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Monday, October 12, 2009

GHQ attack highlights Punjab threat



The attack on the Pakistan Army headquarters has highlighted the threat not just from militants in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, but from those based in the country’s Punjab province.Security officials said some of the militants involved in the attack in the city of Rawalpindi, next door to the capital, Islamabad, appeared to have links to Punjab. The attack came as the army prepared an offensive in South Waziristan, the stronghold of the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, in the tribal areas of Pakistan. ‘All roads lead to South Waziristan,’ Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Saturday, after a week of violence which included an attack on a UN office in Islamabad and a suspected suicide bombing which killed 49 people in Peshawar. ‘Now the government has no other option but to launch an offensive,’ he said. But even if the military manages to pin down Pakistani Taliban fighters in South Waziristan, the country remains vulnerable to attacks by Punjab-based militants acting either in concert with the TTP or alone. ‘South Punjab has become the hub of jihadism,’ Pakistani analyst Ayesha Siddiqa wrote in a magazine article last month. ‘Yet, somehow, there are still many people in Pakistan who refuse to acknowledge this threat,’ she wrote. Security officials said a militant arrested after the 22-hour-long attack and hostage-taking at army headquarters was believed be a member of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an al-Qaeda-linked Punjab-based group. Some hostage takers’ phone calls were intercepted and they were speaking Punjabi, another security official said. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said, however, it was too early to say whether Punjab-based groups were involved. North West Frontier Province Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain called on Saturday for the elimination of militant bases in Punjab. Even if a South Waziristan offensive was successful militants would still get help from Punjab, he told reporters. But targeting all the militants at once could create an even more dangerous coalition by driving disparate groups closer together to make common cause with the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda in fighting the state, analysts say. The army also draws many of its recruits from Punjab, making any efforts to root out militants there all the harder. ‘Deploying the military is not an option. In the Punjab this will create a division within the powerful army because of regional loyalty,’ wrote Siddiqa. Confronting militant organisations directly could make them more dangerous by driving them underground, and creating splinter groups that would be even harder to control, diplomats and analysts say. Defence analyst Brian Cloughley said the attack on the army’s headquarters showed how little support militants had in the military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). ‘The ISI is hardly going to support militants – even ‘selected’ militants – when it is obvious that main targets are their own people,’ he said.

Presidential election fraud 'significant', says UN



The United Nations special representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said Sunday that the level of fraud in Afghanistan's presidential election was "significant". "It is true that in a number of polling stations in the south and the southeast there was significant fraud, but not only there," Eide told reporters. "The extent of that fraud is now being determined," he said. Eide called a media conference to answer accusations that he tried to conceal information about the extent of the fraud in the elections, which were held on August 20. The elections, the results of which are not yet known, have been overshadowed by allegations of widespread fraud, mostly aimed at President Hamid Karzai. Karzai leads preliminary results with about 55 percent of the vote, against his nearest rival Abdullah Abdullah, who is on 28 percent. Final results are expected to be announced by the end of this week.

Aqeel was mastermind of Sri Lankan cricket team attack


Muhammad Aqeel alias Dr. Usman, heading the gang of terrorists attacking GHQ, was also the mastermind of several heinous incidents including attack on Sri Lankan team and Surgeon Lt. Gen. Dr Mushtaq Baig. He is now finally caught in GHQ operation. Nek Muhammad alias Zubair, arrested for his alleged involvement in attack on Sri Lankan team at Liberty Chowk Lahore on 3rd of March this year, had told during investigation that the mastermind of the attack was Aqeel alias Dr. Usman who brought six culprits to the crime scene. Two rickshaws and arms used in the attack were also provided by him. Muhammad Aqeel alias Dr. Usman belongs to Tehsil Kahota of Rawalpindi. His place was raided on March 9 but he had already escaped to the tribal area. CCPO Lahore Pervez Rathore told during a press conference that Aqeel belonged to Punjabi Taliban Tehreek that is headed by another culprit Farooq. A suicide attack was conducted at Mall Road Rawalpindi on February 2008, killing Surgeon General Mushtaq Baig and eight others. According to security forces, Aqeel alias Dr. Usman was also involved in a rocket attack on former president Pervez Musharraf’s plane.