Solo hay un aspecto positivo sobre el hecho de los talibanes hayan restablecido el Emirato Islámico de Afganistán a días del aniversario 20 de los ataques terroristas a EE.UU. del 11 de septiembre de 2001: servirá como recordatorio de por qué hace dos décadas hubo que invadir el país y derrocar al gobierno talibán.
Cuando cerca de 3000 personas son asesinadas en tu propio suelo en una operación planificada y ordenada por un grupo terrorista conocido desde un país cuyo gobierno se niega a cooperar para llevar ante la justicia a esa organización y a su líder, no hay buenas opciones.… Seguir leyendo »
Al difunto director de la poderosa Agencia de Inteligencia Inter-Servicios (ISI) de Pakistán, el teniente general Hamid Gul, le gustaba hacer alarde de que cuando se escribiera la historia de Afganistán, quedaría registrado que la ISI, con la ayuda de Estados Unidos, derrotó a la Unión Soviética. Y luego, agregaba disimuladamente, los historiadores dirían que la ISI, con la ayuda de Estados Unidos, derrotó a Estados Unidos.
El alarde de Gul no era el tipo de bravata vacía por las que se conoce a los militares cuando cuelgan el uniforme y recuerdan su pasado como algo más glorioso de lo que podrían garantizar los detalles.… Seguir leyendo »
On Friday, several hundred tribesmen and students from religious seminaries gathered at a public meeting in Mastung, a town in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, to hear Siraj Raisani, a 55-year-old politician from the Balochistan Awami Party.
As he appeared on stage wearing dark sunglasses, the crowd cheered, whistled and raised their hands, in a gesture affirming their loyalty to him. “O! Brave people of Balochistan!” said Mr. Raisani, who was known and feared for his strong ties to the Pakistani military. Before he could utter a second sentence, a suicide bomber blew himself up near the stage. The explosion killed Mr.… Seguir leyendo »
Pakistan has found a new ally in its never-ending war against India — and he is the public face of our most ruthless killers.
For years Liaquat Ali, better known as Ehsanullah Ehsan, was a familiar and dreaded figure on national media. It seems that after every atrocity committed by the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), he would make triumphant statements in audio messages or bloodcurdling videos, putting the fear of God in Pakistani media and causing revulsion among Pakistani people.
Soon after the TTP killed three employees of Express TV in January 2014, the television channel invited Ehsan on the air by phone.… Seguir leyendo »
La ofensiva emprendida en 2014 por el ejército paquistaní contra las organizaciones yihadistas activas en el noroeste y sur de Pakistán ha comportado cambios de especial relevancia en diferentes dimensiones de la actividad terrorista e insurgente que registra el país surasiático.
Resumen
Casi dos años después de que el ejército paquistaní lanzara una operación militar a gran escala en las áreas tribales fronterizas con Afganistán, y extendiera posteriormente el alcance de su ofensiva, la capacidad operativa de las organizaciones yihadistas que actúan en Pakistán ha sufrido un evidente deterioro. Entre 2014 y 2015, las acciones terroristas e insurgentes descendieron un 42,1% y el número de víctimas mortales un 42,3%, mientras la distribución geográfica, el modus operandi y los objetivos de esa violencia se han visto alterados.… Seguir leyendo »
The American killing by drone strike of Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, may seem like a fillip for the United States’ ally, the embattled government of President Ashraf Ghani. But it is unlikely to improve Kabul’s immediate national security problems, and may create more difficulties than it solves.
This raises doubts about the American approach — the so-called decapitation strategy — in carrying out such targeted killings against the Taliban leadership.
Commenting on the death of Mullah Mansour during his visit to Vietnam this week, President Obama said, “Mansour rejected efforts by the Afghan government to seriously engage in peace talks and end the violence that has taken the lives of countless innocent Afghan men, women and children.”… Seguir leyendo »
Aug. 26, 2011, an ordinary day. I was driving to work on the same road in Lahore that I took every day, and my mind was busy with the mundane. A car blocked the road, but I didn’t give it much thought. Then five masked men put a gun to my head, pulled me out of the car and my world spun horribly out of control.
Right now, I can’t tell all of the details of my capture or my release for security reasons. Someday I hope to be able to recount the full story. But I can say for sure that mine was no ordinary kidnapping.… Seguir leyendo »
The suicide bomber who killed seventy-two people on Easter Sunday in a park in Lahore, Pakistan has drawn condemnation from around the world. Among the killed were twenty-nine children, and another 370 people were wounded, many of them members of the country’s Christian minority. Far less noted, however, has been the attack’s equally devastating effect on relations between Pakistan’s army and civilian government, which threatens to bring further instability to the country’s Punjab heartland.
At the heart of the crisis are two men, General Raheel Sharif, commander in chief of the Pakistan army, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, head of the civilian government.… Seguir leyendo »
A ploice officer standing guard in front of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park on Tuesday morning glared when I asked him to recount Sunday’s events. Ushering me into the park, he said to see for myself.
On Sunday, hundreds of people — mostly families with children — had gathered at Gulshan-e-Iqbal, one of the city’s largest parks, to enjoy the Easter day and the temperate weather. Griffin Iqbal, his wife, Samia, and their sons, 6-year-old Max and 4-year-old Adan, headed over after their church service. The boys spent their pocket money on popcorn and ice cream from a stall near the blue fountain and a ride called Hilly Gilly.… Seguir leyendo »
Not far from the house where I grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, there was a children’s amusement park. It sat on top of a hill, its slides and swings beckoning children from the houses below. As summer vacations dragged on, my brother and I would hear the gleeful screams of other children, and we begged my mother to take us. It wasn’t an easy sell. “The swings are so rickety,” she would say one day. “Aren’t you afraid you will fall out of the spinning wheel?” she would say on another. We were a little afraid, but we ached to go.… Seguir leyendo »
Back in December 2014, Taliban terrorists attacked a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 151 people, most of them students. It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan's terrorism-tortured history, and prompted some Pakistanis to describe it as their 9/11.
National leaders, meanwhile, described the massacre as a turning point in the nation's approach to terrorism. They vowed to crack down more robustly against all terrorists in Pakistan -- not just those, like the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), that strike in Pakistan, but also those like the Haqqani Network that strike only in neighboring countries.
To an extent, Pakistan did indeed intensify its campaign against terrorism.… Seguir leyendo »
According to our security analysts, the massacre of students and teachers at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda on Wednesday proves that we are winning against terrorism.
A month before that, Pakistan marked the first anniversary of the Army Public School attacks in Peshawar, where more than 140 people, the vast majority of them students, were slaughtered by the Taliban. Most were in their early teens. Never again, we said then. Parliament gave the military all the powers it wanted, and Pakistanis vowed to eliminate the killers of our children.
We marked the anniversary by honoring the dead and giving memorial shields to their parents.… Seguir leyendo »
A few days after the Pakistani Taliban gunned down 14-year-old Muhammad Shaheer Khan, along with at least 144 others, at the Army Public School in Peshawar last year, his mother received the black gloves he had worn to school that day.
“It was cold,” she told me, about the last morning she had seen him.
It was cold, too, on the night we met, earlier this week. We were sitting on the roof of the home of a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Aurangzeb, whose son was also massacred.
Mr. Aurangzeb has created an open-air room on his rooftop that functions as a shrine to his son and a gathering place for other mourning parents, who meet there twice a week.… Seguir leyendo »
The appalling murder in Karachi last week of Sabeen Mahmud is a stark reminder of challenges that human rights defenders face in Pakistan. Ms. Mahmud, 39, had devoted her life to creating an alternative to the religious nationalism promoted by the Pakistani state over recent decades, which has led to a proliferation of violent jihadist organizations. She was gunned down on Friday night as she left the arts center she had founded.
In the country’s largest city, troubled by violence and crumbling institutions, Ms. Mahmud created a hub to promote the arts, harness creative talent and foster democratic dialogue. Since 2007, The Second Floor, commonly known as T2F, had evolved as a small but significant arena for pluralist and secular movements in the Islamic Republic.… Seguir leyendo »
Newly released al Qaeda documents, including letters to and from Osama bin Laden in the year or so before his May 2011 death, show an organization that understood it had severe problems resulting from the CIA drone program that was killing many of the group's leaders in Pakistan's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
As a result of this pressure, al Qaeda officials were seriously considering relocating elements of the organization to other countries such as Afghanistan or Iran. They also entered into ceasefire discussions through intermediaries with elements of Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, although the documents suggest that nothing came of these discussions and there is no evidence in the documents indicating that the Pakistani government had any clue about bin Laden's location or presence in Pakistan.… Seguir leyendo »
In a rare convergence of views, conservative religious political parties and mainstream liberals in Pakistan seem to agree it is a terrible idea to allow special military courts to try suspected terrorists. But they think so for different reasons, highlighting that once again Pakistan is both polarized and confused about how to respond to terrorism.
Last Tuesday, the National Assembly and the Senate unanimously adopted (with abstentions but no votes against) the 21st amendment to the Constitution: For two years, military courts will have authority to adjudicate cases involving civilians suspected of links to terrorist organizations. The president approved the law the next day.… Seguir leyendo »
The slaughter of 132 schoolchildren and nine adults in an army school in Peshawar on Dec. 16 by the Pakistan Taliban marked a new low in terrorist depravity. The massacre of the innocents brings to a head several pathologies that need addressing and to that end could prove a catharsis for Pakistan.
The intertwining of religious terrorism, colonization of the state by the army, and obsession with India as the existential threat has mutated into a virulent toxin feeding parasitically on Pakistan. The shock and horror must be channeled into a determination to do whatever it takes to root out the poison.… Seguir leyendo »
Cuando era Secretaria de Estado de los Estados Unidos, Hillary Clinton dijo con toda claridad al Pakistán en 2011 que “no se pueden tener serpientes en el patio trasero de casa y esperar que sólo muerdan a los vecinos”, pero su advertencia (“en algún momento esas serpientes se volverán contra” su dueño), como las de otros funcionarios americanos, incluidos presidentes y directores de la CIA, a lo largo de los años, no fueron atendidas.
Los graves problemas del dueño de las serpientes quedaron ejemplificados por la reciente matanza de 132 escolares en Peshawar por militantes que ya no estaban controlados por los generales del Pakistán.… Seguir leyendo »
Last week’s massacre of 132 schoolchildren in Peshawar by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was horrific. It sparked a wave of sympathy—world leaders expressed their solidarity with the country—and also criticism—for years, Pakistan has given safe haven to terrorist groups.
TTP’s ghastly attack in Peshawar was hardly surprising. In the spring of 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a TTP-trained American, attempted to bomb Times Square in New York. Just weeks later, TTP operatives massacred 86 Ahmadi worshippers during Friday prayers at mosques in Lahore. (Ahmadis are a persecuted minority Muslim sect.) In 2013, TTP was linked to the killing of 127 Christians in Peshawar.… Seguir leyendo »
There seems to be no respite for school children in Malala Yousafzai’s home province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Days after the 17-year-old received the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating girls’ right to education, the Taliban launched the deadliest attack in Pakistan’s history, killing at least 148 people, including 132 children, at a school in Peshawar.
The people of Pakistan are shaken, angry, confused and fearful. The government just lifted the moratorium on the death penalty. And yet the attack in Peshawar will not be Pakistan’s 9/11 moment.
Terrorist attacks against schools in tribal areas are an old story. Muhammad Khorasani, the spokesman of the Pakistani Taliban (also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban), said the Peshawar attack was retaliation for the deaths of civilians killed in Operation Zarb-e-Azb, an anti-militancy campaign the Pakistani military started in June.… Seguir leyendo »
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