Drones fuel terrorism, says Imran

KARACHI: Tehrik-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan has said that the “war on terror” is not Pakistan’s war and it is harming the country’s integrity. 

Addressing thousands of supporters at a rally held on Saturday at the Natives Jetty bridge leading to the Karachi harbour, he said that drone and other such attacks were breeding terrorism.

Imran Khan said had the leaders heeded his advice, taken a stand against the attacks and opted out of the American-led coalition, this situation would not have emerged.

He termed the sit-in the harbinger of a revolution and vowed to lay the foundation of a new Pakistan with the support of the people after emancipating them from plunderers of national wealth and honour.

He said the protest would convey to the US that “we will not be cowed down by drone attacks”. He said that if and when his party came into power it would finish the terrorists and assimilate the tribal people into the mainstream. He said it was the worst time for the country and the nation had been made subservient to the Americans.

Imran Khan said the drone attacks were being carried out with the connivance of the government and it was only making protests to hoodwink the people.

“It is a fixed match between the government, army and America,” he said. 

Representatives of some other parties and civil society groups also joined the sit-in held in protest against American drone attacks and to call upon the government to change its policy towards the US. The sit-in will continue till Sunday evening.

“Whenever the government wants, drone attacks will stop,” he claimed.

The PTI’s campaign is not only against drone attacks and Nato supplies through the country, but is also aimed at forcing mid-term elections as Imran says the government is not truly democratic and has capitulated to the 

US. He terms the drone attacks a breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Imran Khan also mustered the support of some of the right-wing parties, including the Sunni Tehrik and Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam, and the Sindh National Front. Because of a strong line taken by him against American attacks that have killed people in the tribal areas, a large number of people from the northern region of the country who eke out their living here were also seen at the rally.

They were carrying PTI’s flags and photographs of Aafia Siddiqui and chanting anti-America slogans.

Kashmir’s ‘missing girls’

SRINAGAR,  India’s only Muslim-majority state is seizing ultrasound scanners and enlisting religious leaders in an effort to save unborn baby girls from a shocking rise in female foeticide, reports AFP.

The issue has united politicians, clerics and social activists in Jammu and Kashmir, a state best known for the deep, blood-stained divides caused by a 20-year-old Muslim separatist insurgency against Indian rule.

Provisional 2011 census data released at the end of March painted a bleak picture of India’s gender imbalance, with a national child sex ratio of just 914 females to 1,000 males, the lowest figure since independence in 1947.

By far the most dramatic decline was in Jammu and Kashmir, where the ratio plunged to 859 girls for every 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group, down by 82 points from 10 years ago.

“We never expected such a drop,” admitted Yashpal Sharma, the Kashmir head of the National Rural Health Mission.

The global sex ratio is 984 girls to every 1,000 boys, according to United Nations population data.

But married women in India face huge pressure to produce male children, who are seen as breadwinners while girls are often viewed as a financial burden as they require hefty dowries to be married off.

The sharpest declines in the ratio were in the towns of the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, heartland of the armed insurgency against Indian rule that began in 1989.

“It is a matter of shame that Kashmiri Muslims are aborting their girl children,” said Kashmir’s top cleric, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, who heads an alliance of moderate political separatists.

Stressing that the practice was profoundly “un-Islamic” Farooq said everyone in the valley had to be conscripted in the battle against this “moral corruption.” Yasin Malik, head of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, was equally forceful in denouncing an “undesirable and unethical trend” which he said was dragging the region back into the Stone Age.

“According to the Koran and traditions of Islam, foeticide is a grave unpardonable sin equivalent to murder. We cannot claim to be Muslims while indulging in this heinous crime,” he said.

The first reaction of the Kashmir authorities to the census figures was a crackdown on the unlicensed use of ultrasound scanners.

Determining the sex of a foetus is illegal in India, but many clinics offer the service for a small fee, fuelling the demand for sex-selective abortions.

Lightweight, portable ultrasound machines mean tests can be carried out even in the most remote villages.

Sharma said close to 100 scanners had been seized in the initial crackdown, but added that long-term solutions were also needed.

“We are roping in religious and community leaders in our campaign. We have already sent 700 letters to various leaders – both Muslims and Hindus,” Sharma said.

Kashmir’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, promised harsher penalties for anyone aiding or abetting female foeticide.

“It is civil society as a whole, and religious, political and social activists in particular, who have to play their part and make the people aware of this crime,” he said.

But Nusrat Nazir, a college lecturer, said efforts to empower women and overcome the social bias towards sons were often undermined by the dowry system, which brought a stark financial factor into the equation.

“These are not issues of governance but ethos, culture and values that our society holds. We have to make efforts to change society, for the better,” Nusrat said. “Dowry is a resident evil.”

Roundup: Iran's intelligence ministry claims to identify, dismantle U.S.-linked spying network

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TEHRAN, May 21 The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced Saturday that it has identified and dismantled a large spy network linked to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), reports China Daily.

The elite and faithful forces of the Intelligence Ministry were able to arrest a number of 30 American-linked spies in their confrontation with the CIA agents and through numerous intelligence and counter-intelligence operations, the statement said.

Also, 42 CIA operatives linked to the network have been identified in various parts of the world, the ministry said in the statement.

It said that not only did the Intelligence Ministry defuse the CIA's heavy aggressive operations but the intelligence ministry's agents have succeeded in feeding false information to the CIA through a number of double-agents.

The ministry's Public Relations Office added in the statement that the U.S.-related spy network was operating under the cover of the so-called job-finding centers to attract Iranian citizens to cooperate with them, by promising them jobs and education opportunities, and deceiving them with visa and entry permission to the United States.

The network was "established by a number of the leading CIA operatives" in some countries, and due to the massive intelligence and counter-intelligence work, the Iranian intelligence agents succeeded in discovering and completely dismantling the network, said the statement.

"The network used a wide range of data bases and U.S. embassies and consulates in several countries, specially in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Malaysia and Turkey, to collect information on Iran's scientific, research and academic institutions in the fields of nuclear energy, air and defense industries and biotechnology," the Iranian Intelligence Ministry said.

The statement further pointed out that the U.S. network also spied on Iran's oil and gas pipelines, power and telecommunication grids, airports, customs departments, network security and banks for future sabotage operations.

In the past years, Iranian authorities have been accusing the United States and Israeli intelligence services of spying on Iran' s military and nuclear programs.

In January, Iran said it had dismantled an Israeli spying network and arrested a group of its terrorist- spies who were linked to the assassination of its nuclear scientist.

An Iran's Intelligence Ministry announcement said then that, " In order to carry out its non-human, anti-Islamic and anti-Iranian wills, the Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency) has used its bases in some European, non- European and some neighboring states of the Islamic Republic to conduct the terror attack against Dr. Massoud Ali-Mohammadi."

In January 2010, Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, the nuclear scientist from Tehran University, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorbike parked near his house.

In November 2010, another Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriar was also killed by a bomb attached to his car on the way to his work.  

Also, Iranian nuclear officials have accused the United States and Israel of cyber-attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant computers but they have denied any serious damage to the facilities.

Osama brings China, Pakistan, US closer

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Srinagar, 21 May: US Navy SEALs launched a secret operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden which, the US says, is a victory in its war on terroris, reports China Daily 05/20/2011

The killing of bin Laden, however, has made many people question the legality of the US' unilateral action in Pakistan, Pakistani "support networks" for the Al-Qaida leader, and future US-Pakistani partnership in the fight against terrorism.

While discussing the reported row between the US and Pakistan, some US media outlets have unnecessarily dragged China into the debate. They have even speculated about China's reaction to bin Laden's death. 

 

Quoting Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Jiang Yu's statement, one US newspaper said that China initially welcomed bin Laden's death as a positive development but later went "out of its way to praise Islamabad for its anti-terrorist stance". The report concluded that the tension between the US and Pakistan had offered "Beijing a chance to wean its oldest regional ally off its dependence on US security assistance".

To begin with, Jiang's defense of Pakistan has nothing to do with Washington's doubts over Islamabad's commitment in the hunt for bin Laden. Jiang's affirmative reply to a question about whether Beijing believed Islamabad's claim that it didn't have prior knowledge of the US operation shows China's consistent stance on Pakistan. And that should not be interpreted as China's attempt to dissuade Pakistan from supporting the US in its war on terrorism.

Indeed, China and Pakistan have enjoyed an "all-weather" friendship for six decades, and the death of bin Laden will not change that. China is aware of the dangers of extremism and Talibanization spreading across Pakistan, but it appreciates Pakistan's determination to combat terrorists and militants and recognizes the sacrifice Islamabad has made in the war on terrorism.

Sino-Pakistani friendship reflects China's "good neighborhood" policy. It's this policy that has strengthened China's ties with all its neighbors, including countries in South Asia.

As a country facing terrorist threats itself, China has worked and coordinated with the US, which is leading the war on terrorism. Since 2001, Beijing and Washington have cooperated in anti-terrorism activities, even though they have somewhat different views on the concept of "terrorism" and the approach that the anti-terrorist strategy should take.

The US lays more emphasis on military raids and strategic operations, whereas China prefers economic development, which Chinese people believe is the only way terrorism can be eradicated from the roots. But China and the US both want a stable and moderate Pakistan.

In the post-bin Laden era, Sino-Pakistani cooperation in the fight against terrorism will continue. Washington, on its part, is likely to continue its cooperation with Islamabad, because terrorism has not died with bin Laden and the US still needs Pakistan's logistical and military support in its campaign against Al-Qaida and Taliban.

US Senator John Kerry was in Islamabad a couple of days ago to try to restore the "damaged" US-Pakistani relations. And US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Islamabad soon to reassure Pakistan of her country's commitments.

So instead of creating a gulf in relations, the death of bin Laden has offered a chance to Pakistan, the US and China to work together to combat terrorism. After all, the three countries' anti-terrorism mission is still very much on.

The author is an associate professor at Peking University's School of International Studies.(Writer-South Asia)