Dawn – Police raids Nowshera house, misses Ali Gilani

Zahir Shah Sherazi

Peshawar, 16 May 2013. Nowshera police, in an operation on Thursday, have rescued an individual, Abdul Wahab, who claimed that the son of former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was being held captive along with him, DawnNews reported.

DPO Nowshera Waqar Ahmed was quoted as saying that based on this information, Nowshera police had started a massive operation in Misri Banda area of Akora Khatak to rescue Ali Haider Gilani.

Ali Gilani’s private secretary and guard were killed in the incident.

According to Dawn.com’s Zahir Shah, DSP Jahanzeb also confirmed that the operation is still ongoing and that two suspects were arrested during the first raid in which Wahab was rescued.

Six alleged kidnappers including to women have been arrested by the police, according to the police.

The alleged kidnappers belong to Afghanistan.

Police has launched a frantic search in the area to recover Ali Gilani who is believe to be kept in the same area.

http://beta.dawn.com/news/1011647/police-raids-nowshera-house-misses-ali-gilani

Dawn – Militants can strike at will, admits Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government

Mohammad Ashfaq

Peshawar, 4 January 2013. The strength of militants has increased so alarmingly that now, they can reach anywhere they want to carry out their activities, said provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain on Friday.

“The time has come to take the final decision on whether to hold dialogue with militants or to begin a meaningful operation against them,” the minister told the provincial assembly on a point of order about the recent acts of militancy, especially the killing of seven aid workers, including six women, in Swabi.

Mr Hussain said a lot had been spoken in condemnation of militant attacks and therefore, it was direly needed to take militancy to its logical end.

He said there were two options with the government either to hold dialogue with militants and if it was not possible, then the second option was intensive operation against them.

The minister said all political parties and security agencies should get together to make an effective strategy before the government held dialogue with militants or went for operation against them.

He said former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif had favoured the stand of ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan, who pushed the country’s political leadership for taking decisive steps against militancy.

He urged the leadership of other political groups to come forward for ending the evil of militancy forever.

Mr Hussain said militancy had increased in the province so dangerously that all other issues had become non-issues.

He said assassination of vaccinators and aid workers in the province, assault on Bacha Khan International Airport, assassination of minister Bashir Bilour and the kidnapping and subsequent killing of Levies personnel in a short span of time showed how strong militants had grown.

Speaking on a point of order, MPA Yasmeen Nazli Jaseem demanded government jobs for the relatives of the women aid workers killed in Swabi.

She said she had visited the houses of those workers and found their houses in dilapidated condition with families leading miserable life.

“All of the slain women were the sole breadwinners of their respective families,” she said.

Elementary and secondary education minister Sardar Hussain Babak told the House that the establishment department was creating hurdles to the appointment of senior teachers to Grade 16 and above.

“Unfortunately, the officials at the establishment department don’t realise the need for teachers at government schools,” he said, while responding to a question put by Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl MPA Syed Janan about the shortage of teachers in Hangu.

The minister said his department had taken action against the teachers getting salary without performing duty.

He said the revival of the old system of governance after the enforcement of Local Government Act, 2012 would help expedite the appointment of teachers to schools in the province.

MPA Janan demanded that the government treat all districts justly over the reconstruction of schools hit by militancy and floods. He complained that such schools were rebuilt in Swat, Buner and Lower Dir districts only.

Another JUI-F lawmaker Mufti Kifayatullah and PML-N MPA Barrister Javed Abbasi showered praise on assassinated provincial minister Bashir Bilour for his bravery against militants. They declared Mr Bilour’s death tragic and a national loss.

Also, deputy speaker Khushdil Khan, MPAs Atifur Rehman, Mufti Syed Janan and law minister Arshid Abdullah spoke on the prolonged power outages in the province and said the suspension of electric supply for 12 to 20 hours a day was an injustice to the people.

http://dawn.com/2013/01/05/militants-can-strike-at-will-admits-kp-govt-2/

Dawn – Awami National Party faces political vacuum after Bilour

Ashfaq Yusufzai

Peshawar, 23 December 2012. Bashir Ahmed Bilour’s assassination has virtually shattered the Awami National Party with which he remained affiliated for over 40 years.

His commitment to the party cause was unshakeable and besides being a good administrator and punctual he did what he said. Mr Bilour had a big role in ANP politics and his colleagues say he knew party matters and spoke seriously.

A tested politician, Mr Bilour was frontrunner for the chief minister’s slot in 2008 when his party was inching towards forming a coalition government with Pakistan People’s Party. There was not an iota of doubt that Mr Bilour would not get the chief minister office. He was the senior-most politician among the MPAs-elect.

When the MPAs sat for a meeting in Bacha Khan Markaz, apparently to formally nominate their candidate for the KP top slot, everyone seemed sure that Mr Bilour would be the next chief minister. He himself was also sure of his elevation to the post, but the newly-elected lawmakers nominated Ameer Haider Hoti for the top position.

When the news broke Mr Bilour’s supporters began chanting slogans against the decision.

The protest soon became louder, but Mr Bilour came out of the meeting and calmed down the enraged workers at a time when he himself was 100 per cent sure of his nomination.

Then he became senior minister with most junior Hoti as his boss who appeared to be his rival, but Mr Bilour behaved maturely and soon became the most active minister of the cabinet. His rejection for the priced slot by lawmakers didn’t cause him any difference. His leading role in the ANP-led coalition government is a tell-tale example how the 69-year-old took his time to be in contact with party workers as well as looking into development work.

Later, Mr Bilour said that he was not sure about having a chance of getting the province’s top post in future. Even then he behaved so sensibly that he gave cushion to Mr Hoti and would attend meetings and functions side by side him.

Mr Bilour’s record of winning a provincial assembly seat from urban Peshawar for five times in a row shows his public face.

Despite being on top of terrorists’ list, he went to the narrowest streets and addressed public meetings in densely populated areas in old city to meet people and listen to their problems.

“He didn’t tell me about his activities because I always advised him to take precautions in view of looming Taliban threats to his life because he knew that I would not allow him to go to certain places,” his elder brother Senator Ilyas Bilour said.

He passed hectic days and nights in his mission to serve public and end terrorism, he said.

The ANP on its part is to bear the price of Mr Bilour’s loss in days to come. As good administrator, he managed to keep an eye on his constituency despite being preoccupied with official work.

He would turn up at public meetings frequently.

Mr Bilour is no more, but his close relatives say he had longed for embracing martyrdom and Allah had answered his prayers.

“He has found a death of his choosing. God bless him,” said his brother Ilyas Bilour.

http://dawn.com/2012/12/24/anp-faces-political-vacuum-after-bilour/

BBC News – Pakistan blast in Peshawar kills provincial minister

Saturday, 22 December 2012. A suicide bomber has killed at least eight people at a political rally in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, police say.

A senior provincial minister and anti-Taliban figure, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, was among those killed.

The blast happened at the house of a leader of the Awami National Party (ANP), which is part of the national governing coalition, local media said.

The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the attack.

The Taliban has repeatedly targeted members of the ANP, which holds power in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Provincial information minister and ANP member, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, condemned the attack.

“Terrorism has engulfed our whole society,” he said. “They are targeting our bases, our mosques, our bazaars, public meetings and our security checkpoints.”

‘Smoke and dust’

Some 100 people had gathered in Peshawar for the meeting of the ANP, which is part of the Pakistan People’s Party-led national coalition government.

Mr Bilour had delivered the keynote speech and was leaving when the attack occurred, Nazir Khan, a local Awami National Party leader, told Associated Press news agency.

“There was smoke and dust all around, and dead and wounded people were lying on the ground,” he said.

Mr Bilour, 69, was severely wounded in the chest and stomach and died from his injuries in hospital.

A senior police official told Agence France-Presse that Mr Bilour’s secretary and a policeman were among the dead, as well as other ANP officials.

At least 18 people were injured in the blast, hospital and police officials said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20824815

BBC News – Karachi polio killings: Vaccination workers shot

Wednesday, 18 December 2012. Five female Pakistani polio vaccination workers have been fatally shot in a string of co-ordinated attacks – four within 20 minutes across Karachi.

The fifth woman was shot and wounded in the city of Peshawar in the north-west and later died of her injuries.

A UN-backed programme to eradicate polio – which is endemic in Pakistan – has been suspended in Karachi.

No group has said it carried out the shootings, but the Taliban have issued threats against the polio drive.

“These were pre-planned and co-ordinated attacks in various localities which took place within a span of 20 minutes,” Imran Javed, a police spokesman told the BBC of Tuesday’s attacks in Karachi.

Earlier reports said a male health worker had been shot dead in Karachi on Monday, but officials now say his death was not related to the polio vaccination drive.

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has condemned the attacks and praised the work of the polio vaccination teams, calling on regional authorities to guarantee their safety, Pakistan’s APP news agency reported.

Pakistani health officials said the latest three-day nationwide anti-polio drive – during which an estimated 5.2 million polio drops were to be administered – had been suspended in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city with a population of 18 million.

There has been opposition to such immunisation drives in parts of Pakistan, particularly after a fake CIA hepatitis vaccination campaign helped to locate Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

Militants have kidnapped and killed foreign NGO workers in the past in an attempt to halt the immunisation drives, which they say are part of efforts to spy on them.

However, the Pakistani government “would continue to mount its effort on polio eradication,” Mr Ashraf’s special adviser Shahnaz Wazir Ali told the BBC.

Mrs Ali said protection would be provided to workers, and campaigns would be staggered if necessary.

“Clearly, we are now so close to eradicating the polio virus,… acts of this type, which are intended to dissuade us, will not deter us,” she said.

Along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is still endemic.

Pakistan is considered the key battleground in the global fight against the disease, which attacks the nervous system and can cause permanent paralysis within hours of infection.

Almost 200 children were paralysed in the country in 2011 – the worst figures in 15 years.

Earlier this year, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative warned that tackling the disease had entered “emergency mode” after “explosive” outbreaks in countries previously free of polio.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said polio was at a tipping point, with experts fearing it could “come back with a vengeance” after large outbreaks in Africa and Tajikistan and China’s first recorded cases for more than a decade.

Declaring polio a national emergency, the Pakistani government is targeting 33 million children for vaccination with some 88,000 health workers delivering vaccination drops.

Dr Bruce Aylward of the WHO told the BBC that vaccination programmes had been suspended in other countries before but that “when you’re dealing with something as basic as the health of children, usually there can be common ground found”.

Dr Aylward said he hoped for a “dialogue with community leaders who have positions of power to ensure root causes of this are being addressed and the perpetrators are brought to justice”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20767138

BBC News – ‘Car bomb’ explodes in Peshawar market

Friday, 31 August 2012. At least 11 people have died after a car bomb ripped through a busy market in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials have said.

At least 16 people were injured in the explosion near a mosque in Mattani, a southern suburb of the city.

One report said a vehicle had exploded as it was being repaired at a mechanic’s workshop.

No-one claimed responsibility for the attack but many recent incidents in the area have been blamed on the Taliban.

A child was reported to be among the dead, according to a shopkeeper and eyewitness who spoke to Reuters.

Five of the injured were said to be in a critical condition in hospital, Reuters reports.

“We are investigating whether the car was brought to [the] workshop for mechanical repairs or to plant a bomb, or whether the bomb had already been planted and it went off during repair,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the home minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province told Agence France Presse.

At least 10 shops were also damaged by the strength of the blast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19444399

Also read :
Taliban fighters changing sides in Herat

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19153734

Dawn – New Khyber Pakhtunkhwa strategy to eradicate militancy

Peshawar, May 20: Moving beyond the vague and clichéd 3-D strategy, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has come up with a plan which officials and cabinet ministers say could well serve as the first comprehensive state response to overcome militancy.

The 24-page presentation “Continuing Militancy, Challenge & Response”, unveiled at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti early this month envisages a full state response in terms of governance, deliverance and coordination to overcome the challenges from non-state actors.

“We have to acknowledge that there is a deep-set malaise that will not be cured by a single dose of anti-biotic. We need an aggressive; multiple doses of medication to attack the malaise from all sides,” Secretary Home, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azam Khan, told Dawn.

Mr Khan declined to go into the specifics of the plan he helped conceive but a cabinet minister said that was the most comprehensive strategy he had seen since the ANP-led coalition took office in 2008.

Acknowledging the ideological, material linkages between the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistani militants in bordering tribal regions, the report dispelled an impression that militancy in Pakistan would cease once foreign troops left Afghanistan. “It will not happen,” the report said.

Minister for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain concurred. “The pot will continue to boil long after the fire is put out,” he remarked. “We are facing a well-trained, battle-hardened and indoctrinated and battle-inoculated nemesis,” he said in an interview.

“To defeat them, you need a full state response and not just the use of a mighty force. The militants have ambitions and they have objectives. Force alone is not the answer. All state institutions and departments will have to stand up to the occasion and response by contributing to the strategy,” Mr Hussain said.

The cabinet was warned that if and when foreign troops left Afghanistan, the sense of victory among the Taliban in Afghanistan would galvanise and embolden the militants on this side of the border to take on the Pakistani state.

A Taliban-dominated Afghanistan, the participants were told, would serve as the strategic depth for the Pakistani militants, with their Afghan allies morally-bound to support them in their bid to impose their brand of shariah in Pakistan.

“The successful tactics that helped Afghan Taliban to fight the Afghan state would be replicated by Pakistani militants against Pakistan,” they were told.

Highlighting Taliban tactics, the paper likened them to termite that eats the structure from within.

“In the power consolidation phase, they let the super structure remain while going the termite way,” the cabinet was told.

This, they were told, was done by creating social space by guaranteeing security through conflict resolution and quick dispensation of justice and execution; targeting political and tribal elders, targeting public opinion makers, creating terror and targeting law-enforces.

Just in the first three months this year, the cabinet was informed, 139 law-enforces were targeted. Compared with that, militants’ known and registered casualties (dead and wounded) stood at 45 from January to April, 25.Likewise, from February 2010 to August 2011, militants beheaded a total of 47 opponents in North Waziristan alone, the cabinet heard in total shock.

The militants, they were told, had a propaganda wing, a religious wing, a political cell and training and espionage networks.

“In short, all wings of militants structure work towards a common goal to ultimately capture power in a well-coordinated, well-organised, cool and calculated manner,” the cabinet was told.

“As for our response; it’s business as usual, where the right hand knows not what the left hand is doing,” a participant quoted from the presentation.

Intelligence penetration, it said, lacked depth, despite Pakistan being in a state of war for over 10 years, while law-enforcement agencies lacked training, the weaponry and orientation to fight an unconventional war.

Moving beyond the 3-D (Development, Deterrence and Dialogue), a cliché term that lacked clarity, coined by former president General Musharraf, the KP cabinet was told that it would take more than just law-enforcement to root out militancy.

All state institutions and government departments would have to respond in a concerted and coordinated manner, it said.

Emphasising that Pakistan needed to learn from other nations on how to deal with militancy; it would also have to make an effort to squeeze finances to militant organisations and mobilise all government departments to gear up their effort in drawing up plans to defeat militants.

The presentation then set out to identify a set of measures that could be taken by the departments of social welfare, Auqaf & religious affairs, information, education, home & tribal affairs, law and justice, revenue, police and the Frontier Constabulary, intelligence and the prosecution to respond in a holistic manner to the challenge.

“To win the war, the government has to show a better face to the people,” the cabinet was told.

Summing up, the cabinet was told that the catch in the whole plan was its implementation. “This is just a pointer,” the cabinet was told.

“Improve it, approve it, assign specific tasks, set time lines, gauge performances against clear benchmarks and go for performance accountability as failure is not an option,” it concluded.

The cabinet approved the recommendations made in the presentation and issued directives to all departments concerned to follow through and implement the plan.

“Minutes of the cabinet meeting have been issued,” a senior government official said. “The ball has started rolling, let’s see where it stops,” a PPP minister in the KP cabinet remarked. “It is a good plan but consistency, perseverance, implementation and accountability are not something we are known for,” the minister said.

http://dawn.com/2012/05/21/new-khyber-pakhtunkhwa-strategy-to-eradicate-militancy/

The Tribune – Pakistan turning Dilip Kumar’s house into heritage site

Islamabad, April 15. Eight decades after Bollywood icon Dilip Kumar left his ancestral home near the famous Qissa Khwani Bazar in Peshawar city, Pakistani authorities are in the final stages of acquiring the crumbling building so that it can be preserved as a national heritage site.

Tucked away in a corner of Doma Gali in Mohalla Khudadad, the home with an elaborately carved green doorway has few outward signs that set it apart as the place where Dilip Kumar was born as Muhammad Yusuf Khan on December 11, 1922. The son of prosperous fruit merchant Lala Ghulam Sarwar, the future silver screen icon spent several years of his childhood in the home located near Qissa Khwani Bazar or the “Market of Storytellers,” where travellers and traders from across Central Asia gathered to swap tales.

In December last year, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the Information Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, announced plans to acquire the ancestral homes of Bollywood legends Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor in Peshawar so that they could be preserved as national heritage sites. Officials said the move to acquire Dilip Kumar’s home was in its final stages.

“The government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is negotiating for purchasing Dilip Kumar’s house with the present owner. The negotiations are in the final stage,” Shuaib Uddin, a senior official of the province’s Information Department, told PTI.

After the house is acquired, it will be preserved and maintained by the provincial government as it belongs to a legend of this soil. After the acquisition process is complete, a strategy will be put in place for its maintenance,” Shuaib Uddin said. (PTI)

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120416/main5.htm

Dawn – Nawaz links reopening of Nato routes to expulsion of US agents

Ali Hazrat Bacha

Peshawar, 7 April 2012. Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif said here on Friday that the government would have to get the country cleared of American agents (contractors) and drone attacks stopped in exchange for reopening routes for Nato supplies.

He was addressing a meeting at which PML-Q’s provincial president Engineer Amir Muqam joined his party and announced the merger of his faction into the PML-N.

Mr Sharif said the government would have to stop allowing the use of bases in the country by foreign troops. Besides Nato trucks should be used only to carry foodstuff through Pakistan.

“The Parliamentary Committee on National Security is already working on the issue and my party has expressed its stance,” he said, adding that the PML-N would not support reopening of the Nato supply unless these conditions were met.

He urged the United States to use its influence to get the Kashmir issue resolved as lives of innocent people in the occupied territory could be saved.

He condemned the American announcement of a bounty on Hafiz Saeed’s head and said the US-Pakistan relations could not improve unless the US stopped pursuing double standards.

“The meetings of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security will be a futile exercise if the US did not change its policy towards Pakistan,” he said.

He said the government would have to change its foreign policy and stop compromising on national security and sovereignty.

Otherwise, development and peace in the country would remain only a dream.

He accused the government of indulging in corruption and destroying national institutions like PIA and Pakistan Railways.

Because of its faulty policies, he said, the energy crisis was worsening by the day.

Criticising the role of military dictators, he said, they tried to divide political parties, encouraged non-party elections and promoted sectarianism. Referring to the government’s performance during the past four years, he said it failed to resolve the energy crisis, curb terrorism and sectarianism, steer the country out of financial crisis and focused only on accumulating wealth.

“The country would not have faced the financial crisis and law and order problem if the PML-N government had not been removed in 1997 when it was in a position to complete the planned motorways from Peshawar to Afghanistan and Central Asian countries,” he said.

Commenting on remarks made by President Asif Ali Zardari, he said he would not use the same language because the nation was the better judge.

“Everyone knows that the Musharraf government did not allow members of my family to attend the funeral of my father in Lahore,” he said.

He asked the government to end corruption, take up welfare projects and his party would support it in the best interests of the nation.

PML-N leaders Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Pir Sabir Shah, Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Abbasi, Rehmat Salam Khattak and Farid Toofan were present on the occasion.

http://dawn.com/2012/04/07/nawaz-links-reopening-of-nato-routes-to-expulsion-of-us-agents/

The Tribune – Pakistan Sikhs seek citizenship

G S Paul, Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 25. Niranjeet Kaur and her schoolmate Satya have completed plus two from a local school but are clueless about their future prospects because they have been summoned again to their native town of Peshawar in Pakistan for visa formalities before seeking admission in a college.

Their elders, who have been on petty jobs for over a decade here, would have to accompany them them back to Peshawar to furnish documents to seek extension for their stay in India.

Today, 20 such Pakistani Sikh families, on an initiative taken by Surinder Kumar Billa, president, All-India Hindu Shiv Sena, assembled at the Durgiana Temple complex, urging the Indian Government to grant them Indian citizenship on the plea that they had been living here for over 15 years now.

As Pakistani nationals, they have to go back to Pakistan once every five years to get their passports renewed and every second year to the New Delhi Embassy for their stay permit. “We are scared. Whenever we go back to Pakistan, we are subjected to humiliation by the Pakistani officials. Moreover, life over there is hell, especially for girls. The education scenario is very bad. We demand that the Indian Government grant us citizenship”, said 18-year-old Niranjeet, who came here when she was three.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110926/punjab.htm#7