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Posted by admin in US DRONE WAR ON PAKISTAN on October 30th, 2013
Pakistani protesters belonging to United Citizen Action march behind a burning US flag during a protest in Multan on September 30, 2013, against the US drone attacks in Pakistani tribal areas (AFP Photo / S.S Mirza)
With the increased use of remotely piloted aircraft in military operations in a number of countries, the nagging question of civilian “collateral damage” as a consequence of these deadly technologies is a growing concern for the United Nations and human right groups.
In Afghanistan, for example, the number of aerial drone strikes surged from 294 in 2011 to 447 during the first 11 months of 2012, according to data released by the US Air Force in November 2012, UN Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson noted in his interim report.
Pakistan officials confirmed that out of 2,200 deaths “at least 400 civilians had been killed as a result of remotely piloted aircraft strikes and a further 200 individuals were regarded as probable non-combatants.”
Although the first missile test-fired from a drone occurred in February 2001, it wasn’t until the end of 2012 that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released data showing that 16 civilians had been killed and 5 injured due to drone strikes during the course of the year.
In its latest published figures, covering the first six months of 2013, UNAMA documented 15 civilian deaths and 7 injuries in seven separate attacks by drone aircraft.
Emmerson’s 24-page document, which is due to be presented to the UN General Assembly next Friday, mentions a report by a US military advisor that contradicted official US claims that drone attacks were responsible for fewer civilian deaths compared with other aerial platforms, for example, fighter jets.
He pointed to research by Larry Lewis, a research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, who examined aerial strikes in Afghanistan from mid-2010 to mid-2011. With the help of classified military data, Lewis found that the missile strikes conducted by drones were “10 times more deadly to Afghan civilians” than those performed by fighter jets, according to a report by The Guardian newspaper.
Northrop Grumman / Chad Slattery / Handout via Reuters
The United States and the United Kingdom have been reluctant to hand over information regarding drone strikes of any sort, including those that result in civilian deaths. For example, on February 21, 2010, 23 civilians were killed and 12 wounded in a Predator strike in southern Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province.
The US military released partially declassified information on the incident, suggesting “administrative and disciplinary sanctions” against the crew for providing misleading “situational information” as well as “a predisposition to engage in kinetic activity (the release of a missile).”
Emmerson said the US, which has attracted a lot of scorn in Afghanistan over the drone attacks, had created “an almost insurmountable obstacle to transparency.”
“The Special Rapporteur does not accept that considerations of national security justify withholding statistical and basic methodological data of this kind,” Emmerson wrote in the report.
The United Kingdom, which also figured into the report, has officially admitted to one civilian casualty incident, in which four civilians were killed and two civilians injured in a remotely piloted aircraft strike by the Royal Air Force in Afghanistan on March 25, 2011.
However, that figure remains open to speculation given that the United Kingdom’s ‘Reaper’ drone has flown more than 46,000 hours in Afghanistan, averaging three sorties per day, with a total of 405 weapons discharged.
Emmerson also reported that Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided him with statistics on drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, where the US military has targeted members of Al-Qaeda since 2004.
The government noted the difficulties in determining the exact number of civilian deaths due to particular“topographical and institutional obstacles” of the Tribal Areas, including the tradition of immediately burying the bodies of the dead. So the figures are likely to be an underestimate.
The highest amount of civilian casualties, Emmerson noted, came when the CIA dramatically increased drone attacks in Pakistan between 2008 and 2010. Following intense criticism from Islamabad, however, drone strikes in Pakistan have steadily declined and “the number of civilian deaths has dropped dramatically.”
Pakistani schoolgirls walk along a path after school in Mingora, a town in Swat valley (AFP Photo / A Majeed)
In September, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), a non-profit organization launched a project,“Naming the Dead,” to record properly the names and numbers of people who are killed by US drone airstrikes in Pakistan.
Civilian fatalities attributed to US drone strikes have occurred beyond the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, including in Yemen, where the figure is 12-58, according to Emmerson. Statistics are not yet available from Iraq or the Nato operation in Libya in 2011.
Meanwhile, with America’s arch-enemy Al-Qaeda looking increasingly fractured, especially with the death of its terror mastermind, Osama bin Laden, the question as to who now qualifies as a legitimate target of US strikes is becoming more pertinent. More importantly, perhaps, are the limitations that the United States and other countries must recognize as the battle against ‘terrorism’ goes global.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has noted the absence of a clear international consensus on the issue, Emmerson noted. But one thing that is generally accepted, however, is that“international humanitarian law does not permit the targeting of persons directly participating in hostilities who are located in non-belligerent States, given that, otherwise, the whole world is potentially a battlefield,” the report emphasized.
In Washington, the report got a lukewarm reception with White House spokesperson Laura Magnuson saying, “We are aware that this report has been released and are reviewing it carefully.”
She noted that at the National Defense University on May 23, “[T]he President spoke at length about the policy and legal rationale for how the United States takes action against Al-Qaeda and its associated forces. As the President emphasized, the use of lethal force, including from remotely piloted aircraft, commands the highest level of attention and care.”
The Special Rapporteur intends to submit a final report on the subject of robotic aircraft in counter-terrorism operations to the Human Rights Council in 2014.
Posted by admin in US CLEAR & PRESENT DANGER TO PAKISTAN, US DRONE WAR ON PAKISTAN, US FOREIGN POLICY & INTERNATIONAL LAW, US INFILTRATION OF PAKISTAN AGENCIES & COMMISSIONS on October 26th, 2013
This file image shows the tribal area of South Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan. (AFP Photo)
The documents — detailed, previously unpublished funding requests from America’s top intelligence agencies — were first disclosed in part on Thursday when the Washington Post said it had proof that America’s main spy offices looked to receive $52.6 billion in fiscal year 2013. Upon further analysis of the so-called “black budget,” the Post has since discovered that the US is increasing efforts to spy within Pakistan in order to understand more thoroughly the supposed ally’s nuclear arms arsenal.
According to the Post, researching the black budget has led journalists to determine that US officials believe there is a significant intelligence gap with regards to Pakistan, and that the US is more interested than ever in that nation’s nuclear capabilities amid what may be the comparably best relationship the two countries have experienced in over a decade.
Despite nearly 12 years of heavy US military activity following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, American/Pakistani tensions have loosened as of late, presumably after a drawback in localized drone strikes and other covert combat that has subsided since US Navy SEALS captured and killed former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in rural Pakistan in May 2011.
Although the Post has not released the 178-page black budget in full, it has selectively published a handful of excerpts and quoted from it extensively in a number of articles to appear in print and online since last week. According to the Post’s Greg Miller, Craig Whitlock and Barton Gellman, the latest disclosures identified through analysis of the top-secret documents “expose broad new levels of US distrust in an already unsteady security partnership with Pakistan,” and “also reveal a more expansive effort to gather intelligence on Pakistan than US officials have disclosed.”
The document, reported the Post, divulges uncertainty within the US intelligence community regarding Pakistan, particularly in reference to the country’s nuclear capabilities. One excerpt of the budget quoted by the Post warned that “knowledge of the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and associated material encompassed one of the most critical set of . . . intelligence gaps.” According to the Post, US officials were concerned about those “given the political instability, terrorist threat and expanding inventory [of nuclear weapons] in that country.”
The paper also noted that while Pakistan’s name is frequently absent from the budget request, the counterterrorism and counter-proliferation operations waged by the US are centralized in that nation, nestled in the Middle East between Iraq, Afghanistan and India. Taking into account just its counterterrorism and counter-proliferation measures, the US intelligence community sought more than $27 billion in FY2013 — or around half of what was requested in all — most of which is likely spent on covert operations. Former and current US intelligence officials who spoke to the Post said the armed drone campaign that targets al-Qaeda militants on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border is among the most expensive of those covert programs.
So significant are US concerns with regards to monitoring weapons of mass destruction in Pakistan, the Post reported that the budget contains once section in which it focuses on containing the spread of illicit weapons among two geographic regions: Pakistan and elsewhere.
The Post reported that budget suggests Pakistan contains 120 nuclear weapons, although US intelligence agencies suspect that number will soon rise. In order to better understand that nation’s nuke program, the budget discusses the creation of a Pakistan WMD Analysis Cell, the paper reported, in order to keep tabs on where nuclear materials move within the country. Together, the Post claimed, the CIA and Pentagon were able “to develop and deploy a new compartmented collection capability” that delivered a “more comprehensive understanding of strategic weapons security in Pakistan.”
Despite that accomplishment, however, the budget still noted that “the number of gaps associated with Pakistani nuclear security remains the same,” and “the questions associated with this intractable target are more complex.”
“If the Americans are expanding their surveillance capabilities, it can only mean one thing,” former Pakistani ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani told the Post, “The mistrust now exceeds the trust.”
Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, explained to the Post that the US is “committed to a long-term partnership with Pakistan, and we remain fully engaged in building a relationship that is based on mutual interests and mutual respect.”
“We have an ongoing strategic dialogue that addresses in a realistic fashion many of the key issues between us, from border management to counterterrorism, from nuclear security to promoting trade and investment,” she said.
“The United States and Pakistan share a strategic interest in combating the challenging security issues in Pakistan, and we continue to work closely with Pakistan’s professional and dedicated security forces to do so,” added Hayden.
The Post first published excerpts of this year’s black budget on Thursday and attributed the top-secret disclosure to Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who fled from the US earlier this year and has since been granted asylum in Russia. In the days since the paper began working on the latest Snowden leak it has published a previously undisclosed figure for the amount of money requested by the likes of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency, and also exposed a program of offensive cyber operations waged by US officials against foreign foes.
Posted by Fawad Mir in Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell on May 18th, 2013
Nawaz Sharif, the Bacha Jamoora of US, Hijacks another Pakistan Election, through Masive Vote Fraud, election rigging in Punjab, the Province Ruled by his Brother Shahbaz Sharif.
FIA officials who had investigated the money-laundering charges against the Sharifs faced termination from service, while the agency was told that even a decision to probe money-laundering
was a crime. This particular case is likely to now go to the Supreme Court in the next few weeks.
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Bacha Jamora Jaag Ja – 7th April 2013 Playwire Video
Bacha Jamora Jaag Ja – 7th April 2013 Tune.pk Video
Bacha Jamora Jaag Ja – 7th April 2013 YouTube Video
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NAWAZ SHARIF LISTENS TO HIS MASTER’S VOICE-LIKE HE DID IN KARGIL WAR
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Meanwhile, some candidates are crying foul, especially several from Imran Khan‘s Movement for Justice, PTI.
Hamid Zaman, a wealthy businessman who is new to politics, contested a seat in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, and lost to the incumbent, PML-N’s Riaz Malik.
He claims to have video evidence of PML-N activists filling in ballot papers on behalf of his rival.
Zaman says his son, who was also a candidate, witnessed cases of fraud and his supporters have posted video on Facebook of one alleged case.
“In several places they caught people red-handed putting in votes, in at least two places” he says. “And the video’s showing the same on one of the stations. And then there were crowds of people inside who were telling people to vote.
Zaman told RFI on Sunday that he would file a complaint on Monday.
“Also I’m going to go to the Supreme Court against my opponent because, actually, he was not qualified to contest these elections. His degree is false, he never passed high school, so he was contesting on a fake degree.”
Zaman’s supporters on Sunday held a sit-in on a road in the constituency he fought on Sunday and pledged to do so every day until a re-run is announced.
But what will count with legal experts is the fact that in their tax returns, none of the Sharif family members had ever showed any foreign ownership of any properties, nor had their tax returns listed payments for any rented apartments abroad.
“With the sale of these Mayfair apartments, you can buy three Rockwood-size properties of Asif Zardari,” commented a source, who added that Sharif’s third party owned properties in Britain may land them in a crisis comparable only with Benazir and Zardari’s cases abroad.
In another example of hypocrisy, while Sharif geared up his government’s campaign against loan defaulters in Pakistan, a High Court in London declared his family a defaulter and ordered them to pay US$ 18.8 million to Al-Towfeek Company and its subsidiary Al-Baraka Islamic Bank as payment for interest and loan they had borrowed for Hudabiya Papers Limited.
The court papers said that the Sharifs refused to make payments on the principle amount and instead directed official action against the Arab company’s business interests in Pakistan. Informed sources said that a few days before the fall of the Nawaz Sharif government on October 12, lawyers representing the Sharif family were busy in hectic behind-the-scenes negotiations with Al-Towfeek executives in London for an out-of-court settlement. These sources said that negotiations in London broke down soon after the army action in Islamabad.
While Nawaz Sharif deployed the entire state machinery and spent millions of dollars from the IB’s secret fund to prove money-laundering charges against Benazir Bhutto and her husband abroad, his government crushed any attempt by the FIA to move the Supreme Court of Pakistan against a decision handed down by the Lahore High Court absolving the Sharif family from money-laundering charges instituted against them by the last PPP government.
THE BIGGEST DANGER TO PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR & MISSILE PROGRAM
US AGENT NAWAZ SHARIF
READ & WEEP
Posted by Rana Tanveer in BUNGLER NAWAZ SHARIF, CIA AGENT NAWAZ SHARIF, Corruption on May 6th, 2013
Islamabad: Pakistan’s anti-corruption watchdog has objected to the candidature of former premier Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif in the upcoming General Election, saying they had defaulted on a bank loan worth Rs 3.48 billion.
The National Accountability Bureau yesterday raised the issue in an official communication sent to the Election Commission.
Three graft cases against the Sharifs and their relatives are currently pending in an anti-corruption court in Rawalpindi, NAB officials told the media.
The Sharif brothers have been accused of defaulting on a loan that was taken for the Hudaibiya Paper Mills.
Nawaz Sharif, the head of the main opposition PML-N, and former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif were also accused of accumulating money and assets beyond their declared means of income by misusing authority.
A case in this regard was filed against them in an anti-corruption court in Attack in March 2000. Several of their relatives, including Nawaz Sharif’s son Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, Shamim Akhtar, Sabiha Abbas, Maryam Safdar and Ishaq Dar, are among the accused in the cases.
Rehman Malik also alleged that Nawaz Sharif made a second NRO with dictator Pervez Musharraf and went abroad after signing an agreement and violated the Charter of Democracy (COD) he signed with Benazir Bhutto in 2006.
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday alleged that PML-N Chief and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was involved in money laundering.
Addressing a news conference in Islamabad, he said evidence against Nawaz Sharif would be placed before the Supreme Court and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for alleged corruption of $32 million.
Rehman Malik said a commission may be formed to investigate alleged involvement of Nawaz Sharif in money laundering.
He appealed to the Supreme Court to call him and he would present all evidence. He further alleged that Nawaz Sharif made an NRO with former President Farooq Ahmed Leghari and as a result, Benazir Bhutto’s elected government was unconstitutionally dismissed in November 1996.
Rehman Malik also alleged that Nawaz Sharif made a second NRO with dictator Pervez Musharraf and went abroad after signing an agreement and violated the Charter of Democracy (COD) he signed with Benazir Bhutto in 2006.
A spokesman for the PML-N rejected the allegations against the party’s top leadership, saying the accusations made by the NAB were “misleading”.
He alleged that NAB officials were acting at the behest of the previous Pakistan People’s Party-led government to target PML-N leaders.
The Election Commission recently made the NAB part of the set-up for scrutinising the candidates for the May 11 General Election.
Shahbaz Sharif is contesting polls to the Punjab Assembly while Nawaz Sharif is a candidate for polls to the National Assembly. The elder Sharif is widely tipped to become premier if the PML-N wins the polls.
The NAB has set up special election cells to facilitate the scrutiny of candidates.
The Election Commission has also roped in the Federal Bureau of Revenue, State Bank of Pakistan and National Database and Registration Authority in a bid to weed out candidates accused of corruption or wrong-doing.
The Election Commission has said that tax-evaders, people who default on loans and utility bills and beneficiaries of loan write-offs will be barred from contesting the polls, which will mark the first democratic transition in Pakistan’s history.
Posted by admin in India Splitting, INDIA STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM IN PAKISTAN, INDIAN TERRORISM FROM CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS, INDOPHILE NAWAZ SHARIF, US AGENT NAWAZ SHARIF-DRONE WAR SUPPORTER, US DRONE WAR ON PAKISTAN, US FOREIGN POLICY & INTERNATIONAL LAW, US Interference in Balochistan, US SPYING ON GLOBAL COMMUNITY on September 4th, 2013
US & India Joint Strategy to Destabilize Pakistan
William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages.
Developing Pakistan-China ties which can drastically change the economic map of the region are threatened by Pakistani separatism, which might suddenly transform into another ‘terror ground.’
As Washington continues sending its development assistance aid in the form of drones to bomb civilians illegally inside Pakistan’s borders, allegedly to go after Taliban fighters, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently completed a trip to Beijing where he met Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, his first foreign visit after the May elections. The Pakistani Federal Cabinet subsequently approved the start of negotiations and signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on developing a “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor”long-term plan, and an action plan between the development ministries of the two countries.
The core of the new agreements between China and neighboring Pakistan calls for accelerated development of a 2,000-km trade infrastructure corridor linking Gwadar Port on Pakistan’s Indian Ocean coast to Kashgar, the westernmost city in China’s Xingjiang province. Pakistan has offered China a‘trade and energy corridor’ via Gwadar, linked to inland roads. The plan would import oil from the Middle East, to refineries at Gwadar and sent on to China via roads, pipelines or railway.
A view of the Beijing-funded “megaport” of Gwadar, in southwestern Pakistan (AFP Photo)
Xinjiang is also the heart of China’s known oil resources and a transit area for major oil and gas pipelines. The development will cost billions of euros, which China reportedly has now pledged in the form of ‘soft loans’. The railway infrastructure will provide crucial links for transporting oil and gas from the Persian Gulf and minerals and food from Africa will be the heart of the newproject.http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_61094.shtm
However, in six months this area will “suddenly” become a major “terror ground” that conveniently will disrupt the rail infrastructure link. It reminds me of the German Berlin-Baghdad Rail link to the Ottoman Empire before WWI that was the major cause for Britain to ally with Czarist Russia and France in the Triple Entente that became WWI in 1914.
China’s needs for energy resources, food and minerals from the Gulf and Africa have boosted trade between the regions in the recent years. China’s trade with the UAE alone has grown 15-fold since 2000 to reach $37 billion. It is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015. Some 2,500 Chinese firms have offices in Dubai. China’s largest bank ICBC and the Bank of China also have branches in the Gulf sheikhdom where they are beginning to transact bilateral trade in Chinese renminbi rather than dollars.
The Chinese are currently upgrading some 600 kilometers of the China-Pakistan highway. The KKH was built in 1986 from Kashgar through Pakistan and the upgrade will make it suitable for heavy container traffic and linking it to Gwadar Port. China and Pakistan are also working to link Gwadar port and Xinjiang through a new Chinese-financed railway network. This will turn Gwadar Port and the KKH into a trade corridor for China and other Central Asians countries and create in Gwadar an energy, transport, and industrial hub providing direct and economical access to the Arabian Sea for both China and resource rich Central Asian states.
Gwadar is the world’s largest deep sea port. It lies in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan in the warm water Arabian Sea. The design and construction of the final stages of the port, which began in 2002, is being carried out in collaboration with China. It has an immense geostrategic importance at the entrance to the Persian Gulf and is a likely substitute for the Port of Dubai. In 2011 Pakistan invited China to build a Naval base at Gwadar, something the Pentagon is eyeing very closely. China has yet to respond on that.
It will generate billions of dollars in revenue for Pakistan and likely create about two million jobs.
Pakistan and China have signed agreements to help energy starved Pakistan to utilize the hydro-electric potential offered by the area by constructing the Diamer-Bhasha and Bunji dams.
China also wants to import gas from Iran by joining the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline that will pass through Gilgit Baltistan on the Pakistan border to Xinjiang in China.
Also Pakistan and China have signed agreements to develop entirely new industrial cities in various parts of Pakistan along the route of the rail link, including at Gwadar.
Close to the Straits of Hormuz, Gwadar has the potential to become the gateway to Central Asia and China. It’s at the junction of the world’s three most important strategic and economic regions–Middle East, South Asia and Central Asian states—giving it the potential, barring new wars, to generate billions in annual transit trade. As part of a shift in policy, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have recently been eagerly pursuing trade and economic links with China.
On January 30 this year, Pakistan turned over the management and operation of the Gwadar Port Authority to a Chinese company at the same time the Pakistan government signed up to the Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline, tying Pakistan, Iran and China more closely, something that caused pain in Washington.
The availability of a major alterative trade route that cuts distance and time from the present long and slow 8000 km route by ship from the Persian Gulf through the Malacca Strait to the eastern seaboard of China will give both the Gulf states, as well as parts of Africa where China is very active, and Asia, huge economic benefits.
Conveniently for Washington, which has no interest in fostering greater Chinese independence of energy supply, in recent months a growing militant separatist movement has erupted on the scene in Baluchistan, the Pakistan province where Gwadar is located.
In 2006 the US Armed Forces Journal published an article by Colonel Ralph Peters titled Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look. In the piece, which appears to bear uncanny relevance to subsequent Pentagon and US State Department policy in the region, Peters calls for the creation of aFree Baluchistan.
His call was echoed by US Pakistan “expert” Selig Harrison, who reportedly enjoys strong ties to the CIA. In 2006 after Peters published his sensational article Harrison wrote in Le Monde Diplomatique and the New York Times that a Free Baluchistan movement was “simmering.” The call by Peters and Harrison for a Free Baluchistan began four years after China began building the first phase of the Gwadar Port.
On June 15 this year, terror attacks including a suicide bombing of a bus filled with students and a gunfight in the city that left two dozen dead, hit the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a militant separatist group, claimed responsibility. The BLA wasn’t acting alone. As the injured students were being rushed to hospital, they ran into an ambush by the ‘Pakistani Taliban’, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ).
The BLA has been involved in attacks on government oil fields and gas pipelines. The Pakistan government accuses India of being behind the BLA. India recently has been moving closer to the US and to Japan in a military alliance that has a distinct anti-China bent.
Further, on July 29, jihadist militants armed with rockets and heavy weapons launched a concerted assault on a major prison in Dera Ismail Khan, close to the South Waziristan tribal agency in northwestern Pakistan, along the route of the rail-highway-pipelines from Gwadar to Xinjiang, freeing an estimated 250 militants affiliated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Xinjiang has recently suffered from new rioting by separatist Muslim Uyghurs. In late June in Xinjiang, home to some 10 million Uyghurs, two terror attacks killed 35 people days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the July 5, 2009 riot in the capital Urumqi that left 197 people dead.
The Jihadist Uyghur terrorists apparently are being recruited in Turkey by an Uyghur independence organization, sent to Syria for combat experience and, if they survive, sent back to Xinjiang to carry out terror deeds there.
China’s official daily, Global Times, reported in early July that a Muslim Uyghur from Xinjiang, Memeti Alili was arrested in Xinjiang during the new wave of terrorist acts and riots.
The Chinese daily reported that the 23-year-old Alili confessed to police that he had been recruited as a student in Istanbul by something called the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Aili was arrested when returning to Xinjiang to complete his mission to “carry out violent attack and improve fighting skills.”He confessed that he had been assigned to return by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM is a terrorist group that aims to create an Islamist state in Xinjiang, which works alongside the East Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association (ETESA), an Istanbul-based exile group.
This picture taken on August 5, 2013 shows the shell of a burnt out bus being towed by a rescue vehicle along a street in Urumqi in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (AFP Photo)
Muslim Uyghur youth are being recruited to go to Istanbul to “study”, then recruited by ETIM and ETESA to fight as Jihadists in Syria with Al Qaeda and other jihad groups, according to China’s anti-terrorism authority. If they survive the Syrian battlefield training, the Uyghur jihadists are recycled back to Xinjiang in China, the end-point of the new Gwadar to China rail and road infrastructure “land bridge.”
The headquarters of ETESA, located in Istanbul include research, media, social affairs, education and women’s affairs departments. It aims to “educate and train Muslims” in Xinjiang and “set them free” by forming a Muslim state, according to a Chinese official. In 2004, in Washington Anwar Yusuf Turani established the East Turkistan Government in Exile. Washington seemed not to object, though many other countries did, including China.
The Istanbul link of ETIM and ETESA is no accident. Istanbul’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly backed the Uyghur separatists in 2009 during the riots, calling them fellow Turkic peoples.
Meanwhile, as if to further underscore how vulnerable any China-Pakistani energy and trade corridor from Gwadar to Xinjiang would be, on the eve of US Secretary of State Kerry’s visit to Islamabad to meet Pakistan’s Prime Minister just after the China deal of Pakistan, the US made several drone attacks inside Pakistan in the North Waziristan tribal region. They killed at least six people. It was the fourth US drone strike since Sharif was re-elected as Prime Minister in June, all in the crucial North Waziristan en route to Xinjiang. Despite Pakistan’s strong protests Washington refuses to halt the CIA-run drone attacks.
With the CIA drone attacks, the Baluchistan attacks of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Baloch Liberation Army, as well as Jihadists being sent into Xinjiang from Turkey and Syria, we can expect unrest to increase in Baluchistan province and upwards to Xinjiang as the huge China-Pakistan infrastructure plans materialize in coming months.
Disclaimer
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT or PTT.
Posted by Rana Tanveer in US DRONE WAR ON PAKISTAN on June 14th, 2013
An Open Letter to the PM Pakistan
H’onble Mian Nawaz Sharif Sahab,
Salaam.Regarding drone issue, I don’t think this fact may have been brought to your kind notice that drones are just machines; and if we shoot them, no US loss of life will entail.
Now, there is a question that why Pakistan must shoot down the US drones? The answer lies in the fact that its not ONLY a matter of violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. If today, the US is attacking our tribal areas,tomorrow who can stop them targeting areas in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore? And then the US can easily say “sorry it was a computer malfunction, caused by a cyber attack from Iran or China”.
As I have already informed you in one of my earlier emails, the biggest crime of Pervaiz Musharraf was not the toppling of your elected government. Rather, his biggest crime was to remove the fear of a nuclear power country from the hearts of its enemies. And that was the SPECIFIC reason, Americans knew in advance, before launching a full fledged bombardment on Salala post, resulting in killings of about 28 Pak Army officers and Jawans and injuring many others, that this was a gutless, pseudo and impotent nuclear power, with which they can do any offensive, without any HARD retaliation.
This fact is proved with the Americans refusal to apologise on their aggression. We must also never forget that this was not only an attack on Pakistan, but also a gift to India, EXACTLY on 26/11, for satisfying Indian’s ego on the anniversary of Mumbai attack. Americans call Pakistan a major non-NATO ally, but the fact is that in Asia, after Israel, no country is closer friend of America, than India.
Further, can anyone imagine the sorry image of a nuclear power, that a country like Afghanistan, which doesn’t even possesses regular armed forces, attacks Pakistani forces, at will; and beheads our soldiers in large numbers. All these HIGHLY aggressive and provocative acts against our country, have proven to our enemies that Pakistan either doesn’t have any threshold, or if at all there is any red line, its absolutely NOT visible to our enemies.
This is a very dangerous situation which constantly invites aggression against Pakistan. THIS IS ALSO AN OPEN INVITATION TO SNATCH AND GRAB OUR NUCLEAR ASSETS (WHENEVER THEY FEEL IT NECESSARY) WITHOUT ANY FEAR OF NUCLEAR OR CONVENTIONAL RETALIATION FROM PAKISTAN, ON THEIR ASSETS IN THE REGION. THE MAXIMUM THEY WILL EXPECT IS A LOCALISED RESISTANCE FROM PAKISTAN, WHICH IS ALWAYS FEARFUL ABOUT A FULL FLEDGED ATTACK AND CHOCKING OF ITS ECONOMIC LIFE LINE. But the recent OPEN NUCLEAR threat from North Korea, to attack America, is a classical case study, which proves that US can ill afford a nuclear attack. It will not be out of place to mention here that India, after testing 5000 KM range missiles, is now almost ready for the test of 10,000 KM range missiles. Which means for all the practical purposes, America will be, within the range of Indian nuclear attack.
In today’s world, nuclear weapons are NOT FOR — — USE; and are just acquired as a deterrence and to push the country’s interests, among the comity of nations.
Manufacturing the nuclear weapons are very expensive, but maintaining and securing the nuclear weapons are even more costly. We have to derive the CBR (cost benefit ratio) of manufacturing and maintaining the nuclear arsenals of Pakistan, knowing very well that these nuclear weapons are NOT for use, but are there to diffuse, the ill intentions of the Pakistan’s adversaries. And this BASIC purpose of acquiring nuclear weapons by Pakistan, has been ALMOST diluted, by the sell off, of the nation by Pervaiz Musharraf, which has prompted our adversaries to embark upon their plans of BALKANISATION of Pakistan, by various overt and covert means. Even today (9 June, 2013) there was a news item Published in the daily “The News” page #2 under the heading “US, UK support for Baloch leaders Shocks Pakistan, allies at UN”. This proves my stance that our nuclear status and stature = zero as far as, our influence is concerned, to steer Pakistan’s foreign policy and its image. And don’t forget we are a major non-NATO ally of the 49 nations NATO alliance, fighting US imposed WOT (war on terror) in Afghanistan; and our losses in men and material are minimum 10 times higher than the combined losses of the 49 countries.
On the other hand, the impact of North Korea’s nuclear image can be easily gauged with another news item published on 9 June, 2013, by the daily “The News” on page #24 under the tittle “UN food body approves $200m food aid to N Korea”.
So, coming back to the main issue, we should not forget that even non nuclear nations have been preserving their integrity and sovereignty in the face of blatant aggression from the US. The examples of Cuba and Iran are standing tall against American aggression, which also clearly proves that “one can’t be insulted more than he permits” or in other words “our respect is in our own hands”. Here, we must not forget that after Iran brought down US drone violating its air space, it refused to hand over the (intact) plane, despite severe pleadings from the US government. However, in our case it was reported in the press that our previous government, handed back the tail of the crashed US helicopter to America, which invaded Pakistan’s city of Abbotabad.
As such, Mr. Prime Minister, your number 1 job is to restore the image and reputation of a nuclear Pakistan. And luckily, the importance of Pakistan has gone so high (at least till the end of the year 2014) that you need not at all, embark upon war with any nation; only correct posturing with unmistakeable intentions, known VERY clearly to all and sundry, will deliver your objectives.
Last but not the least, a great statesman is not the person who wages the war and wins it. The greatest statesman is he, who achieves his objectives without waging a war. In this regard, Allah has ordained in the holy Quran, the art of statecraft, by telling the Muslims to keep your horses READY and FIGHTING FIT, and to your enemies, your 20 horses will look 200.Best Wishes and Highest Regards,
Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad
Lahore
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