Posts Tagged ‘Pakistan’s Double Game’

Pakistan's terror links - the evidence just keeps piling up

Pakistan is incapable of prosecuting terror suspects, according to a US State Department report which reveals that three in four defendants are acquitted.

The report paints a damning portrait of the key United States ally in the war on terror and criticises Islamabad’s failure to outlaw militant Islamic terror groups which escape bans by changing their names.

Islamabad had not closed loopholes which allow criminal gangs to launder funds for terrorist groups and had yet to sufficiently improve its police investigation methods to collect better evidence from crime scenes.

Film footage of the scene of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s 2007 assassination in Rawalpindi being hosed down inspired claims of an official cover-up.

The report comes amid deteriorating relations between the two countries and continuing anger in India at the slow progress in Pakistan’s prosecution of a number of alleged terrorist leaders charged with plotting the 2008 Mumbai massacre. Six Americans were among the 166 victims.

The criticisms are contained in the State Department’s 2010 Country Reports on Terrorism, published last week.
It found that while Pakistan maintained it was committed to prosecuting those accused of terrorism, a study of its Anti-Terrorism Court’s rulings last year disclosed “that Pakistan remained plagued by an acquittal rate of approximately 75 per cent”, and a legal system “almost incapable of prosecuting suspected terrorists”.

You lie down with dogs – you get up with fleas – international Islamo-terror hub Pakistan continues its slide into failed statehood. Every part of its state apparatus is tainted with corruption and terror links.

But the US Administration may have known this much earlier had they been regular readers of this blog.

Full story at the Telegraph

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Ungrateful Pakistan: time to stop the rest of the aid, too

The US says it is withholding some $800m in military aid to Pakistan.

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley told ABC television that Pakistan had “taken some steps that have given us reason to pause on some of the aid”.

He said the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in May had affected ties but he insisted the relationship “must be made to work over time”.

The $800m (£500m) equates to about a third of the annual US security aid to Pakistan, US officials say.

In figures submitted to the International Monetary Fund last autumn, Pakistan’s defence expenditure in its 2010-2011 budget was put at $6.41bn – an increase of $1.27bn on the previous year. Read the rest of this entry »

FATA, Pakistan: Crucible of world terror

Most of the major terrorist plots against the West since 2004 had links to Pakistan, including two that targeted Canada, says a study to be released today by a U.S. think tank.

In just over half of the 32 “serious” plots identified in the New America Foundation study, the participants had received either training or direction from jihadists in Pakistan.

The findings underscore Pakistan’s role as al-Qaeda’s primary safe haven, despite recent concerns about countries like Yemen, writes investigative journalist Paul Cruickshank, the study’s author. Read the rest of this entry »

Purportedly non-violent Pro- Islamic Caliphate party incites military coup in Pohh-ki-stohhn:

Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamist party banned in many Muslim states, said on Friday Pakistanis should take to the streets to call for Islamic rule and join a campaign to end subservience to Washington that was advancing “from Indonesia to Tunisia”.

The party, which says it is non-violent but is accused by some analysts of seeking a coup in Islamabad, added that “powerful factions” in Pakistani society including the military should also take part, but violence had no place in its work.

Hizb ut-Tahrir won international attention when Pakistan’s army said on June 22 it was questioning four majors about alleged links to the party, following the arrest in May of a brigadier suspected of having such ties. Read the rest of this entry »

Too close to the truth? Beaten Islamabad journalist Waqar Kiani

A journalist working for the Guardian in Pakistan has been badly beaten by men in police uniforms, according to the newspaper.
According to the report, Waqar Kiani, a 32-year-old local journalist, was stopped while driving through Islamabad and beaten with wooden batons and a whip.

The alleged attack follows an account, written by Kiani and published five days before the attack, of torture and abduction by suspected Pakistani intelligence agencies.

The attackers then reportedly said: “You want to be a hero? We’ll make you a hero”, and: “We’re going to make an example of you.”
Kiana told the Guardian: “I don’t feel I did anything wrong. Journalists can’t be silent forever in Pakistan,” he said. “If we don’t bring up the facts, then it’s no longer journalism – we become spokesmen of the government.” Read the rest of this entry »