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PML-N, MQM agree to join hands for 'stronger opposition'

A joint statement said that the two parties would work together on key national issues such as inflation, load shedding, law and order and corruption.

Leaders from both parties met here and discussed the formation of a ‘grand opposition alliance.’ Raza Haroon, Haider Abbs Rizvi and Waseem Akhtar represented the MQM in the meeting while the PML-N was represented by Ishaq Dar, Saad Rafique, Mushaidullah and Pervez Rashid.

A joint statement read out by Haider Abbas Rizvi said that the two parties would work together on key national issues such as inflation, loadshedding, law and order situation, corruption and AJK elections ‘rigging.’

Senator Ishaq Dar said both parties will play the part of a stronger opposition in lawful and constitutional manner.

He added that both parties had set aside their differences and decided to work together in the interest of the country.

Taliban Again refute claims of peace talk with west :

“The rumour about negotiation with America is not more than the talks aimed at the exchange of prisoners,” the Taliban said.

In a statement emailed to media, the Taliban also repeated their long-standing position of rejecting any negotiations for peace as long as foreign troops were in Afghanistan.

“The rumour about negotiation with America is not more than the talks aimed at the exchange of prisoners. Some circles call these contacts as comprehensive talks about the current imbroglio of Afghanistan,” the Taliban said.

“However, this shows their…lack of knowledge about the reality. It is clear as the broad daylight that we consider negotiation in condition of presence of foreign forces as a war stratagem of the Americans and their futile efforts.”

Last month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the United States was in direct talks with the insurgents but that talks were not at a stage where the Afghan government was sitting down with the militants.

Washington and London have both acknowledged there have been recent contacts with insurgents although former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he expected it could take months before any headway could be made.

But so little is known about these contacts that they have been open to widely different interpretations and any discussions that may be taking place are still not at a stage where they can be a deciding factor.

Despite trumpeting military gains, particularly in southern Afghanistan, foreign leaders and military commanders have long recognised the need for a political solution to a war that has now dragged on for almost 10 years.

In Wednesday’s statement, the Taliban said they had been in contact with “some” countries to arrange prisoner exchanges, including most recently with France for the release of two French journalists and their Afghan translator last month.

The men were seized outside Kabul on December 30, 2009 and held captive for 18 months.

France has denied any ransom was paid to secure the release of the two men, and their Afghan interpreter Reza Din. Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said revealing details of the negotiations could damage efforts to free other French hostages in Africa.

The Taliban said they were also continuing “direct and indirect” contacts to secure the release of US and Canadian prisoners.

IED attacks in Pakistan increase by over 145%

 

ISLAMABAD: The number of attacks from improvised explosive devices in Pakistan has grown by more than 145 percent in the last four years, as expertise in the crude bombs has flowed from terrorists in Iraq to Afghanistan and eventually to Pakistan, officials said. 

Just on Tuesday, three separate IED attacks in North Waziristan near the Afghan border and Balochistan in the southwest killed nine Pakistan border troops and wounded 30. 

“Where this expertise is coming from, probably initially it came from Iraq, and then from Afghanistan and now it’s here,” said an intelligence official. He said there had been a dip in suicide bombings in Pakistan with a correspondent increase in IED attacks, which are increasingly the weapon of choice for terrorists.

IEDs are also one of the Afghan Taliban’s most effective weapons against coalition troops in Afghanistan.

A team of law enforcement officials from Pakistan and the United States began meetings in Islamabad on Tuesday as part of their strategic dialogue, with a large part of the discussions focussed on ways to fight the menace of IEDs. 

“It’s a lethal weapon,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik said at the opening of the session, vowing to equip security forces with better detection equipment. 

According to figures provided by the Inter-Services Intelligence, the number of IED attacks on Pakistani troops and security forces soared from 413 in 2007 to 1,015 in 2010, an increase of 145 percent. A breakdown of casualties from IEDs was not available. 

But unlike in Iraq, where caches of munitions hidden by Saddam Hussein’s regime were the main source of explosive material, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, most IEDs are made using ammonium nitrate, a common fertiliser in Pakistan. 

In March 2010, the authorities seized more than 6,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate hidden in a market in Lahore. Zulfiqar Hameed, a senior police official, said three men arrested had links with terrorists.

“Explosives are very easily available,” said another senior police official in Peshawar, who requested anonymity to speak to the press. “If somebody wants to buy explosive material for mining or other work he can get it through legal ways, but then there is no check or tracking whether it’s used properly.”

Pakistan shuts key Afghan war supply-route

Pakistan shut down a pivotal US-NATO Afghan war supply route yesterday following a NATO attack on a Pakistani border post that killed three Pakistan Frontier Corps troops and injured three others.

Attack helicopters from the US-NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) twice strafed positions in Kurram, one of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Thursday morning, first about 5:30 AM and again some four hours later.

NATO officials have justified the attack on the Mandata Kandaho outpost as an act of “self-defence,” just as they did three helicopter attacks last weekend that killed more than 50 people.

According to a Pakistani military spokesman, the Frontier Guards at Mandata Kandaho had fired in the air to indicate to the ISAF helicopters that they had entered into Pakistan airspace: “Instead of heeding to the warning,” the helicopters fired “two missiles, destroying the post.”

Soon after yesterday’s attacks, Pakistan officials closed the crossing into Afghanistan at Torkham, north of Peshawar. By the end of the afternoon, the blockade had reportedly forced more than 150 NATO trucks and oil-tankers from the road.

Pakistan government and military officials have not publicly called the border closure retaliation for the violation of its national sovereignty and murder of its citizens. But on Tuesday, Pakistan’s military warned NATO leaders in Brussels that if NATO forces continue to mount military strikes inside Pakistan, Pakistan will no longer be “able to ensure the safety” of ISAF supply convoys.

While Pakistan’s government has for years tacitly accepted US drone attacks in FATA, it has strongly protested whenever US and NATO forces have crossed into Pakistan, including making thinly veiled threats of military retaliation.

This is hardly extraordinary. Under international law, cross-border attacks are tantamount to an act of war.

In commenting on Thursday’s developments, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik said, “We will have to see whether we are allies or enemies.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit vowed Pakistan “will protect our sovereignty in all circumstances.” When asked how Pakistan might retaliate he said, “I leave it to your imagination.”

This latest crisis in US-Pakistani relations erupted one day after Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed to have reached a “decent understanding, with General Ashfaq Kiyani, the head of the Pakistan Army, about last weekend’s incursions into Pakistan and on a day that CIA director Leon Panetta was consulting with top Pakistani officials in Islamabad.

British PM pays surprise visit to Afghanistan

 
 

British Prime Minister David Cameron made a surprise visit to Afghanistan Monday but had to scrap part of the trip as forces hunted for a missing British soldier, an AFP reporter said.

Cameron arrived on a Royal Air Force plane at Camp Bastion, the main British and US base in Helmand province, then later said he had cancelled a visit to the town of Lashkar Gah so helicopters could be used in the search.

"I arrived here today and received the news about this very worrying incident of a British soldier going missing in central Helmand," he told reporters at Camp Bastion.

"I was just very clear that you've got something like that absolutely urgent taking place, where you want to concentrate all the assets and ability that you have to try and find this person and bring it to the right conclusion.

"It's just absolute common sense that the military should concentrate on the most important requirement of all, which is to help and find this person rather than to bother flying me around."

Cameron confirmed British media reports that he would withdraw some of the 9,500 British troops in Afghanistan but did not say how many, adding that he would give a full statement in parliament Wednesday.

He said the campaign against Taliban militants had entered a "new phase" ahead of the handover of security to local forces by the end of 2014 and that Afghanistan's army and police were "increasingly confident".

US President Barack Obama recently announced that he would withdraw 33,000 US "surge" troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, bringing the overall number of US forces there to 100,000. (AFP)