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By David E. Sanger
$17.79
By Tom Hayden
$14.93
$13
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AP photo / Pakistan Television
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If any further proof was needed that Pakistan represents a major global concern at present, President Pervez Musharraf just provided it by declaring a state of emergency and storming the Pakistani Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the U.S. is “deeply disturbed” by these developments.
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Boy, is al-Qaida ever busy these days! In addition to threatening U.S. troops in Iraq, running riot in the hinterlands of Pakistan and generally requiring huge amounts of money and the potential sacrifice of thousands of lives to thwart its infiltration on several fronts, al-Qaida might even be behind the wildfires currently plaguing Southern California, according to “Fox and Friends.”
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AP photo / David Guttenfelder
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The recent outbreak of violence in Pakistan has drawn criticism of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from within her homeland and has raised concerns in the U.S. about Pakistan’s leadership and future. Twin explosions, apparently targeting Bhutto during her auspicious return Thursday from an eight-year self-imposed exile, killed over 130 and wounded hundreds more.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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More than a hundred Pakistanis were killed Thursday by two bomb blasts as a crowd of 200,000 gathered to witness the return of exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto herself escaped unscathed and was rushed to her home.
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In an attempt to target suspected militants with ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban, the Pakistani army has bombarded a section of its shared border with Afghanistan for four days, causing chaos in the town of Mir Ali in north Waziristan, where some 45 troops and 150 rebels have reportedly been killed.
Posted on Oct 9, 2007
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The Mosaic Intelligence Report examines the political turmoil in Pakistan and wonders whether Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s hold on power is as tenuous as it looks.
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AP Photo / Ivan Sekretarev
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is busily offering olive branches, and even pledging to resign his military post in the near future, during the final hours before Saturday’s presidential election. It looks like his strategy may work, as the election is expected to result in victory for Musharraf, even as his legitimacy as a candidate is being contested and reviewed by the nation’s top court.
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foreignpolicy.com
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The Washington Post has it on good authority that Pakistan is losing its war against Taliban and al-Qaida forces operating within its borders, due in no small part to Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s tenuous hold on power.
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Of all the ways to stand out on the world stage, this news about America’s global leadership surely does not represent the best possible distinction it could have earned: According to a congressional study released Monday, the U.S. beat out Russia and Britain to become the top seller of weapons to developing nations such as India and Pakistan in 2006.
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The take-away from the recent showdown between MoveOn.org and Bush administration members (not to mention the Senate) over the now-infamous “General Betray Us” ad should be, according to Stephen Colbert, that the full force of our nation’s military power can best be unleashed on the world stage in the form of ... deadly schoolyard taunts.
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hindu.com
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A new audio recording attributed to Osama bin Laden has been released, in which the al-Qaida leader urges Pakistanis to revolt against President Pervez Musharraf (pictured) for ordering the raid on Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque in July.
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The North Korean government has denied allegations that it shared nuclear technology with Syria. A senior U.S. nuclear official earlier insisted that North Koreans were in Syria, possibly to supply the latter with illicit equipment.
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Ayaz Amir —
Valuable sources of news and analysis about key nations and players on the current world stage (including our own) can often be found by looking beyond the western “MSM.” Here, prominent Pakistani columnist Ayaz Amir offers his forceful take on the U.S.‘s divisive impact on his country’s politics and future.
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Pakistan has put on another act in the ongoing show of military prowess between the South Asian nation and its neighbor India by successfully testing a new cruise missile, the Hatf VIII (aka Raad, or thunder in Arabic), which is designed to carry an array of different nuclear warheads.
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AP Photo / Lefteris Pitarakis
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Here’s a bit of news that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf no doubt finds unwelcome: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (pictured), whom Musharraf overthrew in a 1999 coup, is coming out of exile and plans to return to Pakistan to challenge Musharraf’s position.
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Here are some words to the wise for the U.S. government from a unique Pakistani media figure: introducing (for some of us, at least) Begum Nawazish Ali, nee Ali Saleem, a drag queen who interviews politicians and celebrities in character—and colorful finery—as “Begum Sahiba” on Pakistan’s AAJ Television.
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AP Photos / Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Jeff Roberson
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By Kasia Anderson — In what may have been one of the most controversial (and contradictory) missteps made yet in this pre-election season, Hillary Clinton refused, however ambiguously, to rule out using nuclear weapons to combat terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Though the media at large barely registered her comment, it wasn’t lost on Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who takes Clinton to task in an exclusive interview with Truthdig.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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The Pakistani government may declare a state of emergency, which would grant it extraordinary powers, limit civil liberties and extend the political lifespan of embattled President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
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abc.net.au
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Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has criticized the tough talk coming out of Washington and the presidential campaign as counterproductive. President Bush and Barack Obama, among others, have recently raised the possibility of attacking targets in Pakistan without necessarily consulting that nation’s government.
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By Robert Fisk — The seasoned Mideast reporter for the British paper The Independent returns home to his flat in Beirut to find his landlord reinforcing his building with an iron door. After considering the state of affairs in Lebanon—not to mention in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Gaza—Fisk gets behind his landlord’s security plan.
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britannica.com
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Perhaps hoping to counteract any perceived weakness (or naivete) regarding his stance on foreign policy, presidential hopeful Barack Obama let fly with some words of warning for Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf in a Washington speech Wednesday.
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Pakistani police have reported the apparent suicide of Abdullah Mehsud, a key Taliban commander who did 25 months at Guantanamo Bay. Mehsud was in hiding in the southwestern Balochistan region of the country and blew himself up during a raid by Pakistani soldiers, according to the BBC.
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AP Photo / Arjun Naveed
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Pakistan’s Supreme Court delivered a ruling Friday that smacks of a smackdown between the country’s other top legal players and President Pervez Musharraf, and in this round, Musharraf didn’t win: The court flouted Musharraf’s decision, made earlier this year, to suspend Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry (pictured) and voted that he be reinstated to his post.
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At least 33 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate bombings in Pakistan—one in the south and the other in the northwest region of the country. The blast in Hub, near Karachi, apparently targeted Chinese workers, according to the BBC, and officials were uncertain on Thursday whether the two incidents were related.
Updated
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bbc.co.uk
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Of all the ways to do battle with al-Qaida, pursuing justice through the legal system against a fundamentally outlaw organization may not seem to be the most successful route. But Mariane Pearl, widow of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, is doing just that by suing the militant group for her husband’s 2002 death.
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AP Photo / Ron Edmonds
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A new report about terrorism issued by U.S. intelligence agencies brought the sobering news that, while groups like al-Qaida may be somewhat constrained in terms of their ability to attack American targets at home, the threat they pose will continue to be significant in coming years.
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AP photo / Musa Khan
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The Taliban, which sponsored al-Qaida, is alive and well on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and, following last week’s Red Mosque showdown in Pakistan, pro-Taliban militants are retaliating by breaking a 10-month truce and unleashing violence in the country’s northern region.
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Last week’s deadly battles at Islamabad’s Red Mosque have sparked outbreaks of violence in Pakistan this weekend, which could spell trouble for President Pervez Musharraf’s political future.
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According to an ABC News report, Taliban military officer Mansour Dadullah claims that plans are in the works for large-scale terror attacks. Dadullah delivered his ominous message to a reporter in Pakistan, where al-Qaida and Taliban operatives are said to be gaining in strength and numbers.
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By Eugene Robinson — Let’s hope that Michael Chertoff’s “gut feeling” that something bad will happen this summer is just the result of something he ate. But what has the homeland security czar been doing, besides monitoring his belly?
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AP Photo / George Herbert
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By Robert Scheer — The marker of what will go down in history as “Bush’s folly” is that this idiot of a president invaded a country that had absolutely nothing to do with terrorist attacks on the United States or WMD threats to America while coddling the military junta in Pakistan, which was guilty on both counts.
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AP Photo / Anjum Naveed
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has intervened to defuse the explosive standoff at Islamabad’s Red Mosque, which has resulted in at least 19 deaths over the last three days. The BBC reports that the mosque’s religious leader, Maulana Abdul Aziz, was captured Wednesday after he tried to leave the scene shrouded in a burka.
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A clash between Pakistani police and students associated with the Lal Masjid (“Red Mosque”) in Islamabad resulted in nine deaths Tuesday, and 140 were reported wounded, according to the BBC.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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More than 200 people have died in Karachi, Pakistan, as a result of storms that ravaged the city. Heavy rain, gale-force winds and flooding obliterated many homes, while falling trees, billboards and power lines wreaked further havoc. At least 45 people have also died in southern India.
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AP Photo/Fritz Reiss
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Author Salman Rushdie is once again the subject of controversy—a position the “Satanic Verses” scribe is familiar with, to say the least. The decision by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II to knight Rushdie last weekend drew criticism from Muslims who disagreed with the message of his most notorious novel, including members of Pakistan’s parliament.
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AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
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Angelina Jolie and paramour Brad Pitt hit the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of their latest joint effort, “A Mighty Heart,” which focuses on Mariane Pearl, played by Jolie, as she weathers the abduction and murder of her husband, American journalist Daniel Pearl, in 2002.
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foxnews.com
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Nilofar Bakhtiar, Pakistan’s federal minister for tourism, is in hot water with clerics in her home country for hugging a skydiving instructor who guided her through a tandem parachute jump for charity last month. Now, after striking such an “obscene” pose, she’s had to resign from Pakistan’s Cabinet.
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Two politically opposed groups in Karachi, Pakistan, opened fire on each other Saturday as a suspended member of President Pervez Musharraf’s administration, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was arriving in Karachi for a rally. The BBC reported that 34 were killed in the gunfire and 120 injured, and that Chaudhry was forced to return to Islamabad.
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Despite U.S. efforts to quash al-Qaida, the terrorist organization is rebuilding its base in rural Pakistan—and doing some serious networking to connect with other militant groups in Africa and the Middle East, steering them to focus on Western targets on a local and international scale.
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Over the objections of other members, the UK has brought the climate change debate to the U.N. Security Council. Russia, China and Pakistan said it was the wrong venue for the issue, but U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett pointed out that rising sea levels, mass migration and economic catastrophe would almost certainly impact global security.
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An outbreak of violence in Pakistan has killed more than 50 people since Monday, according to the BCC. Militants connected to the Afghan Taliban in the country’s northwest region have been battling tribesmen.
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A raid in the Pakistani city of Quetta early this week reportedly resulted in the capture of Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund and other suspects. Officials said the arrest occurred as Vice President Dick Cheney was passing through the country’s southwestern region.
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dw-world.de
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The Washington Post has an inside look at “black sites,” the secret detention centers operated by the CIA that hold abducted terror suspects, one of whom describes a world of interrogation, torture and misery.
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AP Photo / Greg Baker
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By Robert Scheer — There is nothing wrong with negotiating with our enemies rather than weakly blustering at cartoon images of them—I wish we would do the same in our dealings with Iran—but it would be nice if we would stop shooting ourselves in the foot first.
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wikipedia.org
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India and Pakistan have agreed to a deal meant to limit the possibility of inadvertent nuclear war. The two nuclear states have gone to war several times and frequently rattle sabers at each other.
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A series of explosions around the world has killed more than 120 people. A train bombing in northern India left at least 64 people dead, while three car bombs in Baghdad—the bloodiest violence since a security crackdown began—killed more than 60 and injured at least 131. A bomb also exploded at a McDonald’s in St. Petersburg, Russia, in an act of “hooliganism,” according to police. There was no indication that each nation’s violence was related to the explosions in the other countries.
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By Nicholas Schmidle — Pakistan’s “madrassas” have been described as “jihad universities” because of their ties to the Taliban and Islamic extremists, but a small-scale indigenous effort to reform the religious schools could be making more progress than the combined forces of the American, British and Pakistani governments.
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Former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said in a recent interview with Pakistani television that his forces led Osama Bin Laden from the mountains of Tora Bora to a “safe place” in late 2001, after U.S. troops had surrounded the area.
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abc.net.au
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A judge in Pakistan has dropped the terrorism charges against one of the alleged leaders of the London airline bomb plot. Britain, undeterred by the ruling in favor of Rashid Rauf, says it will move ahead with its case against co-conspiracy suspects in its custody.
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