http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FJ16Df03.html
Hostage death adds to Musharraf's woes
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The killing of a Chinese hostage during a rescue operation in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan on Thursday once again throws the spotlight on the troubled region and Islamabad's response to growing unrest there.
The government's immediate task will be to track down the mastermind of the kidnapping, Abdullah Mehsud, and then to prepare for further major plots being hatched in South Waziristan aimed at destabilizing the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf.
In dramatic developments on Thursday, members of the Special Services Group of the Pakistani army dressed themselves as local tribals and stormed the mud house in Chagmalai, South Waziristan, where two Chinese hostages were being held. In the ensuing gunfight, Wang Peng and the five hostage takers died. Another Chinese, Wang Ende, escaped unharmed.
The two Chinese engineers had been working on Pakistan's Gomal Zam Dam project for China's state-run Sino Hydro Corp in the restive province when they were abducted last Saturday.
The commando action was carried out after Abdullah demanded that the abductors be given a safe passage to Jandollah, in South Waziristan, where Abdullah and other insurgent tribals are hiding. The one-legged Abdullah is a veteran jihadi who fought alongside the Taliban for may years. He was captured by the US in Afghanistan in 2002 and sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but he was released early this year after the Pentagon said he was no longer a threat to the US and that he had no intelligence value.
The Pakistanis rejected Abdullah's demand for the safe passage of the kidnappers, and when their deadline for the release expired, they took the offensive.
Earlier in Jandollah, Mehsud tribals played out an ancient ritual. A woman holding the Koran and a sheep was sent to Abdullah to request the release of a Pakistani paramilitary man who was also being held hostage. As per tribal tradition, Abdullah was obliged to give respect to the woman, and he accepted her request. On Thursday, despite the commando action in Chagmalai, in the presence of local and international media, he handed over Mohammed Shaban, who hails from Wehari (Punjab) to Major-General Niaz Khattack. The major had flown into the remote and generally inaccessible area by helicopter with only a few staff.
The horizon expands
Up to August this year, the fight in the tribal areas was between a few branches of Wazir tribes and the Pakistani military, which was tasked with rooting out foreign militants, including al-Qaeda, from the area.
The Mehsud tribes are the most educated segment of Pashtun society and centuries-old rivals of the Wazir. Though both tribes live in the remote high mountains, many Mehsud tribesmen adopted a successful urban life and even joined the Pakistan army and civil service, often reaching high positions, including generals and top bureaucratic posts. These two factors - their rivalry with the Wazir and their association with the establishment - pitched them on the government side when military operations in the tribal areas started early this year.
This correspondent has witnessed first-hand how Mehsud tribesmen blocked several arteries to prevent Wazir fighters from escaping the army.
However, when Pakistani planes bombed South Waziristan on September 10, killing dozens of local tribals, including women and children, the situation changed and Wazirs and Mehsuds (Panthers and Wolves, as the British military once referred to them) joined hands with the single agenda of getting rid of the "Punjabi army" from their areas.
A compact disc depicting the destruction caused by the bombing is widely available in North and South Waziristan, and copies were sent to the media throughout the country. Mehsud tribals also visited major press clubs, including in Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore, where they showed their wounded children, and also claimed that Pakistani forces had used special chemical weapons against them.
The next battlefield
Independent sources, including the local media and tribals in South Waziristan, claim that the army is mobilizing for an extraordinary offensive, and that militants have already taken up positions in the high mountains. The army has already begun to put pressure on villages situated near the mountains where the militants are hiding in an effort to force them to stop fighting or face the music. This strategy has been used in the past, and always results in unnecessary trouble between peaceful villagers (who couldn't stop the militants even if they wanted to) and the military.
Similarly, the militants have appealed to allies in mainland Pakistan to increase the pressure on the authorities by launching attacks. In the past, attacks have been carried out on the corps commander's house in Peshawar and on the corps commander's motorcade in Karachi.
Al-Qaeda deviates
In the past, al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan were not interested in targeting the country's rulers. Their struggle centered on the US and its interests, which they see as the main force in the occupation of Muslim territories. However, Musharraf's support for the US-led "war on terror" changed this, and they began to form small cells under the name of Jundullah, which randomly struck military targets or at targets that would undermine Musharraf's government. Several of these cells have been caught.
Asia Times Online sources claim that "a big mission" has been assigned from South Waziristan that is aimed at shattering the writ of Musharraf in the country. When, where and how are the questions now occupying the full attention of the three premier intelligence agencies in country - the Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence and Inter-Services Intelligence
http://www.pakistanlink.com/headlines/Dec03/01/05.html
The controversy of two Eids and moon sighting
PESHAWAR (NNI): The celebration of two Eids in the country this year has held legality of the central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee in question once again on the basis of moon sighting witnesses in NWFP as well as Islamabad.
Though, majority of people in NWFP celebrated Eid on Tuesday like Saudi Arabia and the neighbouring Afghanistan, several districts of the province did not join the provincial government and instead celebrated Eid on Wednesday in line with the announcement of the federal government.
It was not only in Pakistan, accustomed to the controversy almost every year, it was also perhaps for the first time in so many years that Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated on two different days in Iran as well.
The controversy of celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr by NWFP ahead of the rest of the country is not new because no evidence of moon sighting is acceptable to the central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee from the province, but the rejection of evidences by the committee from religious leaders in Islamabad is of course some thing new.
Newspapers have reported that moon sighting evidences were sent to the committee from Masjid Abu Bakkar in G-9 and Masjid-e-Qaba Islamabad on Monday evening, which were rejected by the committee and the administration moved to stop faithful from offering Eid prayers on Tuesday.
The entire MMA government approved celebrating Eid on Tuesday and Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani offered Eid prayers in his native Bannu district, however, NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah chose to celebrate Eid on Wednesday.
So much so that now the chairman of Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, Mufti Munibur Rehman has termed celebrating Eid by NWFP as Un-Islamic, which has also thrown a challenge to the religious scholars and leaders to clarify their position.
Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad MNA has felt the need to hold a seminar on the topic and try to bridge the widening gape between the two governments on observing Ramazan and celebrating Eid the same day.
The size and visibility of the Eid moon on November 26 proved the argument of the Frontier government almost accurate that Ramazan moon was sighted on October 27 in NWFP and Balochistan against the stand taken by the federal government insisting to observe Ramazan on October 28.
The MMA government has even demanded disbanding the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, which it believed, failed to bring unity or accept the moon sighting evidences collected in NWFP. But the provincial government would also be required to take action and discourage formation of the plethora of self-styled moon sighting committees in Bannu, Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan and Sawbi districts as well.
The MMA government, its detractors said, failed to officially announce celebrating Eid on Tuesday and only mobilized district governments in selected districts in the middle of the night to make announcements through the public address system from the mosques.
Unlike the past, there was a split decision even in Malakand division this time, which used to observe Ramadan and celebrate Eid in line with the announcement of the federal government. People in Dir celebrated Eid, but Chitral, Swat, Buner and Shanglapar districts did not, and so was the entire Hazara belt, where Eid was celebrated on Wednesday.
Who is at fault, every government in NWFP or the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, an oft repeated question, which boggles the minds and puts the entire responsibility on the federal government and the religious leaders to decide about the issue, which otherwise, should be a non-issue.
Commander: Osama Probably Not in Pakistan Region
Tue Oct 19, 2004
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) is unlikely to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, the top military commander in the area said on Tuesday.
Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, military commander for northwestern Pakistan, said the strong presence of security forces in the rugged tribal region and on the border had made it hard for Washington's most wanted man to sneak into Pakistan.
"The way the army is deployed, there is nothing beyond my eyes and ears," he told reporters in the main northwestern city of Peshawar.
"I have a very good surveillance system ... I can say he (bin Laden) is not here."
A large number of al Qaeda men fled to Pakistan after U.S.-led forces launched a hunt in Afghanistan (news - web sites) for them following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, prompting U.S. officials to believe that their leader bin Laden might be hiding in the border region of the two countries.
The U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Barno, told Reuters last month Bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda figures were most likely to be hiding in Pakistan where they could be well protected by their foreign fighters in the remote tribal region.
Hundreds of al Qaeda fighters, including Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs, are believed to be hiding in the South Waziristan tribal region.
Hussain said middle-ranking al Qaeda officials, like Tahir Yuldashev, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, might be among the foreign fighters holed up in the rugged region but dismissed the possibility Bin Laden was there.
"There is no area which has not been swept through by us. Had he been there ... I would have gotten him by now."
South Waziristan has been the scene of fierce clashes between the security forces and al Qaeda-linked militants in recent months.
Hussain said at least 246 militants, including 100 foreigners, had been killed and more than 550 had been arrested since March. He said about 171 security forces had been killed in these clashes.
Pakistan has deployed more than 70,000 troops in its tribal belt since it joined U.S.-led war on terror in 2001, which was prompted by the Sept 11 U.S. attacks blamed on al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, three Pakistani soldiers were killed and three others were wounded when al Qaeda-linked militants attacked a military convoy in South Waziristan Tuesday.
A military spokesman said troops came under fire in Spinkay Raghzai, the area where a local al Qaeda-linked militant commander, Abdullah Mehsud, is believed to be hiding.
He said the troops also returned the fire but did not have details of casualties from the other side.
Pakistani authorities have vowed to hunt down Abdullah, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who masterminded the abduction of two Chinese engineers working on a dam in the area on Oct. 9.
One of the hostages was killed after army commandos launched a rescue operation last week.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=574&e=7&u=/nm/20041019/wl_nm/security_pakistan_osama_dc