Politics of fear

 

by Zia Ur Rehman

March 29-April 4, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130329&page=4

Amid threats by the Taliban, a number of politicians in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA are abandoning liberal political parties to join religious groups or contest independently.

In recent messages, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has warned people to stay away from the gatherings organized by the Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Political analysts say the threats will help religious parties in the coming elections.

The ANP and the PPP opposed the Taliban during their five year rule that just ended. Taliban and other militant groups have killed a large number of political leaders and workers and threatened many others. That, analysts say, may have a negative impact on the elections.

In 2012, at least 29 reported terrorist attacks on politicians in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA left 28 people dead, according to the Pakistan Security Report 2012, an annual publication of Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS). Top leaders of the ANP, the Qaumi Watan Party (formerly PPP-Sherpao) and even Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) have survived in suicide attacks.

“The poor security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa indicates that incidents of violence are likely in the elections,” said Sardar Ahmed Yousafzai, a political analyst based in Swat. He said the Taliban were still in a position to carry out sabotage acts, even in sensitive areas.

Most districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are being seen as sensitive from the security point of view, especially Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Lukki Marwat, Kohat, Hangu, Peshawar, Charsadda, Swat, Buner and Dir.

In a recent move, Istiqbal Khan, an outgoing MNA elected from district Buner on an ANP ticket, decided to join JUI-F. MPAs Fazal Shakoor from Charsadda and Sajjadullah Khan from Kohistan, also from the ANP, have already joined JUI-F. Other politicians who have recently defected to JUI-F include Mehboobullah Jan of PPP (an outgoing MNA from Kohistan), Zar Gul and Zarin Gul of PML-Q (former MPAs from Torghar district), and Atiqur Rehman of QWP (an outgoing MPA).

“A fear of Taliban attacks has compelled a number of leaders of liberal political parties to change loyalty and join religious groups,” said an aide of an ANP parliamentarian who recently joined JUI-F.

Other ANP leaders disagree. “Some ANP members joined other political parties because they were not considered for party tickets. It is more about tickets than protection,” said Bushra Gohar, ANP’s central vice president. She did acknowledge that the ANP will face serious security challenges in the elections. “But that will not deter us or weaken our resolve.”

Ijaz Khan, a Peshawar-based political observer, agrees some ANP leaders are abandoning the party because they have not been awarded tickets, but believes threats by the Taliban are also a genuine concern.

Political workers are concerned about their safety. “We cannot move freely to mobilize our supporters or run an election campaign in the province because of security threats posed by the Taliban,” said an ANP worker in Buner. “Our rivals from the JI can easily organize rallies and public gatherings.”

Some observers say the leaders of ANP, PPP and QWP are cut off from the people because of security fears, and that is sending voters away towards other political parties. “The right-leaning parties have easier access to the people because of their softer views on Taliban,” said an ANP activist from Buner. He said the militants were trying to bring pro-Taliban right-wing political parties in the parliament.

Political analyst Jan Achakzai disagrees. He said Fazlur Rehman, the chief of JUI-F, has changed his strategy. “He opened his party’s doors to people other than just clerics,” Achakzai said, “reaching out to leaders of the ANP and the PPP.” He said Fazl was making his group a moderate center-right party. “Now, peace, economy and foreign policy are the core issues.”

Threats of violence by the Taliban have worried leaders of the ANP and the PPP, but it has also created fear among the ranks of right-wing political parties. “Militant outfits are also targeting the JUI-F ever since the party started condemning suicide attacks in Pakistan,” said a leader from Bannu, requesting anonymity for security reasons. He said attacks on Fazlur Rehman and the recent killing of JUI-F workers was proof that the Taliban and the JUI-F were not ideologically aligned.

The writer is a journalist and researcher. Email: zia_red@hotmail.com and Twitter: @zalmayzia

Musharraf ready for Chitral battle

By Zia Ur Rehman

March 15-21, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130315&page=7

Former president and chief of All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf has announced he will contest the upcoming elections from Chitral.

Chitral is the most northerly district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and situated in its Malakand division. There is one National Assembly constituency in Chitral (NA-32) and two provincial assembly constituencies (PK-89 and PK-90).

APML information secretary Asiya Ishaq is very optimistic. She said the people of Chitral had a deep love for Musharraf and vice versa. “During Gen (r) Musharraf’s tenure as president, large sums were spent on the development of basic infrastructure in the city,” she said. “And especially, the opening of Lowari Tunnel connected the rugged mountainous valley with the rest of the country.”

Local political analysts say the Lowari Tunnel was indeed a big achievement that makes him a stronger candidate from NA-32, but the political situation on the ground is completely different from how his party sees it.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) are the key political parties that have strong organizational set-up in Chitral district. The Awami National Party (ANP), having contested elections from the district since 1970, has also emerged as an influential electoral party this time, especially after its provincial government carried out several development projects in the valley.

Sahibzada Muhayuddin of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) won the NA-32 seat in the 2008 elections, and JI’s Abdul Akbar Chitrali won the seat on a Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’s ticket in 2002.PML-Q’s Ghulam Muhammad and PPP’s Saleem Khan (incumbent minister of population welfare) were elected from PK-89 and PK-90 respectively in 2008.Musharraf and Chitrali are the only two leaders who have announced their candidacy so far. Although the PPP is still a popular political party in Chitral, it has not won the National Assembly seat since the 1988 general elections. Begum Nusrat Bhutto won the NA-32 seat in the 1988 elections, followed by another PPP candidate Ghafoor Shah after she relinquished it.

Local political workers say Chitral was once regarded as the second Larkana, but internal differences in the party at the district level hurt its popularity in the valley. Sources in the PPP say Asma Arbab Alamgir, wife of federal minister Arbab Alamgir, is also planning to contest the National Assembly elections from Chitral. Col (r) Sardar Muhammad Khan and Maulana Abdul Rehman are possible candidates from the ANP and the JUI-F respectively. But local analysts believe the actual battle on NA-32 will be between Musharraf and Chitrali.

Musharraf was invited to contest the elections from Chitral by Sahibzada Muhayuddin, the incumbent MNA. The Ismaili community has also decided to support the former president. If Musharraf does not return to Pakistan, his wife Sehba Musharraf may be the alternate candidate.

Sources in the APML say the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had also promised to support Musharraf on a constituency in Karachi, but it seems to have backed out.

“Surprisingly, a number of possible candidates from Chitral are taking Musharraf seriously and are opting for the provincial seats instead,” tweeted Khalid Munir, a political analyst.

But Abdul Akbar Chitrali rejects the perception that Musharraf is a popular candidate from Chitral. “He should come to Pakistan before talking about where he would contest the elections from,” he said. Chitrali is the nephew of late Maulana Abdul Rahim, an influential cleric who also elected MNA in the 1993 polls
.

Kabul captures Maulvi Faqir

 

 

By Zia Ur Rehman

March 1-7, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130301&page=3

Maulvi Faqir, an important Taliban commander from Bajaur Agency, has been arrested by Afghan intelligence in its eastern Nangarhar province.

“On February 18, Faqir was arrested along with four other militants while he was trying to enter Tirah valley of Khyber Agency from Momand Darra district of Nangarhar,” said a journalist based in Jalalabad. He said the arrest was made jointly by Afghan Police and the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s premier intelligence agency. He is said to be under interrogation at an NDS detention center in Kabul.

Faqir is a key Taliban commander who leads his group in Bajaur Agency and Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan. He was the deputy chief of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) but left the organization in November 2011 after telling Pakistani media that the TTP were holding peace talks with the government. In November 2011, a foreign news agency reported that a ceasefire had been brokered between the military and the Pakistani Taliban, but an army spokesman refuted the report strongly and categorically, calling it “concocted, baseless and unfounded”. But Faqir admitted in December 2011 that “negotiations are in progress” and had been “going very well so far”. “If the talks succeed in Bajaur Agency, then the TTP will sign a comprehensive truce with the government,” he had told reporters.

After the statement, the TTP leadership replaced Maulvi Faqir with Maulvi Jamaluddin, also known as Mullah Dadullah. Jamaluddin was killed in a NATO airstrike in Afghanistan’s Kunar province on August 24, 2012, after which Maulvi Abu Bakar was named the new commander of the TTP Bajaur chapter.

Faqir was a close confidante of Baitullah Mehsud, the former TTP chief who was killed in a US drone strike in August 2009. Faqir announced himself the new chief of TTP after the killing of Baitullah, but withdrew after the Taliban council appointed Hakimullah Mehsud the new chief. Some media reports suggest that Faqir reconciled with the TTP in late 2012, but he was not reinstated to his former position.

Before joining the ranks of Taliban, Faqir was an active member of Tehrik-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM), founded by Maulana Sufi Muhammad. The teaching and preaching of Sufi Muhammad has contributed to the radicalization of a vast area of Bajaur. After the US arrival in Afghanistan that followed 9/11, Sufi Muhammad gathered about 10,000 armed fighters to wage a jihad against US forces in Afghanistan.

Security experts and officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan believe Faqir’s arrest would be a great blow to the insurgency in the region. “Faqir-led militants have operated from their hideouts in Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan since they were forced out of Bajaur by Pakistani military offensives,” said a retired military official who monitors militancy in FATA region.

Confirming the arrest, Pakistani officials said they would ask the Interpol to hand him over to them. “We hope Maulvi Faqir will be handed over to Pakistan as soon as possible because he has the blood of many innocent Pakistanis on his hands,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman said at a briefing.

But Afghanistan declined to hand him over to Pakistan, saying there was no extradition treaty between Islamabad and Kabul.

“During the recent tripartite meeting in London, the Afghan government requested the Pakistani side to return Afghan Taliban prisoners held by it so that they could participate in and support Afghanistan’s peace and reconciliation efforts,” Janan Musazai, the Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman, told Pajhwok News.

“The Afghan government still believes the return of Afghan Taliban prisoners to Kabul is in the best interest of a meaningful peace process, and the Afghan government is prepared to discuss this with Pakistan,” he said.

Both countries accuse each other of harbouring wanted militants. Stopping the free movement of fighters across the porous border is high on the agenda of any talks between the neighbours. The Afghan government alleges that Pakistani militants operating in FATA carry out subversive attacks in Afghanistan, and that the Pakistani government is protecting the Haqqani Network in North Waziristan. Pakistan alleges that Maulana Fazlullah, Hakimullah Mehsud and other TTP men use the Afghan soil to carry out attacks in Pakistan.

Sardar Ahmed Yousafzai, a security analyst based in Peshawar, said the Kabul government had declined to hand Faqir over because there was no prisoner exchange agreement between the two countries. Islamabad had also declined to hand over Mullah Baradar to Afghanistan despite several official requests.

Security analysts in Afghanistan say the killing of Maulvi Nazir in a drone strike and the arrest of Maulvi Faqir will benefit Afghanistan and the NATO forces, because their men had peace deals with Pakistan and were targeting Afghan and NATO soldiers.

Local tribal elders say the capture would significantly hurt militancy in Bajaur area. “Although Faqir did not have a position in the TTP after he began talking to the Pakistani government, and his men were not carrying out attacks inside Pakistan, his detention will affect militancy in the area,” said a Salarzai-tribal elder in Bajaur.

The writer is a journalist and security analyst. Email: zia_red@hotmail.com and Twitter: zalmayzia.

Hard bargain

 

 

By Zia Ur Rehman

Feb 22-28, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130222&page=3

Twenty-four political parties and religious groups recommended talks with the Taliban as “first priority” in any strategy to restore peace in the country, in a joint declaration at the end of the all parties’ conference convened by the Awami National Party (ANP) on February 14. Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and Jamaat-e-Islami were not among them.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) rejected the offer. “It is just an election move by the ANP,” Taliban spokesman Ehasanullah Ehsan told a local reporter. At a meeting of the TTP’s political council, 32 commanders from FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Balochistan, Sindh and Kashmir agreed there was nothing new about the offer, he said. “We still await a serious and result-oriented response from the security forces and the government to our dialogue offer,” Ehsan said.

The ANP organized the conference at a time when it is about to complete its five-year term as a coalition partner in the government. The TTP has made two recent offers for negotiations, asking for veteran political leaders Fazlur Rehman, Nawaz Sharif and Munawar Hasan to act as guarantors. But it wants the government to release five of its senior leaders, including Haji Muslim Khan, former spokesman for the Malakand Taliban, Mahmood Khan, a close aide of Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah, and Maulvi Omar, the former TTP spokesman. The leaders would represent the Pakistani Taliban in negotiations with the government, they said.

“Despite having suffered so much at the hands of Taliban militants, the ANP is ready to talk to them for peace in the region,” said a parliamentarian from Swat who belongs to the party. “But their demands are very complicated.” He said there were concerns about security in the militancy-hit parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, if the security forces withdrew as part of a truce.

“That is why the ANP convened the conference.” All key political parties and religious groups participated in the conference and supported the proposal for talks, he said, except Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).

Jan Achakzai, an Islamabad-based security expert, said that despite challenges, the fact that the ANP brought many different parties on one table was a feat in itself. But, he added, the challenges are immense. The media is not convinced talks with the Taliban will be useful, the civil society is critical of such moves, and ex-army analysts and commentators are angry.

As pointed out by the TTP spokesman, there were no clear roadmaps or goalposts in the final communique. “Apparently, the main stakeholder – the army – was to be taken on board before any possible roadmaps were drawn,” Achakzai said.

On the other hand, the PTI and the JI, two strong proponents of peace talks with Taliban militants, did not participate in the conference because they believe, like the TTP, that it was a political gimmick by the ANP.

“The ANP supported Pakistan’s participation in the war on terror for the last five years, which has cost the nation over 60,000 lives and an estimated $100 billion,” said Abdul Quayyum Kundi, a member of PTI’s Advisory Committee and its possible candidate from DI Khan district. “The PTI on the other hand has always supported peace talks to resolve the issue.” Achakzai believes that PTI simply did not want the ANP to steal its position on talks with the Taliban.

After the growing uncertainty over the ANP’s ability to hold the talks, Fazlur Rehman’s faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam decided to convene a grand tribal Jirga. “We will invite tribal elders in the Jirga because they know Taliban very well,” Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, the JUI-F secretary general, told reporters. Sources in the party say Fazlur Rehman has discussed the issue with ANP chief Asfandyar Wali and they have agreed to take the proposal forward.

Political observers disagree on whether talks with the Taliban will be effective. “Since the surfacing of Pakistani Taliban, the government has brokered several truces with various Taliban factions in attempts to pacify the militants.” said Sardar Ahmed Yousafzai, a Swat-based political analyst. “But almost all of them resulted in further strengthening and emboldening of these militant groups.” He said that in the 2008 election, the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa voted for the ANP and the JUI-F to bring peace in the area, and they must make concrete efforts to end militancy.

Civil society organizations have their own reservations. When the ANP was organizing the conference in Islamabad, TTP militants killed nearly 20 innocent people in Bannu and Hangu districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On the very next day, they carried out a failed attempt to assassinate Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Amir Haider Hoti in Mardan. “It indicates the Taliban are not interested in peace talks and our politicians are just trying to appease them,” said a Peshawar-based civil society activist. He said Taliban leaders enforce their demands, but the government fails to do the same.

Politics on the frontline

 

By Zia Ur Rehman

Feb 8-14, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130208&page=3

For the first time in the country’s history, political parties will participate in general elections in the militant-infested tribal areas expected in May this year.

In August 2011, President Asif Ali Zardari introduced a regulation to amend the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) under Article 247 of the Constitution and also extended the Political Parties Act (PPA) 2002 to the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), allowing political parties to operate there as they do elsewhere in Pakistan.

Prior to the extension, FATA’s 12 members in the National Assembly and eight members in the Senate were elected independently and could not join any political party. The same restrictions applied to its senators. In the wake of the extension of the act, tribal candidates for the first time will be allotted symbols of their respective political parties in the next general elections. Until the introduction of adult franchise in 1996, the elections in tribal areas were based on selective voting, meaning that some 35,000 maliks (elders) were entitled to cast vote.

The terrain of FATA lies between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan and the neighboring Afghanistan. It consists of seven tribal agencies – Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai, North Waziristan and South Waziristan – and six Frontier Regions (FRs) – FR Peshawar, FR Kohat, FR Bannu, FR Lakki Marwat, FR Tank and FR DI Khan. The region has a total area of 27,220 square kilometers, and is almost entirely inhabited by Pashtun tribes.

Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and especially the US arrival in 2001, the region has become a hub of militancy. The area is considered to be the epicenter of violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a major source of international terrorism. All the seven tribal agencies and adjacent FRs have been affected by the rise of militancy and the military operations carried out in response.

“The people of FATA are very thankful to President Zardari who has lifted a 64-year ban last year on activities of political parties in seven tribal agencies of FATA,” said Akhundzada Chattan, a parliamentarian elected from Bajaur Agency and a leader of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). He said the reforms would not only pave the way for political and economic empowerment of tribal people but also help in eradicating militancy in the region.

“The PPA has encouraged political parties to boost their efforts for politicking,” said Jan Achakzai, a political analyst who monitors FATA affairs very closely. “Candidates from various agencies have already started using billboards, sloganeering, pamphlets, and openly showing their political affiliations.”

The Awami National Party (ANP), the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) are the key political parties operating in FATA. Political observers agree that the JUI-F is the only political party that has a strong organizational structure and support in FATA, which mainly relies on a large network of madrassas and mosques. In October, the JUI-F formed a 32-member committee consisting of leaders from the seven tribal agencies and six FRs of FATA under the leadership of Mufti Abdul Shakoor for the preparation of the general elections.

But influential ‘independent’ politicians who win the elections in FATA on the basis of tribal strength and wealth are not happy with the extension of the PPA in the tribal areas. “The political process in FATA will ultimately stop the buying and selling of votes in the tribal areas,” said Gul Muhammad Mamond, an activist from Bajaur Agency.

Achakzai believes that independent candidates will remain an important factor in the coming elections, but they will be under increasing pressure from opponents backed by political parties. Some independent politicians have already started lobbying for tickets from political parties.

But many political parties are reluctant to start organizational and electoral activities in the volatile region. In the year and a half since the PPA was extended to the tribal areas, only religious political parties have been able to hold public rallies or even indoor political meetings.

In October, PTI chief Imran Khan led a rally against US drone attacks to Tank but couldn’t enter South Waziristan. Even President Zardari, who is also the co-chairperson of Pakistan’s largest political party and a direct administrator of FATA, has not visited the region.

Political leaders and activists in FATA fear they may not be able to run election campaigns because of security threats. They believe Taliban militants might influence the elections with terror, and security agencies have repeatedly warned the political and religious figures of the KP province and tribal areas of threats to their lives.

“All political parties are facing such challenges,” Achakzai said. Liberal political parties may not be able to run proper election campaigns in FATA because of security threats. That will help groups or candidates that are soft on Taliban militants,” said an ANP leader from North Waziristan. He said that leaders of ANP and PPP are cut off from the people because of security fears, and that is sending the voters away towards right-wing political parties such as JUI-F, PTI, JI and the PML-N.

In the 2008 elections, polling was conducted on 11 seats of the National Assembly in FATA, excluding NA-42 of South Waziristan, which consists of Mehsud areas. This seat has been lying vacant because of the law and order situation and the ongoing military operation in the constituency.

Because of military operations against Taliban militants in various tribal agencies, especially South Waziristan and Khyber, the local population has been displaced from their areas. Political observers fear that over 150,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are facing disenfranchisement in the coming general election if they are not allowed to cast votes through special measures. “Due to the security situation, many IDPs are prohibited from returning home. These voters should be provided with an alternative mechanism for voting in their home constituencies,” said the Joint Committee on FATA Reforms, a committee established in 2010 to identify and lobby for reforms through building consensus and promoting dialogue in the tribal areas. Ismail Mehsud, a leader of ANP, said the Election Commission of Pakistan should make arrangements for holding elections in volatile areas like NA-42 or Khyber Agency at alternative places, including Karachi, where the displaced people from these tribal areas live.

No relief

By Zia Ur Rehman

Feb 1-7, 2012

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130201&page=7#.UQtnrP837I0.facebook

British aid worker Khalil Dale, who was killed in Pakistan last year, was named the posthumous winner of the 2013 Robert Burns Humanitarian Award in a January 27 ceremony in Ayrshire, United Kingdom.

Dale, a Muslim who was working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), had been kidnapped on January 5 last year in Quetta and authorities found him dead on a roadside on April 29. A note found on his body said the ICRC had failed to pay the ransom of $30m (Rs 2.7 billion), according to news reports.

Attacks on aid workers, both local and international, have increased in Pakistan in the last few years, security analysts and aid workers say. The attacks are compelling humanitarian groups to suspend their activities in the country.

The 2012 report from the Aid Workers Security Database has grouped Pakistan among the five countries where aid workers face the most attacks. After two years of decline, attacks on aid workers worldwide rose to 150 in 2011 from 129 in 2010, and the number of victims of the attacks – 308 – was the highest ever recorded, the report said. But the vast majority of the attacks, 72 percent, occurred in just five countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Pakistan.

The report counts 15 incidents of attacks on aid workers in Pakistan in 2012 and 12 incidents in 2011. But before 2009, there were only three or fewer attacks annually.

Most recently, unidentified gunmen shot dead on January 1 seven aid workers including six women and a male medical technician working for Support With Working Solutions (SWWS), a local NGO, near the Anbar Interchange in Swabi district.

In an attack on January 5, two aid workers with Al-Khidmat Foundation, an NGO working in education, were shot dead in the northwestern city of Charsadda.

Late Red Cross worker Khalil Dale

Nine health workers involved in Pakistan’s polio eradication campaign were gunned down in Karachi and Peshawar between December 17 and 19. Six of them were women. Another attack last July wounded a World Health Organisation (WHO) Ghanaian doctor and his driver while they worked on the polio campaign in Karachi.

Birgitta Almeby, the 71-year old female Swedish aid worker who was injured in an attack in Lahore on December 3 died in Stockholm Hospital on December 12. She was associated with a Western donor agency which was running charities, including a technical training institute and an adult literacy centre.

In August 2011, a western development worker Warren Weinstein was kidnapped after gunmen tricked their way into his Lahore home. Officials believe he is being held by Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists in the tribal regions.

“Frequent attacks and kidnapping of NGO workers are a great concern for the civil society, and development projects are being affected,” said Idress Kamal, director of Citizen Rights and Sustainable Development (CRSD).

“Violence against aid workers is one of the most crucial humanitarian issues today,” said a country security advisor of a UK-based aid organization. “Security threats to NGOs are increasing in Pakistan, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA and Balochistan.”

Security experts believe that NGOs are seen as western propaganda campaigners promoting secular values and modern norms, which contradict the Taliban’s version of Islam.

“Attacks on and abductions of international aid workers have been going on since the rule of the Afghan Taliban and this thing has travelled across the border to FATA based militant groups,” said Abdul Basit, a senior analysts at the Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism (ICPVTR).

[box9]He said the recent increase in attacks on polio vaccination teams and national and international aid workers comes in the wake of the involvement of health workers in a CIA campaign to collect blood samples to track down the Bin Laden family living in Abbottabad. “Their kidnappings are for the sake of ransom money and because of suspicions that they are spies or informers of foreign intelligence agencies disguised as aid workers,” Basit said.

Kidnapping is one tool militants use to raise money. Militants looking for large payoffs have been abducting mostly foreign aid workers, wealthy industrialists and academics. The other two key motives behind the abduction of foreign aid workers are media attention and prisoner swaps, according to a source associated with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

The new wave of violence is causing humanitarian groups to reconsider their presence in Pakistan. In December 2012, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) suspended their anti-polio vaccination campaign after nine workers were killed in attacks in Karachi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The ICRC on May 10 announced the suspension of some of its projects after the killing of Dale. Such decisions would deprive local communities of the much needed social services and development initiatives, Pakistani development experts say.

A recent report by the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), an umbrella organization for over 40 NGOs engaged in relief work, states that “from January to September 2012, a reduction of 60 international aid workers was observed across INGOs associated with the PHF”. The reasons, according to them, was not obtaining visas in time.

Various governmental bodies are known to harass aid professionals, restricting their movement and limiting visas, fearing that spies lurk among them. Government officials say they restrict the movement of foreign aid workers for security reasons. “When an international aid worker is injured, killed or abducted in Pakistan, it becomes a humiliation for the government and creates severe problems for law enforcement agencies,” an official in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home department said. He said that might be a reason behind the reluctance in issuing visas to foreign aid workers.

Many aid organizations have instituted strict security protocols for their staff. For example, aid workers simply do not travel at night, and they stay out of areas that have high risks.

Road to martyrdom

 

By Zia Ur Rehman

January 18-24, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130118&page=7

Hundreds of Shias, especially those belonging to the Hazara community, have been targeted and killed in various bomb and gun attacks in Quetta. The Shia pilgrims travelling from Balochistan to Iran and Iraq by road to perform religious rites are also key targets of sectarian militant outfits especially in the district of Mastung.

“For Shia pilgrims, it is cheapest to travel by road from Balochistan to Iran and Iraq,” said Zaffer Naqvi, a Karachi-based Shia activist who has made the journey twice.

Rescuers work at the site of the December 30 bomb attack on a convoy of Shia pilgrims in Mastung

On December 30, a car bomb attack on three buses carrying Shia pilgrims to Iran killed 19 people and injured 25 in Mastung. The buses carrying the pilgrims, most of them from Punjab and Sindh, were traveling from Quetta to Taftan under a security cover provided by the Levies force.

On September 18, a car bomb exploded when a bus carrying Shia pilgrims came close to it, killing three people and injuring nine. According to local media reports, Ghazi Haq Nawaz, spokesman of a little known militant outfit, claimed the responsibility of both the attacks. Sunni militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) claims responsibility of most attacks on Hazara Shias, including the recent twin bombings.

At least 14 people, including two policemen and a woman, were killed and 30 others were injured in what is believed to be a suicide attack on a bus carrying pilgrims returning from Iran on June 28. Media reports said the attackers began chasing the bus from Mastung.

At least 32 people were killed and 85 were injured in five different attacks carried out in Mastung district in 2012, according to the annual Pakistan Security Report 2012, prepared by Islamabad-based Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS).

After the September 20, 2011 attack on a bus carrying Shia pilgrims in Mastung that left 26 dead, the Balochistan government has been providing security to the buses going to or coming from Iran, especially in Mastung area, said an official in the provincial Home Department.

Before this attack, the militants used to stop the buses, line up the passengers, checked their identity cards, and then killed only Shias pilgrims. Now, the militants use improvised explosive devices, the official said.

The 700-km journey from Quetta to Taftan takes about 12 hours of careful driving. The road passes mostly through desolated areas, especially in Mastung districts. Home department officials say that without proper anti-IED equipment and jammers, it is very difficult to stop IED attacks on the buses. The provincial government has asked the federal government several times to provide anti-IEDs equipment, they say.

Many poor Hazaras work as economic migrants. Some work in the coal mines in Much (near Quetta) and in Taftan. Others travel as far as the Iranian cities of Mashhad and Tehran looking for work.

Mastung district is the hometown and constituency of chief minister Nawab Aslam Raisani, whose government was suspended recently after thousands of Shias refused to bury their dead killed in a major terrorist attack on January 10, until the Balochistan government was dismissed and the army given control of Quetta.

A senior police official said Usman Saifullah Kurd, Dawood Badini and Shafiqur Rind were key suspects in sectarian attacks. Rind was arrested in 2003 from Mastung while Kurd was arrested by the CID Police in Karachi on June 22, 2006. Both fled from the Anti-Terrorist Force jail in Quetta on January 18, 2008. Rind was rearrested, but Kurd is still at large. Some analysts say Asmatullah Muavia, Punjab chief of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who has a strong network in South Punjab, is helping them.

According to Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the PIPS, an analysis of the geographical spread of incidents of sectarian violence from 2009 to 2012 suggests that Karachi, Quetta, Gilgit and Kurram Agency are the centers of sectarian violence.

Jan Achakzai, a senior security analyst, said the geopolitical dynamics of Balochistan were complicated, and the military was currently more focused on dealing with Baloch militants instead of sectarian groups. The provincial government was a scapegoat, he said, and it did not have the power to stop the insurgency or deal with sectarian groups, many of which were proxies of foreign governments.

Hazara elders believe the intelligence agencies are aware of the activities of banned sectarian outfits and the whereabouts of their leaders, who simply operate under new names. They say the state is either indifferent or supporting them.

The writer is a journalist and a security analyst who covers militancy in Pakistan. Email: zia_red@hotmail.com and Twitter: zalmayzia

Waziristan after Maulvi Nazir

by Zia Ur Rehman

January 11-17, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130111&page=3

On January 3, Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir and his key aides were killed when a missile fired from a US drone hit their pickup truck in the mountains of Sara Kandaah in Wana area of South Waziristan.

Seven militants including Nazir, his deputy Ratta Khan, and commanders Allaudin, Haneef Afghani aka Kochee, Ehsanullah Wazir and Maulvi Attaullah were killed in the attack, said an Ahmedzai tribal elder.

Nazir was the chief of one of the four major militant outfits operating in South and North Waziristan regions. The other three are the Hafiz Gul Bahadur-led group, the Haqqani Network and the Hakimullah Mehsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Nazir fell in the Pakistani military establishment’s “good Taliban” category because he focused his attacks on US forces in Afghanistan and avoided attacks on Pakistan. The TTP attacks Pakistani security forces and interests. Nazir had survived several attacks, including two drone strikes – one in February 2008 at the house of Maulana Haroon Wazir in which he was wounded, and another in October 2011 in Azam Warsark area in which his younger brother and a deputy were killed. Most recently, he survived a suicide bomb attack in November.

Maulvi Nazir had been an influential Taliban commander and tribal chief and had ties to various militant groups operating in the region, including Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network. Several key Al Qaeda leaders, including Ilyas Kashmiri, Abu Khabab al Masri, Osama al Kini, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, and Abu Zaid al Iraqi, had been killed in drone attacks in South Waziristan while being sheltered by Nazir. Nazir is also one of only three top-level Pakistani Taliban leaders to have been killed by a drone. The other two were Nek Muhammad and Baitullah Mehsud.

Nazir had been at loggerheads with the TTP leadership and Central Asian militants, especially those belonging to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). With support of the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe and assistance of the Pakistani military, Nazir had successfully flushed out the Uzbek militants from Wana in 2007.

Most analysts believe that Nazir’s death may be a serious setback to Taliban fighters who attack the US and allied forces in Afghanistan. Pentagon spokesman George Little said Nazir’s death, if true, would be “a significant blow” to extremist groups in the region. He said that it would be helpful not only to the US and Afghanistan but also to Pakistan because “this is someone who has a great deal of blood on his hands”.

His killing will damage the insurgency in the provinces of Afghanistan that share a border with Pakistan, especially Paktika and Khost, and may hurt Al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban sanctuaries in the Pakistani tribal areas, said Ashraf Khpalwak, a Kabul-based security analyst.

Other analysts foresee a greater challenge for Pakistan’s security forces, as they lose an ally against the TTP and as the area copes with a likely fallout. “Nazir’s death will complicate the situation for Pakistan,” said Abdul Basit, a senior analyst at Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism (ICPVTR). “Through Nazir’s outfit, Pakistani security forces were trying to launch a tribal (Ahmedzai) uprising against the TTP in South Waziristan to flush out the TTP’s Mehsud militants from the territory.”

After the November 29 suicide attack on Nazir, his faction ordered the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from the Mehsud tribe to leave the Wana area. The attack was blamed on the TTP, which draws its strength from the Mehsud tribe.

Basit says Nazir’s death could be a contentious issue between Washington and Islamabad. This view was corroborated by a retired military officer who is of view that the Pakistani military views commanders like Nazir as key to keeping peace internally, and his death will create a power vacuum in the area, sparking a tribal war leaving Pakistani forces to deal with the consequent instability.

“The killing of Nazir and his key lieutenants has hurt the network they led. That may take some pressure off the TTP, and allow the outfit to strengthen and expand its influence in Wana again,” said a tribal journalist based in Wana.

That may also lead to an increase in violence. “A dangerous scenario for the Pakistani military would be the joining of hands of Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir supporters with the TTP,” Asad Munir, a former Pakistani Army brigadier and security analyst, told New York Times, adding that Nazir’s forces had been “relatively peaceful” but that his death increased the chances of attacks on military targets.

The shura (council) of Wana Taliban has named Salahudddin Ayubi, whose real name is Bahawal Khan, to lead Nazir’s outfit after his killing. “Ayubi’s appointment to lead the Taliban in the Ahmedzai Wazir areas of South Waziristan is supported by both tribal and religious leaders,” Ainullah, a local Taliban commander, told reporters. A militant known as Taj Wazir was named the group’s new deputy chief to replace Ratta Khan. Local tribal elders who know Ayubi say the new chief is hot-tempered, unlike his predecessor. They think Ayubi will find it difficult to maintain a tribal consensus in his favor to keep his power base around the town of Wana largely peaceful.

The writer is a journalist and security analyst who covers militancy in Pakistan. Email: zia_red@hotmail.com and Twitter: zalmayzia

Taliban’s thorny olive branch

by Zia Ur Rehman

January 4-10, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130104&page=2

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) offered to hold peace talks with the government last week, but said it would not lay down arms until the implementation of their version of Sharia law in the country.
In a letter to journalists on December 26, TTP Punjab chief Asmatullah Muawiya said the group was ready to declare a ceasefire if the Pakistani government agreed to withdraw from the US-led war on terror and form a new foreign policy in accordance with Islam. Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan endorsed the contents of the letter.

On December 28, Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud appeared in a 40-minute video alongside Ehsan and Waliur Rehman, in which he said the TTP was ready to begin serious dialogue. “We believe in dialogue but it should not be frivolous,” he said. “Asking us to lay down arms is a joke.” He blamed the government for violence, saying it had broken peace agreements in the past.

Some politicians and analysts see the negotiation offer as a positive development. “We have a golden chance to bring an end to suicide bombings and terrorism after ten years of killing, frenzy, bloodshed and terror,” Ansar Abbasi, an Islamabad-based journalist, wrote in his December 27 article in The News . “The authorities have no choice but to respond positively to the TTP’s offer and get the local Taliban engaged in serious and sincere negotiations for the sake of Pakistan and its people. Pakistan can’t afford killings and terrorist attacks anymore.”

Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, former federal interior minister and chief of Qaumi Watan Party, agrees. “If the US can negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, then Pakistan must also seize the opportunity and start the process of negotiations with the TTP for restoration of peace in the country,” said Sherpao. He called for the formation of a grand Jirga for negotiating peace with the Taliban militants.

The timing of the truce offer is surprising for some security analysts who are linking it with other developments in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the last few months. They believe that the TTP wants the same recognition in Pakistan as the Afghan Taliban have in their country.

“The TTP sees that the regional situation will change in the next couple of years so they will have to work out some way to survive. The Afghan Taliban have showed their willingness to talk and once they lay down their arms the so-called jihad that the TTP is waging will automatically be discredited,” said Abdul Basit, a senior analyst at Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism (ICPVTR). “After a ceasefire in Afghanistan, there is no reason left for the TTP to continue fighting the Pakistan Army in FATA. To me that fear is pushing them to negotiate,” he said.

Some think that the TTP’s charter of demands essentially amounts to a surrender of the Pakistani state to the militants. “The TTP leadership is also confused and their idea of peace talks is less clear,” said an Awami National Party (ANP) leader from Swat who played a role in peace talks with the Sufi Muhammad-led Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) in 2008. “One one side, the TTP leaders are offering peace talks, and on the other, they are kidnapping and killing security personnel from the outskirts of Peshawar. It indicates that they are not interested in peace,” he said.

ANP’s central leader and railways minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour said the offer for negotiations was an attempt to create division among political parties. “The statement seemed to be written by some intelligent politician. It is an attempt to create division among political parties, especially between the ANP and the MQM.”

The journalists who have read the TTP letter say it contains nothing new. “The Taliban have been making these demands since the day the movement began,” said a reporter from FATA. “Nobody will take them seriously.”

The government has made several peace deals with factions of the Pakistani Taliban since they emerged about a decade ago. The Shakai, Sararogha and Swat peace agreements were written down, while there were a number of verbal truces in North and South Waziristan. All of these deals failed, and each one resulted in the Taliban becoming stronger, said Basit.

A retired military officer said the TTP wanted to gain “higher moral grounds” with the offer at a time when a national consensus was emerging in the country on an operation in North Waziristan. He said that the security establishment has ruled out a ceasefire with the TTP, and that the recent peace overture from the militants was a ploy to avoid a possible military offensive in the tribal areas.

Abdul Basit believes talking to the TTP is like talking to Al Qaeda, and it would mean accepting that their struggle was legitimate. Laying down arms, he says, should be the precondition to negotiations.

The writer is a journalist and security analyst. Email:zia_red@hotmail.com and Twitter: zalmayzia

Immobilized

By Zia Ur Rehman

Dec 28, 2012-Jan 3, 2013

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20121228&page=4

Nine health workers involved in Pakistan’s polio eradication campaign were gunned down in Karachi and Peshawar last week. Six of them were women. The assassinations are being seen as a coordinated attack against the immunization drive.

Five anti-polio campaigners were killed in Karachi’s Pashtun dominated areas. Umer Farooq Mehsud, 30, who was a polio vaccination volunteer in Union Council 4 area of Gadap Town, was shot dead on December 17. On December 18, Madiha, 19, and Fahmida, 44, were the first two to be slain in the Gulshan-e-Buner area of Landhi. Within 15 minutes, Naseema Akhtar, another female polio vaccinator, was shot dead in Orangi Town, while her colleague, Muhammad Israr, was critically injured in the attack. Thirty minutes later, Kaneez Jan was shot dead in Ittehad Town, while her coworker Rashid was injured in the attack.

Similarly, Farzana Bibi, who was administrating anti-polio vaccines in Suburban Mathra area of Peshawar, was killed on December 18. On December 19, a supervisor of the anti-polio campaign and her driver were killed by unidentified gunmen in Battagram police precincts in Charsadda district. Another anti-polio campaigner was wounded in Peshawar December 19 and died at Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) December 20.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and World Health Organization (WHO) have stopped all their field immunization campaigns after the attacks. WHO earlier estimated that 280,000 children living in the tribal areas were in need of polio vaccination.

“Out of a total target of 18.5 million for the last polio round, 14.9 million children were vaccinated throughout the country. More than 3.5 million children missed the immunization,” Dr Elias Durry, WHO’s senior coordinator for polio eradication in Pakistan, told AFP. “The WHO and all the partners in the polio eradication campaign salute the bravery of thousands of polio team members in the country who performed their duties in the line of fire to reach the 14.9 million children,” he said.

Jundullah, an outfit linked to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attacks. “Polio vaccination is forbidden in Islam and the group will continue to target vaccination teams across Pakistan,” its spokesperson Ahmed Marwat told RFERL’s Pashto Radio Mashaal.

Taliban militants recently vowed to bar vaccination teams from entering the tribal areas, including Khyber Agency and North and South Waziristan, but the recent attacks on vaccination teams indicate that Taliban want to disrupt immunization campaigns across the country.

“The attacks on polio team workers in Karachi are coordinated acts and all incidents occurred in those Pashtun dominated areas of Karachi where Taliban militants operate,” said a senior police official who runs an anti-militancy operation in the city.

Some security analysts link the attacks on polio volunteers with reports that the CIA had used a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, to set up a fake anti-polio campaign as a cover for the search for Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. The WHO said in its July 19 statement that Afridi was never part of any genuine or fake polio vaccination program in Pakistan and that baseless reports linking him to anti-polio efforts had damaged the ongoing vaccination campaign in the country.

“In the garb of these vaccination campaigns, the US and its allies are running spy networks in the tribal areas, and that has brought death and destruction in the form of drone strikes,” said a pamphlet distributed a few months ago by militants loyal to Mullah Nazir in Wana.

Others say the propaganda campaign against the immunization drive by religious elements and misconceptions associated with the vaccination drive are major outreach hurdles. “Religious extremists had persuaded a large number of Pashtuns in the past that the polio vaccine was un-Islamic and was being administrated at the behest of the West to sterilize their children,” said a health worker who runs a polio immunization campaign in Swat valley.

He said that he had first heard such fatwas by Sufi Mohammad in 1994, when he launched Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) in Swat and Malakand. TTP Swat leader Fazlullah and his colleagues also preached on their illegal FM radios that polio vaccination caused infertility. Some clerics have even issued fatwas saying that any person who was crippled or died from polio would be given the status of a martyr, for refusing to be duped by a western conspiracy.

But, Tahir Ashrafi, who heads the Pakistan Ulema Council, opposes such edicts. He said clerics from his group would deliver sermons against the killing of health workers in Friday sermons. Pakistani traditions and Islam did not allow such attacks, he said, and that these women were martyrs because they were serving humanity.

Pakistan is one of the three countries in the world where polio has not been completely eradicated. The other two are Afghanistan and Nigeria. Militancy in Afghanistan and some parts of Pakistan has led to a rise in polio cases in those areas, imperiling efforts to wipe out the disease worldwide, said a study published on July 4 in the health journal The Lancet.

Last year, Pakistan reported the highest number of polio cases in a decade, 198 in total, compared to 144 in 2010, while Afghanistan had 81 cases – up from 30 the year before. This year so far, 23 cases of polio have been reported in Pakistan, a distinct improvement on the 59 reported by the same date last year.