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Talibanisation and identity crisis

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Huma Yusuf - May. 11 (Opinion) - There has been a flurry of meetings, lectures, candlelit vigils, protest marches and letter-writing campaigns in all major cities. And yet, read through the discussions on local blogs or peruse letters to the editor in various newspapers, and the sense that Pakistanis are doing nothing about the crisis prevails.

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Hope for Pakistan's child workers

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Sarah Stuteville - May. 13 (News Report) - A Karachi-based group bent on eradicating child labor is offering school lessons outside their working hours.

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Pakistan on the Brink

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Ahmed Rashid - May. 15 (Special Report) - The army has always defined Pakistan's national security goals. Currently it has two strategic interests: first, it seeks to ensure that a balance of terror and power is maintained with respect to India, and the jihadis are seen as part of this strategy. Second, the army supports the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against US withdrawal from Afghanistan and also against Indian influence in Kabul, which has grown considerably. Containing the domestic jihadi threat has been a tactical rather than a strategic matter for the army, so there have been bouts of fighting with the militants and also peace deals with them; and these have been interspersed with policies of jailing them and freeing them—all part of a complex and duplicitous game.

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Pakistan: Women vs. Taliban

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Link TV - By Evelyn Messinger - May. 11 (News Analysis) - Women across Pakistan are galvanized to act by the threat of harsh Taliban-stye Islamic law, recently instituted in parts of northwest Pakistan. Yet even among women in the region, the Taliban have defenders: for some it's just political expediency; for others, it's a path to justice in a corrupt court system.

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A cobweb of myths

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Dr Tariq Rahman - May. 16 (News Analysis) - Nato forces should withdraw from Afghanistan as a matter of principle but this will not end Talibanisation. Indeed, if Nato forces withdraw, parts of Afghanistan will be ruled by the Taliban once again. If Pakistan sides with them it will be isolated by the rest of the world. If it does not, it will have a hostile neighbour. In either case the Taliban worldview will be strengthened in Pakistan.

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CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise.

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Noah Shachtman - May. 12 (News Analysis) - Al Qaeda is so spooked by CIA drone attacks that Osama’s crew is staging spectacular bombings in Pakistan, in an attempt to get America to call off its unmanned attack fleet, former U.S. officials and counterterrror advisers say. And the CIA is apparently so spooked about the possibility of a withdrawal that they’re spilling details about their supposedly-secret drone strikes to the New York Times.

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Funding terror

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The News International (PK) - May. 11 (Editorial) - Scant attention has thus far been paid to how the Taliban and some other extremist groups fund their operations. The ‘traditional’ picture is that there is a global network of informal funders and sympathizers, as well as at least two large state players in the Muslim world. Yet a picture is now emerging which tells a very different story as to how these groups get their money and sustain themselves – with three natural resources namely gemstones, timber and marble featuring strongly. The Afghan Taliban have long made their money in the opium trade, and to a small extent they do that in Pakistan; but Pakistan has always been a small-scale opium producer and the Taliban and others need bigger bucks. Necessity, goes the saying, is the mother of invention, and income diversity is now the name of the game.

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Obama is part of the problem

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

newstatesman.com - By Fatima Bhutto - May. 15 (Opinion) - War rages in the North-West Frontier and the poor are embracing the Taliban because they at least fix roads and discipline criminals. But if catastrophe is to be averted in Pakistan it is the corrupt elite who must be confronted

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Pakistan’s Ethnic Fault Line

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Selig S. Harrison - May. 11 (Opinion) - The Pakistani army is composed mostly of Punjabis. The Taliban is entirely Pashtun. For centuries, Pashtuns living in the mountainous borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan have fought to keep out invading Punjabi plainsmen. So sending Punjabi soldiers into Pashtun territory to fight jihadists pushes the country ever closer to an ethnically defined civil war, strengthening Pashtun sentiment for an independent "Pashtunistan" that would embrace 41 million people in big chunks of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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Could Taliban get keys to Pakistan's A-bomb?

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Ben Arnoldy - May. 16 (News Analysis) - International concerns are mounting again about the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons as fighting rages with the Taliban. But thanks to safeguards, experts worry much less about the Islamic fighters in the hills making off with a warhead. It's the radicals among the educated – potential insiders – who are in a more realistic position to abscond with nuclear material and know how to use it.

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Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thom Shanker, David E. Sanger - May. 18 (News Report) - Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program.

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Pakistan reels under Swat offensive

Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Asia Times - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - May. 14 (News Report) - All of Pakistan's major political parties have given their support - along with the United States - to the operation, but with no exit strategy in place, the unfolding humanitarian crisis looms as a bigger threat than the Taliban.

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A Grand Conspiracy Theory From Pakistan

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - May. 13 (Opinion) - The Web site Pakistan Daily is an Islamabad-based hub for Pakistani citizen journalism, promising Pakistani readers: “Your News. Powered by You.” It is also an excellent place to turn if you want to read in on the latest conspiracy theories making the rounds in that country. Or just get very scared.

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Pentagon, Pakistan No Longer Cooperating in Drone War?

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Noah Shachtman - May. 15 (Opinion) - This much we know: The U.S. military flew some of its drones over Pakistan, and shared the footage with their counterparts in the Pakistani armed forces. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate as much today. After that, things get… kind of confusing.

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Obama's Partner Problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Joe Klein - May. 14 (Opinion) - it was slightly disconcerting to hear Richard Holbrooke, our very best diplomatic negotiator, deploying words like "extraordinary" and "unprecedented" to describe the recent round of talks with delegations from Afghanistan and Pakistan in Washington, during a White House briefing for columnists just after the talks ended.

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The battle for the soul of Pakistan

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Riz Khan - May. 13 (Interview) - When Pakistan was founded in 1947, it was dubbed "the Islamic state experiment". In Urdu, Pakistan means "land of the pure". Now, more than 60 years later, the country is locked in a battle to define what brand of Islam it will follow, and just how "pure" Pakistan should be.

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Reports of Pakistan's demise greatly exaggerated

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - May. 15 (Opinion) - It has a weak and feckless government, is beset by poverty and corruption, and militants sympathetic to al Qaeda control large swathes of its territory. And yet despite the prophets of doom, Pakistan is not about to implode. In fact, analysts say, most risks are on the upside.

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Taliban try to spread fighting in Pakistani tribal belt

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Declan Walsh - May. 11 (News Report) - Taliban militants backed by al-Qaida trainers are stepping up a campaign of violent destabilisation across Pakistan's tribal belt to divert forces from the battle in the Swat valley, a senior Pakistani commander said today.

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Pakistan's displaced people

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - May. 11 (Other) - People flee Pakistan's restive Swat valley after a curfew was temporarily lifted to allow people to leave the intensifying conflict

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