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 »
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 »
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 »
On Monday, Pakistan's long-awaited report into the death of Osama bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad two years ago was leaked in full to Al Jazeera.
The independent Abbottabad Commission was established by Pakistan's parliament to investigate what for many Pakistanis was an embarrassing double national humiliation. First, that bin Laden lived in Pakistan for nine years undetected before he was killed. Second, that the U.S. conducted a military operation inside Pakistan that, from the moment that four U.S. helicopters penetrated Pakistan's airspace, lasted for more than three hours without detection by the Pakistani military.
In more than 300 pages, the report paints an intimate picture of the final days and years of the leader of al Qaeda and is also a devastating indictment of what it describes as the incompetence of many institutions of the Pakistani state.… Seguir leyendo »
America needs a new policy for dealing with Pakistan. First, we must recognize that the two countries’ strategic interests are in conflict, not harmony, and will remain that way as long as Pakistan’s army controls Pakistan’s strategic policies. We must contain the Pakistani Army’s ambitions until real civilian rule returns and Pakistanis set a new direction for their foreign policy.
As Adm. Mike Mullen, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee last month, Pakistan provides critical sanctuary and support to the Afghan insurgency that we are trying to suppress. Taliban leaders meet under Pakistani protection even as we try to capture or kill them.… Seguir leyendo »
How are insurgents able to continue launching deadly attacks in Afghanistan 10 years into the U.S.-led war there? Part of the blame — perhaps even the bulk of it — lies with Pakistan's army and its powerful intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known by the acronym ISI.
For decades, Pakistan has conducted a proxy war in Afghanistan through Islamist insurgent groups that it has created, nurtured and supplied. There is considerable evidence that these groups are managed not by "rogue" ISI elements, as has sometimes been asserted, but by the agency itself. The ISI is a disciplined military institution that answers to the orders of the military command, a point former Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf often emphasized.… Seguir leyendo »
Democracy always favors dialogue over confrontation. So, too, in Pakistan, where the terrorists who threaten both our country and the United States have gained the most from the recent verbal assaults some in America have made against Pakistan. This strategy is damaging the relationship between Pakistan and the United States and compromising common goals in defeating terrorism, extremism and fanaticism.
It is time for the rhetoric to cool and for serious dialogue between allies to resume.
Pakistan sits on many critical fault lines. Terrorism is not a statistic for us. Our geopolitical location forces us to look to a future where the great global wars will be fought on the battleground of ideas.… Seguir leyendo »
Los atentados terroristas del 11-S en EE.UU. provocaron en todo el mundo unas ondas de choque de las que Pakistán todavía no se ha recuperado. En realidad, la participación pakistaní en lo que el ex presidente Bush llamó la “guerra global contra el terror” produjo consecuencias abrumadoramente negativas al lanzar el país al primer plano de la atención internacional en un momento en que no estaba en absoluto preparado para conciliar los intereses del mundo con los propios.
La implicación de Pakistán en la guerra contra el terror resultó ser mucho más costosa de lo esperado en términos económicos. Además, acentuó las tensiones dentro de la sociedad pakistaní y desestabilizó la capital comercial del país, Karachi, debido a la entrada de un gran número de refugiados pastunes que trastocaron el delicado equilibrio étnico de la ciudad.… Seguir leyendo »
George Bush and Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, have more in common than one might think. As younger men, both had reputations as playboy hell-raisers. As the current, more sober leaders of their respective countries, both are deeply unpopular with large numbers of fellow citizens. For his part, Bush is on his way out. And if the Islamists who bombed the Islamabad Marriott at the weekend have their way, Zardari, husband of the murdered Benazir Bhutto, will surely follow him – one way or another.
The stakes for this odd couple are high. Zardari is engaged in an increasingly fraught political and military campaign not only to retain power but, more importantly, hold the country together in the teeth of an existential threat to democratic, secular governance.… Seguir leyendo »
El devastador camión bomba que estalló en el Hotel Marriott en el centro de Islamabad, acabando con la vida de más de 50 personas e hiriendo a 150, es una señal más de que Pakistán se ha convertido en el epicentro de una tormenta de fuego, que ha sumido Asia central y meridional en el enfrentamiento de consecuencias más imprevisibles con los extremistas talibán desde el 11-S. La ofensiva a gran escala de los talibán en Afganistán y Pakistán, los atentados en la India por parte de extremistas musulmanes y los disturbios en Asia central demuestran que la política de EEUU y la OTAN en la región está fracasando.… Seguir leyendo »
A secret order issued by George Bush giving US special forces carte blanche to mount counter-terrorist operations inside Pakistani territory raised fears last night that escalating conflict was spreading from Afghanistan to Pakistan and could ignite a region-wide war.
The unprecedented executive order, signed by Bush in July after an intense internal administration debate, comes amid western concern that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and its al-Qaida backers based in "safe havens" in western Pakistan's tribal belt is being lost.
Following Bush's decision, US navy Seals commandos, backed by attack helicopters, launched a ground raid into Pakistan last week which the US claimed killed about two dozen insurgents.… Seguir leyendo »
The war in Afghanistan spilled over into Pakistani territory for the first time today when heavily armed commandoes, believed to be US special forces, landed by helicopter and attacked three houses in a village close to a known Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold.
The early morning attack on Jala Khel killed between seven and 20 people, according to a range of reports from the remote Angoor Adda region of South Waziristan. The village is situated less than a mile from the Afghanistan border.
Local residents were quoted as saying most of the dead were civilians and included women and children. It was not known whether any Taliban or al-Qaida militants or western forces were among the dead.… Seguir leyendo »
Nada ni nadie pueden impedir que estallen bombas. No hay ciudadano, ni fuerza policial, ni ejército, ni gobierno, ni alianza militar mundial alguna capaces de impedir que un concreto terrorista suicida se reviente a sí mismo con una bomba. Eso va a seguir sucediendo y, como consecuencia, morirán personas inocentes de forma horrible, tal y como mueren también en las carreteras, o por culpa de las drogas y del alcohol, o por los efectos de catástrofes naturales, una vez más sin que exista autoridad alguna con responsabilidad y con capacidad para poner coto a todo ello. Lo que supone una novedad es la aceptación de esta perogrullada dentro del criterio general dominante en los gobiernos en lo que se refiere al «terrorismo».… Seguir leyendo »
Nothing and nobody can stop bombs going off. No citizen, no police force, no army, no government and no global military alliance can prevent a determined suicide bomber from blowing himself up. It will happen and innocent people will die as a result, horribly, as they do on the roads, from drugs and alcohol, or from natural disasters - again without responsible authority being able to stop it.What is recent is the admission of this truism into the mainstream of government under the rubric of "terrorism". This week two outgoing presidents, America's George Bush and Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, defined their terms of office in relation to terror.… Seguir leyendo »
In the early 1900s, a crusty British general, Andrew Skeen, wrote a guide to military operations in the Pashtun tribal belt, in what is now Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. His first piece of advice: “When planning a military expedition into Pashtun tribal areas, the first thing you must plan is your retreat. All expeditions into this area sooner or later end in retreat under fire.” This was written decades before the advent of suicide bombers, when the Pashtuns had little but rifles yet nevertheless managed to give their British overlords fits.
These same tribal areas are now focus of Pakistan’s struggle with the Pakistani Taliban, particularly the North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal areas on the Afghan border and the Swat region further north.… Seguir leyendo »
Benazir Bhutto es presidenta del Partido del Pueblo de Pakistán y ex primera ministra paquistaní (EL MUNDO, 13/08/04)
Mientras el mundo se concentra en la guerra contra el terrorismo, la guerra contra la pobreza pasa a ocupar un segundo plano. Hay tres cuestiones que han adquirido una importancia decisiva a escala internacional desde el ataque contra las Torres Gemelas: la primera es la lucha por erradicar a los militantes fundamentalistas; la segunda, el crecimiento político de la militancia en el campo de las religiones, y la tercera, el aumento de la desigualdad entre ricos y pobres.
En la guerra contra el terrorismo, Pakistán se encuentra en la línea del frente.… Seguir leyendo »
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