He is a clever ruler, who makes the US and the West believe that they can only effectively deal with Al-Qaeda as long as he is in power," Chishti told AFP in an interview."But what is Al-Qaeda and who are Taliban? I will not be surprised if this clever ruler is behind all suicide attacks,"

he said.

Pakistan has been buffetted by more than 50 suicide attacks in the past year, culminating in the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on December 27, which led to planned January 8 general elections being delayed.

The government blames Bhutto's killing on an allegedly Al-Qaeda-linked tribal warlord, Baitullah Mehsud, but many of Bhutto's supporters have accused the government or parts of the military of involvement.

Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, has rejected those claims, and last week he angrily brushed aside the calls for his resignation by Chishti and the other generals.

"They are insignificant personalities," Musharraf told the Financial Times in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Most of them are ones who served under me and I kicked them out... They are insignificant. I am not even bothered by them."

In another interview with the BBC he said that the retired officers had no clout with today's 500,000-strong, nuclear-armed military.

But Chishti -- a former federal minister and the one-time corps commander for Rawalpindi, a key post in the Pakistani army -- urged current and former servicemen to push for change.

"My request as head of the society, is that retired General Pervez Musharraf should also step down as President," Chishti said.

"We request all ex-servicemen and even those, who are in uniform to vote for persons, who are fit to do something for this country and people."

Chishti himself is no stranger to military rulers, having supervised the imposition of martial law in July 1977 in Pakistan. He went on to become a close associate of late dictator General Zia-ul-Haq.But he said that the situation now was different, partly because of Musharraf's close ties to Washington.

"Musharraf is in league with the US and the West for the sake of his own survival. The majority of Pakistanis feel he... has been taking illegal, unconstitutional and unlawful actions for his survival," Chishti said.

He rejected Western "propaganda" about Musharraf being able to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear weapons from Islamic extremists, saying it was the army's job.

"Is he carrying these nuclear weapons in his pocket? The answer is no," he said.

Chishti also accused Musharraf of "taking sides" and campaigning for the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party ahead of the elections on February 18.

The government meanwhile has rejected the ex-servicemen's claims. Information Minister Nisar Memon told state media that their demands for Musharraf to resign were unconstitutional, adding that he was "dismayed" by their "lack of understanding of national issues."