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Posted by admin in ISLAM MESSAGE OF PEACE, Our PathFinder & Polaris Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on January 25th, 2015
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at Creators
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Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on February 6th, 2014
Although Kashmir issue has been internationalized, yet state terrorism by the Indian forces continue unabated on the innocent Kashmiris.
That is why, since 1990, the 5th of February is being celebrated by Pakistanis and Kashmiris as ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’ to pay homage to Kahsmiri martyrs and to show shared aims with the freedom fighters who are struggling against the Indian subjugation, demanding their legitimate right of self-determination as recognized by the UN resolutions. This special day also reminds the endless sacrifices of Kashmiri people against Indian state terrorism.
On partition of India in 1947, the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, in connivance with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Governor-General Lord Mountbatten, had decided to join India, quite contrary to the wishes of the majority of Kashmiris.
When a contention arose between India and Pakistan on the dispute of Kashmir in1948, India took the issue to the United Nations Security Council and offered to hold a plebiscite in the held Kashmir under UN supervision. On February 5, 1964, India backed out of its promise. Instead, in March 1965, the Indian Parliament passed a bill, declaring Kashmir a province of India.
While, passing through various phases, during and after the partition, the struggle of Kashmiris which has become an interaction between the Indian state terrorism led by the Indian security forces and war of liberation by the freedom fighters, keeps on going unabated.
Despite the employment of various forms of state terrorism by the Indian security forces like crackdowns, curfews, illegal detentions, massacre, targeted killings, sieges, burning the houses, torture, disappearances, rape, breaking the legs, molestation of Muslim women and killing of persons through fake encounter, war of liberation which intensified since 1989 continues by the Kashmiri freedom fighters.
A recent report on human rights violations by Indian Army and its paramilitary forces in Indian Occupied Kashmir disclosed that since 1989, there have been deaths of 93,274 innocent Kashmiris, 6,969 custodial killings, 117,345 arrests and 105,861 destructions of houses. Indian brutal security forces have orphaned over 107, 351 children, widowed 22,728 women and gang raped 9,920 women.
Besides Human Rights Watch, in its various reports, Amnesty International has also pointed out grave human rights violations in the Indian controlled Kashmir, indicating, “The Muslim majority population in the Kashmir Valley suffers from the repressive tactics of the security forces. Under the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act and Public Safety Act, security forces personnel have extraordinary powers to shoot suspected persons.”
In this respect, European Union passed a resolution on May 11, 2011 about human rights abuses committed by Indian forces in the Indian held Kashmir.
It is of particular attention that in 2008, a rights group reported unmarked graves in 55 villages across the northern regions of Baramulla, Bandipore and Handwara. Then researchers and other groups reported about thousands of mass graves without markers. In this regard, in the last few years, rights groups discovered more than 3,000 unnamed graves in the various districts of Kashmir.
In this context, in August, 2011, Indian Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) officially acknowledged in its report that innocent civilians killed in the two-decade conflict have been buried in unmarked graves. The report indicated 2,156 unidentified bodies which were found in mass graves in various regions of the Indian-held Kashmir. Notably, foreign sources and human rights organizations have pointed out that unnamed graves include those innocent persons, killed by the Indian military and paramilitary troops in the fake encounters including those who were tortured to death by the Indian secret agency RAW.
In a report, China’s leading News Agency Xinhua has unearthed more gruesome details on world-stunning unmarked graves in Poonch of the Indian held Kashmir. The report revealed the statement of Sofi Aziz Joo, caretaker of a graveyard as saying, “Police and Army used to bring those bodies and direct me to bury them. The bodies were usually bullet-ridden, mutilated, faces disfigured and sometimes without limbs and heads.”
While, Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and rights groups have pointed out that more than 10,000 people have disappeared, accusing government forces of staging fake gun battles to cover up killings. They also disclosed that suspected persons had been arrested and were murdered through arbitrary executions, and then buried in unmarked graves.
On the other side, by showing a sense of great optimism for peace of the region, Pakistan agreed with Indian old demand to strengthen the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) in order to resolve the outstanding issues, especially main dispute of Kashmir.
During the visit of India’s External Affairs Minister S M Krishna to Pakistan on September 9, 2012, Islamabad and New Delhi also signed agreements of liberalised visa regime and a memorandum of understanding on cultural exchanges in addition to agreeing on new cross-Line of Control (LoC) Confidence Building Measures related to trade and travel. Although Pakistan was already importing vegetables from India through Wagah border, yet implementation of these new agreements has started. Besides, Islamabad also signed a number of trade agreements with New Delhi, which allowed India exports of mutltiple items across the Wagah border. It is also likely to grant India Most Favoured Nation status, which permits trade in almost everything.
But, as part of delaying tactics for the settlement of the Kashmir dispute, Indian rulers availed various crises so as to suspend the process of Pak-India talks. For example, in 2002, under the pretension of terrorist attack on the Indian parliament, New Delhi postponed the process of dialogue. Again, in 2008, India suspended the ‘composite dialogue’ under the pretext of Mumbai terror attacks which were in fact, arranged by its secret agency RAW in connivance with Indian home-grown terrorists.
India and Pakistan had resumed the new phase of talks in March, 2009 which were the first structured bilateral talks. But every time, prime ministers and foreign ministers of Pakistan and India have ended their meetings with issuance of positive notes, vowing for the solution of real issues, particularly the core dispute of Kashmir, but the same failed without producing tangible results due to Indian shrewd diplomacy.
Recently, Indian forces have repeatedly violated the LoC ceasefire agreement, and killed some soldiers of Pak Army. The purpose behind Indian double game is to give a blow even to the CBMs in order to avoid any settlement of Kashmir issue.
In fact, India is determined to keep its hold on Kashmir. It also wants to blackmail Pakistan by stopping the flow of rivers’ water towards Pakistan as major rivers of our country take origin from the occupied Kashmir. India is only fulfilling the formality through the new phase of talks as Indian rulers also want to show to the US-led western countries that they are willing to settle Kashmir dispute.
Notably, inactive approach of the so-called US-led civilized international community to this dispute has further encouraged New Delhi to continue its brutalities on the Kashmiri masses. Indian authorities are not willing to talk with Kashmiri people on political grounds as they have decided that only bullet is the right way of dealing with them.
However, despite the employment of various patterns of military terrorism in the Indian occupied Kashmir, the war of liberation by the Kashmiri people will continue untill they get their legitimate right of self-determination. If New Delhi could not suppress the movement in the past, it could also not do so in present and future.
Nonetheless, Pakistan will continue moral, diplomatic and political support of Kashmiri brethren. Hence, 5th of February is being celebrated as the ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’ by Kashmiris, living both sides of the Line of Control. Besides, Pakistanis and Kashmiris across the world express solidarity with the freedom fighters of Kashmiris as a protest against Indian illegal occupation of Kashmir. It is due to the joint efforts of Kashmiri leaders and the Pakistan’s subsequent regimes that the Kashmir issue remains alive in wake of Indian delaying tactics.
Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power
Email: [email protected]
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 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.
The tribal area of Pakistan’s North Waziristan, along the border of Afghanistan, has been strictly forbidden for foreigners, until now. NBC’s Amna Nawaz gets an exclusive look into ground zero of Pakistan’s fight against terror.
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan — It’s been called the most dangerous place in the most dangerous region on the planet.
A rugged swathe of tribal territory nestled between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Waziristan is ground zero for some of the region’s most notorious militant groups and warlords, including the Pakistani Taliban and Haqqani network.
North and South Waziristan are hit by more U.S. drone attacks than anywhere else in the world.
NBC News obtained rare access to South Waziristan and last week became the first foreign team of journalists to report from North Waziristan.
Long-ignored by the rest of the country, Waziristan is one of the least developed and least educated sections of Pakistan. Literacy rates for women in some areas are in the single digits. With little infrastructure, funding, or investment, many make their living by engaging in criminal activity, cross-border smuggling, or signing up to join militant groups.
The Taliban is believed to pay 10,000 – 12,000 Pakistan rupees a month (roughly $100 – $120) to foot soldiers, with bonuses for carrying out ambushes, killing a soldier, or even members of military families.
Confronting the violence, the Pakistan military is diversifying its campaign in the “war on terror,” no longer just fighting in the region, but also beginning to rebuild it.
“There are only less than half a percent of people who are fighting as terrorists. What about the more than 99.5 percent of people?” asks Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa, who commanded the army division in South Waziristan in 2010 before becoming official military spokesman.
Pakistani Army Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa discusses the impact the “war on terror” has had on Waziristan. “The motto we adopted was ‘build better than before,'” he told NBC News.
In the wake of a major operation in 2009, the Pakistan Army has largely succeeded in pushing back the militant threat from South Waziristan. The area is now considered secure and tribal communities that fled the fighting are starting to return.
Bajwa realized that if the tribal communities weren’t given something to replace their previous way of life, they might again become willing to help or harbor terrorists.
“Looking at it in a larger security context, you can’t really separate development from security,” said Bajwa. “So we’re doing this to serve the larger purpose as well. “
In the village of Chagh Malai, the army constructed a marketplace, complete with dozens of individual shops carrying everything from cloth to medicine to household supplies. Tribal communities here previously maintained individual shops in their homes or in roadside stalls. The marketplace, army commanders said, gives them a sense of community and a central commercial gathering place. They have plans to build 30 complexes like it across the area.
Tribal elder Akhlas Khan excitedly toured the market last week, introducing store owners and showing off inventory.
“Previously, I’d have to travel four or five hours to get these,” he said, gesturing to a small shop carrying electrical goods. “Now, I only need to come here!”
Pakistan Army commanders on the frontlines of the battle for Waziristan talk about the challenges they face and how important it is to develop this isolated part of the world. NBC News’ Amna Nawaz reports.
TALIBAN AND THEIR PUBLIC FLOGGINGS AND EXECUTIONS
In Sararogha, South Waziristan, an 88-shop market complex now stands at the same site the Taliban — once headquartered here — used to use for public floggings and executions.
“These communities, the vast majority of them, have seen the worst kind of atrocities known to the human race,” said Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mahmood Hayat, commander of the Pakistan Army’s 40th Division in South Waziristan.
“They’ve been subjected to coercion — mental and physical — by the terrorists in order to acquiesce them to support,” he added. “They’ve seen their loved ones being butchered in front of their own eyes. So that is the kind of trauma this society has seen. And therefore the greater the challenge to bring back the confidence of these people into the state machinery.”
Trading routes and schools
At the heart of the army’s plans to rebuild the area is a 370-mile road — funded in large part byUSAID money. The road, half of which is complete, will connect the isolated and insular tribal communities to each other, as well as the rest of mainstream Pakistan and to trading routes across the border in Afghanistan.
When finished, the roadway will offer a third link from Pakistan to Afghanistan, and the army hopes, will encourage business development along its path through Waziristan.
In addition to the road project, the army has taken on development projects far outside its traditional roles.
Waj S. Khan / NBC News
A tribesman waits in line at a ‘Distribution Camp’ set up on the side the newly constructed Tank-Makeen road in South Waziristan. Radios and mattresses are the items of choice popular among locals, who belong to one of the most impoverished communities in Pakistan.
Along with the markets, two military schools, known here as Cadet Colleges, were built in South Waziristan to offer young men a rigorous education and boarding-school environment, unlike any educational opportunity available in the region before.
Col. Zahid Naseem Akbar, principal of the Cadet College, Spinkai, said he hopes the school will gives boys in the area the same opportunities as those elsewhere in the country.
“They have the same potential as any other citizen of this country has,” Akbar said. “And I think we owe it to them that we provide them the opportunity to join the mainstream.”
The army is overseeing the rebuilding to schools demolished by the Taliban and building schools for the first time in some areas, including for girls. The military established the Waziristan Institute for Technical Education — a vocational school to train young men who missed their early education during Taliban rule.
And the army is restoring water supplies and electrical systems and funding what they call “livelihood projects,” training and empowering local small businesses in everything from honey bee farming and fruit orchards, to auto repair and transport services.
“The strategy that the Pakistan army has adopted is a people-centric strategy,” Hayat said. “So the more areas you’ve able to clear, the more infrastructure you’re able to build, the more people you are able to bring back and sustain. Provide them economic opportunities. That is the measure of success.”
Ideal habitat for Taliban
Frontline commanders all say the battle for Waziristan will not be won with hearts and minds alone. Security operations continue, gradually increasing what they call their “elbow space” in the region.
Both North and South Waziristan feature snow-capped peaks, deep valleys, hidden caverns, and daunting mountain ranges which provide natural cover. It’s the ideal habitat for the Taliban and other groups seeking refuge and covert routes for travel between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Amna Nawaz / NBC News
A Pakistani soldier hikes toward an observation post near the border between North and South Waziristan. With little infrastructure, funding, or investment, many in the area make their living by engaging in criminal activity, cross-border smuggling, or signing up to join militant groups.
Atop a 6,000-foot high post in South Waziristan, Brig. Hassan Azhar Hayat said despite securing the area, the struggle to hold it against “pockets of resistance” is constant. His troops, he says, still carry out targeted operations on an almost daily basis.
“That’s why the military’s presence is so important here right now in this area, that we keep increasing our perimeter of security,” Hayat said. “This is guerrilla warfare. It cannot happen that you’re able to eliminate the complete Taliban in any form. So it is different warfare altogether.”
North Waziristan remains the only one of the seven tribal agencies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in which the Pakistan military has not launched a significant military operation.
Despite public pressure from the U.S. to act, Pakistani commanders there cite the complexity of the region, the politicized nature of the debate, as well as the increasing stakes of the approaching 2014 drawdown of troops across the border as critical to their operation’s timeline.
Mohsin Raza / Reuters
Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.
Maj. Gen. Ali Abbas, the commanding officer of the 7th Infantry Division of the Pakistan Army, currently stationed in North Waziristan, said his region must be considered separately because of the number of influences at play. However, 40,000 troops are stationed in North Waziristan, which shares a 113-mile border with Afghanistan,
“North Waziristan is not like any other agency in Pakistan,” Abbas said. “It’s very different. It’s very complex.”
Despite the territory won and economic investments made, there is concern within the local community about a backslide to the time of Taliban rule. Khan, the tribal elder, doesn’t want the army to leave until the entire area has been won and a civilian administration has taken over control. Army commanders say their commitment is clear.
“The army will stay here as long as the army is desired by the local people to stay here, and mandated by the government of Pakistan to stay here,” Hayat said. “We’re here for the long haul. This is our backyard. We cannot ignore it.”
Communities in South Waziristan have been slow to return to the region after the end of military operations. In some sections, crumbling homes and untended stretches of land dot the landscape. Small clusters of mud-walled homes sit empty. Army commanders hope as word of their development efforts spreads, more of those who fled the fighting will return. They are taking, they say, a very long view.
“If we really want to change this area, the approach is to do it over one generation,” Bajwa added. “Look at the next 10 years. If we put a child in the school now, and 10 years on, we bring him out of the school, we put him into a college, I think we have done our job.”
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