Senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed in US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 – 2012

 

Sourced from: The Long War Journal 

 

Killed in 2012:

Abu Yahya al Libi
Abu Yahya was a Libyan citizen, and served as al Qaeda’s chief of staff and senior cleric and ideologue.
Date killed: June 4, 2012.

Abu Usman Adil
Abu Usman Adil was the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and spearhead the expansion of the group’s operations in Afghanistan.
Date killed: April 29, 2012.

Ahmedis versus the wrath of Pakistan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Anas Abbas

Courtesy: Viewpoint

If you are an Ahmedi and by chance you are in Pakistan, the land of conspiracy theorists, non state actors and religious predators then please prepared to face the following:

• Religious and social oppression
• Discrimination and slander
• Grave evacuations
• Massacres and Illegal detentions
• Brutal tortures and extra-judicial murders
• Pogroms and state-sanctioned religious apartheid

Hazara holocaust and the deafening Pakistani silence by Anas Abbas

Courtesy: Viewpoint

In Pakistan, the non state actors who implement the policy of “Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die,” have been belligerently persecuting the Hazara community since 1998. A concise historical persecution account of the Hazara people was well documented by Dr Saleem Javed in his Friday Times article. He writes: “On July 4, 2003, 53 people died and 150 were hurt in a suicide attack on a Hazara mosque in Quetta. It was the first attack of its kind. Since then, more than 700 Shias, most of them Hazaras, have been killed in violent mass killings and suicide bombings in Balochistan”.

Pakistan’s Impending Defeat in Afghanistan

Courtesy: Carnegie

By Ashley J. Tellis

Irrespective of how the coming security transition in Afghanistan pans out, one country is on a surprising course to a major strategic defeat: Pakistan. Every foreseeable ending to the Afghan war today—continued conflict with the Taliban, restoration of Taliban control in the southern and eastern provinces, or a nationwide civil war—portends nothing but serious perils for Islamabad. But judging from Pakistan’s behavior, it appears as if this fact has eluded the generals in Rawalpindi.

Bury the Graveyard

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL

Courtesy: Foreign Policy Magazine 

It’s the mother of all clichés. Almost no one can resist it. It’s wielded by everyone from thoughtful ex-generals to vitriolic bloggers. It crops up everywhere from Russia’s English-language TV channel to scruffy Pakistani newspapers to America’s stately National Public Radio. TheHuffington Post can’t seem to live without it, and one recent book even chose it as a title. Afghanistan, we’re told, is “the graveyard of empires.”

No Country for Armed Men by Ahmed Rashid

Courtesy: Foreign Policy 

LAHORE – It was a sign of the misguided times in Pakistan that on June 5 — a day when the country faced massive rolling electricity blackouts, a crashing economy, civil war in two out of four provinces, violence from the Himalayas to the Arabian Gulf, and a cratering relationship with the United States — the Pakistani army decided it was the best moment to test fire a cruise missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. It was the fifth such test since April, supposedly a morale booster for a wildly depressed public, a signal to India that Pakistan would not put its guard down despite its problems, and a message to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who had arrived in Delhi that morning, that Pakistan could not be bullied.

What’s Wrong with Pakistan?

Courtesy: Foreign Policy Magazine.

Perversity characterizes Pakistan. Only the worst African hellholes, Afghanistan, Haiti, Yemen, and Iraq rank higher on this year’s Failed States Index. The country is run by a military obsessed with — and, for decades, invested in — the conflict with India, and by a civilian elite that steals all it can and pays almost no taxes. But despite an overbearing military, tribes “defined by a near-universal male participation in organized violence,” as the late European anthropologist Ernest Gellner put it, dominate massive swaths of territory. The absence of the state makes for 20-hour daily electricity blackouts and an almost nonexistent education system in many areas.

Leaked list of People on ISI Payroll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

American, Indian and Israeli agent but Why? by Anas Abbas

Terrorists armed with rockets and grenades attacked the headquarters of Pakistan’s naval air force in Karachi, triggering gunbattles that killed five military personnel, three weeks after the US killing of Osama bin Laden.

Once again TTP claimed responsibility in retaliation to Pakistan’s alliance with the West in War on Terror and the killing of Osama by U.S. Navy Seal. According to TTP’s ideology, attacks against Pakistan Army are justified since it is ostensibly assisting America against Al – Qaeda.

Despite TTP’s open confessions and alliance with Al- Qaeda and Mullah Omer, a conspiracy theory exist in Pakistan that TTP has been funded by U.S., Israel and India and its agenda is to weaken Pakistani state. This theory is now a popular belief in the country and is being heavily promoted in both electronic and print media by best rated anchors and journalists.

Agenda of the Theory (Part 1): To defend the image of pro Pakistan Militants or Jihadists and Pakistan Army.

Pakistan formed the Afghan Taliban after U.S. conveniently left Afghanistan in dilapidated condition. In order to protect its regional rivalry with India (that was supporting Northern Alliance), Pakistan has supported the Taliban since the beginning to influence Afghanistan’s domestic and foreign policies. While the Taliban continued to pummel Afghani women and children as well as men, the women elite of Pakistan continued to party away late into the nights with their partners… life was lavish. Most of the masses in Pakistan had no idea about the existence of Taliban and their brutal tactics which was to spill onto their lives a few years later.

However, things dramatically changed after 9/11 with U.S.’s War on Terror. Pakistan was forced to rethink its policy towards the Taliban due to American pressure and strategic reasons, and a general consensus against them was formed the world over. The Taliban were brought to the forefront and their dirty deeds were exposed through the internet and the media.

At the same time, under Musharraf, Pakistani media became relatively free which led to the scrutiny of Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban. Images of public beatings of women, killings and executions in soccer grounds were all over TV channels. This contributed towards forming a negative image of the Taliban among the Pakistani people. (Except the conservatives, extremists and political parties such as Jamait e Islami)

Specifically after the TV Boom in Pakistan which also happened simultaneously, the new free media and the newly hosted Talk Shows exposed the role of the Military in the formation of the Taliban or militants through prominent politicians who came up and spoke out. Military rule came under fire as Pakistan’s history of exploitative politics and ISI’s role in it came to light through critics in talk shows and electronic media.

Thus a negative perception of the military was also created.

By 2007 Pakistan came under the strain of excessive bombings by a newly formed TTP. This group was formed on the same ideological lines as the Afghan Taliban i.e. to enforce puritanical Sharia in Pakistan and to fight against any occupying forces. However, it differs operationally from Afghan Taliban as the latter is fighting in Afghanistan against U.S. and NATO forces and the former is in war against Pakistan who is supporting the occupying forces. They are both controlled by Al-Qaida and are mostly collaborate together.

Soon after the suicide bombings in 2007, TTP (Pakistani Taliban) openly started to claim responsibility for the attacks and got significant coverage by the electronic media. In these circumstances it became increasingly difficult for the extremists and the conspiracy theorists to openly defend the Islamist militant organizations and to simultaneously have the Afghan Taliban and Kashmiri militants as a regional lever for control. Since the Pakistani Taliban were openly claiming on television to have carried out suicide bombings in Pakistan in the name of Jihad, ISI and its Islamist allies became increasingly worried as this was tainting the image of “mujahids” (Islamic Fighters), Jihad (a motivational weapon of Army) and spreading the perception that the militants were retaliating against Pakistan because of the indiscriminate bombings by the Pakistani army in tribal areas.

In addition to this, the Lawyers Movement added fuel to the fire and acted as a catalyst in forming a negative image of the military. The Military however had to come up with a plan which was politically safe in the short run and which also served their interests in the long run.

To counter all this, Pakistan establishment, Islamists, and allied conspiracy theorists devised a plan to launch a conspiracy theory that would easily blame all the attacks in Pakistan on India, Israel and the U.S. Hence TTP and any other affiliated militant group that was attacking Pakistan was then tagged by these conspiracy theorists as Indian or American agents working in disguise as Taliban to malign the reputation of  the “Taliban” and jihad in particular.

The Establishment did not stop here however. They launched a proponent agent in the public: someone who would act as a defender as well as a promoter. Right about that time, and apparently without any associations to the army, Zaid Hamid appeared on the horizon and took two stances that the army was in dire need of. In order to rally support for his perspective, he gave his ideas a religious aspect insofar as glorification of the army was concerned. Briefly mentioned, his views are firstly that the army is sacred and can do no wrong, secondly, that our army is destined to overpower the whole world, and lastly, Ghazwa-e-hind i.e. we have to defeat India and we are religiously destined to do so one day.

Agenda of the Theory (Part 2): To boost the morale of the armed forces and the general population when the army sees a need for any military operation or intervention.

Before any Military operation, it is a tendency of the army to label its adversaries as Indians or Zionist agents. This is because the army is predominantly trained and indoctrinated to fight against the Hindus (“infidels Indians”).

A common exploitative tactic is to give a conflict a religious context e.g. by presenting the ‘enemy’ as enemies of Islam. Before the 1971 operation for East Pakistan (operation searchlight) Bangalese were targeted by issuances of fatwas for their ‘infidel activities’, thus painting the Bangalese as unfaithful and conspirators against Islam. This ideological manipulation influences the public sentiment by projecting a unislamic and imperialist image of foreign country/peoples. Prejudiced and censored history also makes the public vulnerable, making it easy to get their support for a military operation. The 1992 operation against MQM is a textbook case. Members of the MQM were portrayed as traitors who were secretly plotting to create a separate state with the help of the Indians. Similar strategy is employed in Swat and Waziristan operations where with the help of conspiracy theorists such as Zaid Hamid, the army is successful in gaining public support and motivation for troops.

Love You George: General Kayani

By Anas Abbas

Dearest George Washington:

I am writing this letter to personally congratulate you on your heroic efforts for working towards the independence of the country that has vastly benefited us over the past 60 years.

By the way, your country deserves praise for its exceptional half wittedness which we will continue to exploit for eternity.Soon after independence our demands of military equipment and economic aid were fulfilled by our participation in CENTO and SEATO. In the quest for dollars & Johnnie Walker, Ayub Khan had even extended a welcoming offer to your military officials, encapsulated in his words “Our Army can be your Army if you want”.