Daily News Pakistan

Pakistan’s support today is central to winning the war on terror. Hence, American aid is meant to encourage the political government and, to a certain extent, the military to cleanse the country of the thousands of jihadis that have been in Pakistan since the 1980s.
The strategy might work to a degree in eliminating some groups. Indeed Pakistan’s support is critical in reducing the size and subsequently the threat posed by terror networks like Al-Qaeda. The current assessment is that the terror outfit has in fact reduced in size and is partly relocating to Africa.
But this is not an indicator that the battle has been completely won. To vanquish the faceless enemy, the US and its allies have to achieve the harder goal of winning hearts and minds without which the war on terror is not winnable. This is because terror networks are difficult to locate, especially when they have society’s support. The problem right now is that while people in Pakistan might be anxious regarding some Taliban groups on a killing spree in the country, neither they nor the state in its entirety have complete faith in America’s war on terror or its presence in the region.
While institutions of the state have problems due to the manner in which the US chooses to fight the war, a common perception is that the Taliban imposed the war on Pakistan due to the US presence. So, to many the Taliban and jihadis essentially represent a struggle against American imperialism in Afghanistan. What, of course, goes hand in hand with such perceptions is the view that 9/11 was an American conspiracy to invade Afghanistan, the key to Central Asia. These are interesting times when the religious right begins to look like the left.
The battle for hearts and minds is essentially a part of the exercise of making the war legitimate. Currently, the argument presented by some in Pakistan, including certain prominent televangelists, is that America’s war essentially represents a clash of civilisations and is being imposed on Pakistan by an illegitimate government on behalf of the US. Notwithstanding the general suspicion regarding the US, there are two issues that need attention when it comes to the debate on what a ‘just war’ is in the Muslim world.
Firstly, what is a just war in Islam? According to some, a just war is one which is fought for the defence of Islam or for extending the religion to other parts of the world. The thinking goes that since the war on terror has been imposed by the US by falsely accusing Al Qaeda for 9/11, the struggle against it is legitimate. It would certainly add to everyone’s knowledge if Pakistani authorities disclosed how Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, who was interrogated by Pakistani forces before being handed over to America, confessed to his involvement in the bombing of the World Trade Centre.
Those that oppose the war on terror create the same categories as those that support the war of the ‘bad’ Taliban versus the ‘good’ Taliban. The latter are those fighting American hegemony in South Asia or other parts of the world. The bad ones are those that attack Pakistan on the behest of the US or Indian intelligence agencies. It becomes imperative for all Muslims to fight the US, which is threatening the survival of the Islamic civilisation, while Pakistan is considered the citadel of Islam.
So, people are caught between their dislike for violence imposed internally and the message coming from certain quarters that this violence is actually caused by the American presence in the region. Consequently, the situation would improve after America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such perspectives received greater support after Washington’s needless expansion of the war to Iraq.
But then there is no consensus on what a just war is. Over the years, the concept of jihad has been through several interpretations depending on the times. Today, there is no consensus amongst the community of believers regarding the legitimacy of war. One of the important issues pertains to the question of who has the authority to wage a war. Is it the state or the individual’s responsibility? This question is not easy to answer as it is directly connected with another equally complex matter regarding the nature and legitimacy of the state.
The fact is that most religious opinions on war involving the individual citizen pertain to times when scholars had responded to external invasions and considered their own governments to be lacking in legitimacy to represent the people. The current times, unfortunately, don’t appear very different. However, the issue requires further thought even if the US left the region.
This brings me to the second issue of what a legitimate Islamic state is, a matter that has a direct bearing on whether the public would support the war or not. For the US, the battle to win hearts and minds becomes even more problematic considering that people in most countries of the Muslim world are not happy with their governments. This is certainly true in Pakistan where there is a lot of confusion about who has the right to govern.
The rampant corruption of the leadership adds fuel to the fire of the arguments of those who believe and profess that democracy is not suited to an Islamic system of government. Some televangelists in Pakistan, who are gaining popularity amongst the educated middle-class youth, argue that democracy as a system is foreign to Islam and hence must be abolished. Naturally, a state established on what they consider the wrong principles does not have the right to decide on which side of the fence it wants to fight.
These self-appointed preachers present a specific view on the politics of the state as if there is no space for any other perspective. Indeed, there is an ongoing debate on the relationship between politics and religion. While the concept of caliphate was supported historically, modern Muslim scholars such as Al Razik and Abdullah An-Na’im talk about the possibility of the separation of religion and politics which would allow for newer methods of selecting a government.
A debate on the aforementioned issues is no guarantee that the situation would immediately turn around for the US in Afghanistan. But it may save the world from protracted conflict on other fronts. The clash of civilisations is an ugly phenomenon and discussion in Muslim societies will help world peace.
The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

PESHAWAR: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani will on Friday give a go-ahead for an international appeal to raise $1.078 billion for rehabilitation and reconstruction in the battered Malakand division, a senior government official told Dawn.
‘The international financial institutions (IFIs) have completed the damage need assessment (DNA) and they say that we would need Rs86.215 billion for reconstruction and rehabilitation in Malakand,’ the official said.
The meeting will be chaired by Prime Minister Gilani and attended by members of the Strategic Oversight Council, which includes NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani, Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Masud Aslam, Chief Secretary Javed Iqbal and representatives of the federal government.
According to the draft DNA, livelihood & social protection alone would need Rs15.751 billion ($197 million), followed by housing Rs6.620 billion ($83 million), health Rs1.5 billion ($ 19 million) and education Rs5.4 billion ($69 million).
The DNA draft report, conducted by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, says that Rs19.651 billion would be needed for transport in terms of rehabilitation and reconstruction of physical infrastructure, while a staggering Rs25.698 billion ($321 million) would be required for agriculture, livestock and irrigation in the private sector.
The IFIs would take the DNA to international donors, after approval by Prime Minister Gilani, to help kick-start the much-needed rehabilitation and reconstruction work in Malakand division from where over 2.4 million people were uprooted. So far, no work has been initiated for non-availability of funds.
Despite pledges by international donor agencies, even money for the early recovery plan has not been forthcoming and officials warn that the slow pace of work is already causing a lot of frustration and anger amongst the population in Malakand.
‘My biggest worry is that Malakand will relapse to militancy if we don’t follow through on our promises,’ the official said.
‘Until marginalised people feel like they are part of the process, I wouldn’t be surprised to see anarchy returning. At its heart, it is an economic issue and does not go away that easily,’ he remarked.
‘Sooner or later, if you don’t start showing something more tangible, there will be despair and despondency. People have expectations,’ he said. ‘But the problem is that money is not coming.’
To add to the woes of a cash-strapped NWFP, even the United Nations’ flash appeal for an early recovery failed to generate any funds.
The UN launched a flash appeal of $ 680 million in May, out of which, according to initial estimates, $54 million were to be earmarked for the early recovery plan.
The overall flash-appeal remains under-funded by 40 per cent, while out of the $54 million early recovery plan, the world body could barely generate a meagre $ 300,000. ’We have not received a single penny,’ the official said.
‘It is under-funded,’ spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Fawad Hussain, acknowledged.
But he added that a UN team was due to leave for Riyadh next week to finalise modalities to receive $100 million pledged by Saudi Arabia. The Saudi money is expected to arrive in mid-October and UN officials are optimistic that it will take care of the early recovery plan.
The UN secretary general will announce a 2010 flash appeal next month. To add insult to injury, besides funding, there have been bureaucratic delays by the federal government. The NWFP government has projected that it immediately needs Rs14.2 billion for the next six months, but there has been little or no help from the federal government in this regard.
The provincial government is diverting funds from other districts to build 65 schools in Swat. ‘This is being done at the expense of other districts which also need attention,’ the official said.
The USAID has also halted all activities in Pakistan pending a review by the State Department following demand by the government of Pakistan that funds should be channelled through government departments. This means that all major projects, including the Empower Pakistan which was budgeted at $750 million with larger component for the NWFP and Fata, has also been halted.
An official claimed that any sum above $100,000 had to be cleared by Richard Holbrooke himself pending a final review and decision on how to use the USAID funds.
‘Even if USAID programmes need to be redesigned, it should be done in a manner that the flow of money does not dry up,’ the official maintained. Officials warn that delays in kick-starting the rehabilitation and reconstruction process in Malakand will undermine all the good work done by security forces to cleanse the area of militants.
‘The security situation is better, but I can’t assure myself it will remain that way if we do not act fast. We don’t have the luxury of time,’ the official warned.

The portrait of Stalin was prominently displayed at the parade celebrating Beijing’s 60th anniversary. One of the world’s most tyrannical rulers, his picture still takes the pride of place in the office of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo in Kolkata.
Therefore, it was not surprising that CPI-M secretary-general Prakash Karat underplayed China’s recent intrusions and attributed Indian criticism to the ‘strategic alliance’ between India and America. Those who remain sentimental about Beijing are confusing China with the communism that represented the cleansing of thought, reformist ideals and the passion of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Such people themselves have drifted away from the ideology of the true left. If they had any spark of intellectual honesty left in them, they would have tried to rescue communism from China and not use this ideology to justify their conquests.
Both the Communist Party of India and the CPI-M, which claim to represent the left, still have the same reverence for Beijing as they did when the Chinese undertook the Long March under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Then the goal was to build an agrarian economy from below. Capitalism, which the country has now adopted for development, did not fit into the scheme the Chinese were pursuing at that time. Out of capitalism grew the idea of superiority in arms. This is not the China of Mao Zedong’s dreams.
The way China is behaving towards India today invokes memories of the run-up to what happened in 1962. The forcible building at that time of the infamous Aksai-Chin Road and the murders of India’s border patrol men is a sad chapter in the history of India-China relations and something one hoped had been buried. But the recent incursions by Chinese soldiers into Arunachal Pradesh have been accompanied by boasts that they can take over the whole area in a couple of days.
This is hardly a manifestation of the Hindi-Chini bhai bhai equation. I thought China occupied in 1962 all the territory it claimed and declared a unilateral ceasefire. It did not even agree to the Colombo proposals which suggested the withdrawal of 12.5km from the positions the two sides held. India, even though the victim, complied with the proposals.
Over the years, talks between the two countries have not resulted in any firm borders either on the Ladakh or Arunachal side. But the middle sector, including Sikkim, has been recognised by China. Why has it now intruded into Sikkim and left its evidence in the shape of large red Chinese characters painted on rocks? This definitely indicates a change in Beijing’s thinking.
No sovereign country can take this kind of behaviour lying down. Nor can India condone China’s claim that Arunachal belongs to it. Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India and New Delhi has made it clear more than once.
The latest irritation has come in the shape of visas granted to people originating from Kashmir. Instead of the standard type, the visa has been attached to a separate piece of paper stapled on to the passport. This is designed to convey that China can lay down the law and get away with it as well. The result has been that students who were given the new type of visa could not go to universities of their choice in China because India did not recognise the visa given to them.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh continues to pursue a relationship of peace and goodwill despite these provocations. I concede that China is far ahead of us in military prowess. They have more conventional weapons as well as nuclear devices.
Yet, India is not the same as it was in 1962. It is economically an emerging giant.It may not have allocated as much money to defence as the dangers on its borders warrant. Jawaharlal Nehru also made the same mistake. He wanted to develop the country instead of having a large military arsenal. But if the desire is to articulate that power comes from the barrel of the gun, New Delhi may also be forced to reorder its priorities. Perhaps India should take a leaf out of Vietnam’s book. Here is a small country that has also suffered a border dispute with China but stood its ground and refused to kowtow.
Probably, there is something in what Nehru said in 1962 that the clash between China and India is a clash between two ideologies, two cultures and two different ways of viewing the world. One is the democratic with a live-and-let-live philosophy and the other represents authoritarianism and is without a free press, free judiciary or free vote.
We are not on weak ground, but what I cannot understand is the series of statements by the service chiefs one after another declaring that India could not take on China. The outgoing naval chief, Adm Suresh Mehta, said the country had neither the capability nor the intention to match China’s force. The new air chief, P.V. Naik, says the strength of India’s air force is one-third that of China’s. If we are ill-equipped in military strength, the chiefs can communicate this to the government, which is the right authority to take care of any inadequacies. Otherwise they not only demoralise the people, they also misguide the government.
India has a dearth of expertise where China is concerned. India by now should have encouraged the development of scores, if not hundreds, of experts capable of dissecting and analysing every Chinese move. Both Russia and Japan have, over the years, amassed sufficient information to help them deal with Beijing. India can learn from them. Force, however strong, cannot and should not have the last word.
The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

PESHAWAR: A massive suicide car bomb Friday ripped through a market in Peshawar, a frequent target of Taliban and al-Qaeda attacks, leaving at least 45 people dead, sources and officials said.
The blast in a shopping area close to the northwestern city's main Khyber Bazaar also wounded more than 100 people, provincial health minister Zahir Ali Shah told reporters.
It was the sixth attack in the city in the past four months and follows the killing of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone attack in August, whose death the militants have repeatedly vowed to avenge.
‘At least 42 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the blast,’ Shah told reporters in the main Lady Reading Hospital.
Doctor Mehboob Ali at the hospital confirmed the toll and put the number of wounded at 103. The injured included women and children, he said.
More than 50 people were in serious condition, he said.
Police official Mohammad Karim estimated the size of the bomb at around 100 kilograms (220 pounds), while Shafqat Malik, chief of the bomb disposal squad, confirmed that a suicide attacker had detonated the bomb.
The device was planted in the door panels of the vehicle and included machinegun ammunition, designed to cause maximum casualties, Malik said.
‘The suicide attacker was sitting in the vehicle,’ he added.
Another police official, Nisar Marwat, said the death toll could rise, given that some of the wounded were in critical condition.
‘We have declared an emergency in the hospitals,’ Local administration chief Sahibzada Mohammad Anis told reporters.
Peshawar is the main city in the northwest and has been a frequent target of militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, who are waging a violent insurgency against the Pakistani state.
On September 26 a car bomb killed six people on a road leading to the main army cantonment in Peshawar.
Pakistan has been hit by a wave of bombings that have killed more than 2,100 people across the country over the past two years.
The government in Islamabad has vowed to wipe out militants from Pakistan's northwest. Last April, troops launched a blistering assault designed to dislodge Pakistani Taliban from the northwest Swat valley.
There has been an increase in US drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal belt recently, as the United States tries to stem the flow of militants waging an insurgency against about 100,000 foreign troops stationed across the border.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on Monday on a UN compound in Islamabad that killed five aid workers and closed UN offices nationwide in the worst attack in the capital in months.

Memo to the Pakistan Army: don’t wait for the revolution in military affairs to get a high-speed Internet connection. Actually, the army could have spared the country a fresh political crisis with even a dial-up connection.
Here’s what it had to do to give the government its ‘formal input’ — the ISPR’s terminology — on the Kerry-Lugar bill: run a search online, download the various iterations of the Biden-Lugar bill, study them and then forward its ‘formal input’ to the government.
If that sounds elementary and facetious, it is. Step back from the howling pack of critics for a minute and ask yourself, is it possible that the Pakistan Army was unaware of the broad contours, if not the specifics, of the Kerry-Lugar bill for all the months it wended its way through Congress?
To believe the army did not, or could not, know is to accuse the army of a staggering level of incompetence. Wednesday’s prickly ISPR statement also has this gem: ‘COAS reiterated that Pakistan is a sovereign state and has all the rights to analyse and respond to the threat in accordance with her own national interests.’ Given that the Kerry-Lugar bill has already been passed by Congress, the army’s interpretation of our ‘rights to analyse and respond’ would appear to be less a diagnosis and more a post-mortem.
Logic, then, suggests that the army was at least aware of what was unfolding in the US Congress. Which leads to the obvious question: what was the signal the army was sending on Wednesday and to whom?
Was it sending a signal to Zardari that it was putting him on notice, that he better shape up and pay obeisance to the army’s pre-eminence or else would be shipped out soon? By now, it’s clear the army doesn’t like Zardari’s way of doing business.
It quickly reversed his bid to put the ISI under civilian control, it slapped down his suggestion of a no-first-strike nuclear posture, it forced him to back off from precipitating a possibly bloody clash during the long march to restore the deposed judges in March — and now it has publicly contradicted the government and suggested the Kerry-Lugar bill impinges on national security. That’s already a long, ignominious list of reversals for a president who has been in office only 13 months. And those are only the differences that we know about publicly.
But like him or not, four factors limit the army’s ability to precipitate change in the civilian set-up headed by Zardari. One, the disastrous end to the Musharraf era has meant that the army’s political credentials are yet to recover. Two, the army has to stay focused on fighting the counter-insurgency. Three, there may be a pro-Gilani/anti-Zardari camp within the PPP, but historically the party has resisted following the dictates of the army. Four, the only other viable political alternative is Nawaz Sharif, but the army continues to eye him with mistrust.
So expect the status quo to hold for now. Indeed, Wednesday’s ISPR statement hints at this: ‘However, in the considered view of the forum, it is the parliament, that represents the will of the people of Pakistan, which would deliberate on the issue, enabling the government to develop a national response.’ Translation: we aren’t happy, but we’re not going to wind up the democratic project — for now. The emphasis still is on ‘shape up’ rather than ‘ship out.’
But the danger hasn’t passed yet. If there’s one thing that is clear from the country’s tattered, tawdry political history, it is that public jousting leaves fatal scars on the psyche of the players involved. A wounded ego can cause all sorts of rash decisions, and both Zardari and the army may yet try and slip a knife in the other’s back.
Other than Zardari, the army is also likely to have been sending a signal to the Americans. Roughly translated, it would read something like this: we’ve got business to do together, but don’t push us; we’re going to get it done as partners, not as clients.
Quetta, Muridke, the nuclear programme, civilian control over the army — there are enough red rags to the army in the Kerry-Lugar bill to make it very angry. But there are bigger issues at stake than just the bill in relations between the US and Pakistan at the moment, and the army’s response has to be seen in that context.
In all the debate and controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s re-evaluation of its own strategy on Afghanistan announced in March, little attention has been paid to the signals that the Pakistan Army has been quietly sending.
While opposing an American troop build-up in Afghanistan, the army is also not calling for a troop withdrawal. In fact, it has been pushing the ‘stability’ line with the Americans: shore up the Afghan government; give more space to our favourites, the Pakhtuns; negotiate with the amenable among the Afghan Taliban; neutralise, or reduce, the interests of players like India; and start thinking about an exit time frame.
In addition to this, it is quite clear that at the operational level, intelligence cooperation to capture or eliminate the Al Qaeda types as well as the Pakistani militants attacking the state from their bases in Fata is continuing.
So the army clearly realises the importance of working with the Americans to secure the state’s interests. But it also knows that there is a limited convergence of interests. From the Pakistani perspective, the Americans suffer from two chronic problems: one, they are clumsy and often create a bigger mess; and two, some of their interests in the region are at cross-purposes with Pakistan’s.
Enter the Kerry-Lugar bill into that wary, mutually suspicious relationship. On the one side, you have American officials like Vice President Joseph Biden, partner in the creation of the Kerry-Lugar bill, with his ‘Pakistan first’ theory that essentially portrays the country as a danger to the world and itself.
On the other side, you have the Pakistan Army, which realises the need to work with the Americans on certain issues but also suspects them of trying to undermine Pakistan’s genuine interests and pooh-poohing its security threat perceptions.
The likely result: those here in Pakistan demanding that we slam the door on the Americans after kicking them out will be disappointed; however, we will continue to carp and complain publicly while privately continuing a tightly calibrated, limited security-based alliance.
A method in the madness, then? Perhaps. But the army’s signalling won’t seem so clever if the brinkmanship on the domestic front ends in the collapse of the transition to democracy.
cyril.a@gmail.com

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the nation has ‘no option’ but to attack militant strongholds in South Waziristan.
‘We have no other option but to carry out an operation in South Waziristan,’ Malik told a local television station after a deadly suicide car bombing in Peshawar that killed at least 45 people.
‘All roads are leading to South Waziristan. We will have to proceed.’
Rehman Malik told reporters Friday that the country has to launch an operation in the area militants are using as a base to launch deadly strikes. He said such an offensive was expected ‘soon.’
The government has been threatening to launch an offensive against militants in the South Waziristan region along the border with Afghanistan.
The US has pushed Pakistan to clear militant strongholds, saying many of those insurgents are involved in attacks on American and Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan.
US missile strikes have frequently targeted hideouts in Pakistan. One in August killed Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. The group has since named a new leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, and threatened suicide attacks if the army doesn't back off.
Malik also said a suspect had been arrested in Monday's suicide attack at the office of the UN's World Food Program in Islamabad. He said the man was alleged to have given the attacker shelter, but gave few details.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign minister urged parliament on Friday to look with an open mind at a US aid bill which the powerful military has voiced concern about and which critics say violates the country’s sovereignty.
The US Congress last week approved a bill tripling aid for Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year for the next five years and sent it to President Barack Obama for signing into law.
But in an effort to address US concerns that Pakistan’s military may support militant groups, the bill stipulates conditions for security aid, among them that Pakistan must show commitment in fighting terrorism.
The bill, co-authored by Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar, also provides for an assessment of how effective the civilian government’s control is over the military, including in the promotion of top military officials.
The army said on Wednesday it had ‘serious concern’ about aspects of the bill that could have an impact on national security.
The army’s unusual public criticism of a diplomatic matter appears to have opened a rift with President Asif Ali Zardari’s fragile government, which has rejected opposition complaints that the bill undermined sovereignty.
Analysts are not predicting any immediate show-down between the military, which has vowed to stay out of politics, and the government, but they say the army’s criticism could embolden the opposition which has whipped up criticism of Zardari.
‘Never surrender our sovereignty’
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi cut short a visit to Washington to fly back to Islamabad. He told parliament the government would accept its verdict on the bill but called for dispassionate analysis.
‘If we have to take right decisions we shall have to take on the issues with open mind,’ Qureshi told the National Assembly, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
‘If we want to make decisions in the country’s interest, we also need to be dispassionate and cool-minded.’
Qureshi told parliament there was no question of the government allowing any violation of sovereignty.
‘Our government will never surrender our sovereignty. We shall make decisions in the national interest,’ he said.
Qureshi said he had informed his American counterpart, Hillary Clinton, about Pakistan’s national interests.
According to the bill, Clinton must certify to relevant congressional committees that Pakistan is meeting conditions.
Clauses in the bill require Clinton to certify that Pakistan is dismantling militant bases in its northwest, in the southwestern city of Quetta where the US administration believes the Afghan Taliban leaders are hiding as well as in Punjab province, where alleged anti-India groups are based.
Clinton must also certify that Pakistan is preventing al Qaeda and other militant groups including the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was accused of last November’s assault on the Indian city of Mumbai, from operating in Pakistan and attacking neighbors.
The bill also seeks Pakistani cooperation to dismantle nuclear supplier networks by offering ‘relevant information from or direct access to’ Pakistanis associated with such networks.
That is a reference to disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan who ran a black market in atomic technology. Pakistan has declined to let foreign investigators question Khan.