Afghan Journal

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Pakistan, India and the possibility of change

Pakistan has been defined - sometimes by itself, sometimes by outsiders - as "not India" for so long that it has almost become set in stone. Conventional wisdom would have it that Pakistan can unite its many different ethnic and sectarian groups only by setting itself up in opposition to India and stressing its Muslim identity against Indian secularism and pluralism.  In particular, its powerful army has thrived in part because of that traditional enmity with India.

Yet viewing Pakistan through such a simple prism can be misleading, especially if by freeze-framing it within a historical perspective, it denies the possibility of change.

In many conversations during a trip I just made to Pakistan, I found the subject of India to be remarkable largely for its absence.  The United States is of course popularly perceived as a bigger enemy now, but even talk of relations with America - the big obsession of the western media -- was dwarfed by an inwards focus on Pakistan itself.

In a four-hour discussion with his officers in May, Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani made no mention of India, but said that he worried about the weak economy being a threat to Pakistan.  Then in a speech to a conference on deradicalisation in July, he urged "all elements of national power" to work together on a national strategy to counter  terrorism -- echoing a line frequently made by the army that Pakistan's national security depends on better governance and an improved economy. 

Speaking at the same conference alongside Kayani, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani did mention India, but that was to stress the need for better relations. He made the same point in an interview last week, adding that he hoped India could "play a good role" in Afghanistan, where both countries have traditionally been rivals for influence.

None of that is to suggest a sea-change in Pakistan's view of India -- its military in particular remains configured for war with its much bigger neighbour.  And given that Pakistan's foreign and security policies -- including once nurturing militant groups to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir - have been shrouded in secrecy for decades, few would dare say with certainty exactly what is going on.

But there is a change, at least in relative terms. Pakistan has so many internal problems - the Taliban insurgency,  a weak economy, poor governance, political, ethnic and sectarian violence - that "the Indian threat" has receded, while the fear of internal threats to national security has grown. And amongst people not in positions of authority, the conversation is far more likely to be about power cuts and price rises.

from Russell Boyce:

Asia – A week in Pictures 24 July 2011

China are hosting the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai. In my mind's eye, aquatics is a sport of power, grace, balance and beauty but our pictures seem to add the additional factors of concentration, determination or maybe sheer fear. Against my better judgement, I just have to mention that some of the expressions on the athletes' faces remind me of the age old tradition of gurning. What also made an impression are the angles, different points of focus and continually new shapes that compliment a file that could have been very repetitive.

Qin Kai of China perform during the preliminary round of the men's 3m springboard diving event at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai July 21, 2011.        REUTERS/Bobby Yip

Italy's Linda Cerruti performs in the synchronised swimming solo free final at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai July 20, 2011. REUTERS/David Gray

Romania's Dimitri Goanta (R) puts pressure on Serbia's Dusko Pijetlovic during their preliminary round men's water polo match at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai July 20, 2011. REUTERS/Issei Kato

from Russell Boyce:

Asia – A week in Pictures 17 July 2011

This past week in Afghanistan produced some of the most shocking and emotional images of the war. The picture below was taken shortly after President Hamid Karzai's younger half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards. The assassin, Sardar Mohammad, was shot dead and his body hanged from the roof of a shop in Kandahar.  The picture looks like any busy market square, but then your eye wanders around the frame and you see people in the picture are looking at something. The viewer's eye finally settles on the corpse in the back ground dangling like a puppet on a string.

The body of Sardar Mohammad, the killer of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's younger half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, hangs on Charso square in Kandahar city July 12, 2011. Mohammad was shot dead by Karzai's bodyguards moments after opening fire and then hung in the square for 10-15 minutes, witnesses and officials said.  REUTERS/Stringer

 The body of Sardar Mohammad, the killer of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's younger half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, hangs on Charso square in Kandahar city July 12, 2011. Mohammad was shot dead by Karzai's bodyguards moments after opening fire and then hung in the square for 10-15 minutes, witnesses and officials said.  REUTERS/Stringer

In contrast to the shocking image of Sardar's body, photographer Ahmad Nadeem produced images that showed the personal grief of President Karzai as he wept at his brother's funeral attended by thousands of mourners. Let us also not forget our two photographers Baz Ratner and Shamil Zhumatov who are embedded with NATO forces as  the transfer  of security responsibility from foreign forces to Aghans begins and the conflict rages on.

from Expert Zone:

In wake of Mumbai attacks, Pakistan could help save dialogue with India

(The views expressed in this column are the authors’ own and do not represent those of Reuters)

India's financial capital, Mumbai, experienced yet another terrorist attack that initial estimates say killed at least 20.

Terrorists detonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in three separate locations of the city almost simultaneously. The first two blasts occurred at around 6:55 p.m., one in a jewelry market and one in a business district in southern Mumbai. The third blast occurred around 7:05 p.m. in a crowded neighbourhood in central Mumbai.

This is the most significant terrorist attack in India since the three-day Mumbai shooting attacks in November 2008 that killed nearly 170. There was an attack on a German bakery in Pune, India, in February 2010 that killed nine. But since then, India had gone almost 18 months without experiencing a major terrorist attack.

It is too early to determine who is responsible for the attacks, but Indian authorities are pointing to the possibility of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), a homegrown outfit with links to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT).

The strength of the links of these bombings to the LeT will determine how India responds. If investigators determine that LeT members played a crucial role in the planning and implementation of the attacks, the Indian leadership will be compelled to again break off recently resumed talks with Islamabad.

If, on the other hand, investigations show that the IM carried out these bombings largely on its own, there will be less pressure on Indian leaders to immediately withdraw from the Indo–Pakistani dialogue.

On the Afghanistan-Pakistan border : cutting off the nose to spite the face

Pakistan’s defence minister has threatened to move forces away from the Afghan border, where they are deployed to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban, if the United States cuts off aid to the cash-strapped country. Ahmed Mukhtar’s logic is that Pakistan is essentially fighting America’s war on the Afghan border, and if it is going to put the squeeze on its frontline partner, then it will respond by not doing America’s bidding.

But  apart from the issue of whether Pakistan can really stand up to the United States  is the question of whether Islamabad can afford to pull back from the Afghan border for its own sake. This is no longer the porous border where movement of insurgents is confined to members of the Afghan Taliban travelling across to launch attacks on foreign forces in their country. Over the past few weeks, the traffic has moved in the reverse direction, with militants crossing over from Afghanistan to attack Pakistani security posts, Pakistani officials say.  These are not armed men sneaking across in twos and threes , but large groups of up to 600 men armed with rocket launchers and  grenades flagrantly crossing the mountainous border to attack security forces and civilians in Pakistan. (It also stands Pakistan’s strategy of seeking strategic depth versus India on its head; now the rear itself has become a threat.)

It is not very clear who these raiders are  – which adds to the anxiety - but one obvious  guess is that they could be members of the Pakistan Taliban who have come under pressure in their mountain redoubts in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) from the military and may have found sanctuary just over the border in eastern Afghanistan.  The umbrella organisation is sworn to fighting the Pakistani state and is mainly behind the wave of suicide bombings in the country over the past three years, stepping up the momentum even more after Osama bin Laden’s killing, with an audacious attack on a naval base in the southern city of Karachi.

Indeed, the Pakistani military’s offensives have been focused on crushing the Tehrik-e-Taliban, and  it is inconceivable that they would thin out on the Afghan border which is where the threat is coming from, at the moment.

There is another, equally worrying challenge. What if the U.S.-led NATO forces were to cross  the border in “hot pursuit” of insurgents? It’s not entirely impossible : in May NATO helicopters , pursuing insurgents, were reported to have crossed into North Waziristan which followed another raid back in October in which two Pakistani soldiers were accidentally shot. Two years earlier, in September 2008, American commandos carried out a raid in Pakistan’s tribal areas and killed several people suspected of being insurgents. The attack led to outrage among Pakistan’s leaders — and warnings not to do it again.

With ties testing new lows each week, and America’s impatience with the militants growing, the chances of greater aggression on the border have only increased. For Pakistan to pull out from the troubled frontier at this point seems like a self-defeating goal, more than anything else.

from Russell Boyce:

Asia – A week in pictures July 10, 2011

I am not a gamer at all but while looking at the file this week was reminded of a facility on electronic gaming my son showed me that allows you to see a different view point of the action. You can have wide, close and closer still. Two pictures of police beating protesters with batons have been shot as close as you can possibly get to the action but for sure this is no game.  Philippines based Romeo (Bobby) Ranoco picture is actually so close that it has been shot over the shoulder of the soldier, who, judging by the blood on the head of the unarmed protester, seems to have scored at least one direct hit . In India  and shot just slightly wider is Jayanta Dey's picture. The fact that it is shot slightly wider makes sure we are aware that it is actually three soldiers beating a protester and not one. The line of composition created by the baton and the flexed arm creating a perfect compositional triangle - Although I am not sure the protester would actually care about that. 

An anti-riot policeman hits a protester with a baton at a rally against what protesters claim to be U.S. intervention outside the U.S. embassy in Manila July 4, 2011. Filipino and U.S. troops are holding exercises in the Sulu Sea off the western Philippine province of Palawan, which lies near the disputed Spratly Islands. Conflicting territorial claims by several countries over the Spratlys and Paracels are raising tensions in Asia. Besides the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei are claiming the islands as theirs. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

A policeman wields a baton against an activist of India's Congress party during a protest in Agartala, located in northeastern Indian state of Tripura July 10. 2011. Police used batons to disperse activists on Sunday protesting against the state's alleged discriminatory policies towards reservation of seats in local medical colleges, local media reported. REUTERS/Jayanta Dey

Continuing on the theme of public disobedience and violent confrontation with authority thousands of people massed on the Streets of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to demonstrate for electrial reform.  Malaysia chief photographer Bazuki Muhammad, his colleague Samsul Said and Thailand based chief Photographer Damir Sagolj were on the streeets all day as police fired repeated rounds of tear gas and detained over 1,400 people. Both their pictures make me feeling like gagging with the amount of tear gas that is in the air. An unexpected piece of drama to unfold from the demonstration was the fact that opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was slightly injured in the clashes and that Bazuki managed to get access as Anwar's daughter administered some tender care. Lastly with this week's Asian civil disobedience I have to include Nepal based Navesh Chitraker's picture of a Tibetan woman striding purposely towards a line of riot police as she tries to enter a school. The tension in the picture created by the shape of the stride and the tyre mark lines in the mud all pointing to the open gate. but you already know she is just not going to get past the line of soldiers.

Cold War flashbacks as Americans rebuild Soviet tunnel in Afghanistan

Under blazing June sunshine in the Hindu Kush mountains, U.S., Russian and Afghan officials gathered by the entrance of the Salang tunnel, arguably the most important stretch of highway in Afghanistan, linking the country’s south with its north.

They had come to celebrate emergency repair works carried out by the U.S. government on the 2.6 km (1.6 miles) of concrete passageway that the Soviets built in 1962. Constantly congested and leaking, the tunnel is on the brink of collapse.

But what happened next was a repeat of Cold War dynamics, unfolding in a country where Soviet forces made a dispirited 1989 exit after a decade-long war against U.S.-backed mujahideen.

Twenty-two years later, the United States will soon begin a troop withdrawal from the increasingly unpopular NATO-led war now in its tenth year.

“This tunnel is an example that the American people are committed to working in partnership with the Afghans,” U.S. envoy to Kabul Karl Eikenberry told swarms of local media by the tunnel’s cracked oval mouth.

As reporters and Afghan officials ventured into the mud-lined tunnel to admire the Americans’ repair work, such as lighting and plugging leaks, A Russian official on the sidelines started to grumble.

from Russell Boyce:

Asia – A week in pictures 03 July 2011

A great news picture has to have the WOW factor and without a doubt the picture of the domb disposal expert being caught in a car bomb blast is amazing. What is even more amazing is that he lived.

A car bomb explodes as a member of a Thai bomb squad checks it in Narathiwat province, south of Bangkok July 1, 2011. The bomb planted by suspected insurgents wounded the squad member, police said.  REUTERS/Stringer 

This combination photo shows a car bomb exploding as a member of a Thai bomb squad checks it in Narathiwat province, south of Bangkok July 1, 2011. The bomb planted by suspected insurgents wounded the squad member, police said. REUTERS/Stringer 

Also in Thailand, opposition leader Yingluck Shinawatra, a political newcomer, prepared to lead her country after a weekend election victory but huge challenges lie ahead, including how quickly to bring home her brother, exiled ex-premier Thaksin who was ousted by a coup. Thailand chief photographer Damir Sagolj and Pakistan Chief photographer Adrees Latif with Sukree Sukpkang and Chaiwat Suprasom chased the story through all its twists and turns.

Drone strikes are police work, not an act of war?

Launching an air strike in another nation would normally be considered an act of aggression. But advocates of America’s rapidly expanding unmanned drone programme don’t see it that way.

They are arguing, as Tom Ricks writes on his blog The Best Defense over at Foreign Policy, that the campaign to kill militants with missile strikes from these unmanned aircraft, is more like police action in a tough neighbourhood than a military conflict.

These raids conducted by sinister-looking Predator or Reaper aircraft in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen – and since last month in Somalia - should not be seen as a challenge to states and their authority. Instead they are meant to supplement the power of governments that are either unable to or unwilling to fight the militants operating from their territories.

They are precise, limited, strikes aimed at taking down specific individuals, and in that sense are more like the police going after criminals, rather than a full-on military assault. Ricks writes: 

“Police work involves small arms used precisely. Drones aren’t pistols, but firing one Hellfire at a Land Rover is more like a police action than it is like a large-scale military offensive with artillery barrages, armored columns, and infantry assaults.”

It is a bit of a stretch, though, to compare a police action in a rough part of town with the kind of devastation that the laser-guided Hellfire missile can rain down when fired from unmanned aircraft as scores of Pakistani civilians in the troubled northwest region  discovered in the initial days of the programme launched by the Bush administration.

Pakistan’s Shamsi base : a mystery wrapped in a riddle

Pakistan Defence Minister Mukhtar Ahmad’s comments this week that the government had ended U.S. drone flights out of Shamsi air base deep in southwest Baluchistan province has injected new controversy in their troubled relationship. U.S. officials appeared to scoff at Mukhtar’s remarks, saying they had no plans to vacate the base from where they have in the past launched unmanned Predator aircraft targeting militant havens in the northwest region.

Washington’s dismissal of the Pakistan government’s stand is quite extraordinary. Can a country, even if it is the world’s strongest power, continue to use an air base despite the refusal of the host country ?  The United States is effectively encamped in Pakistan using its air strip to run a not-so-secret assassination campaign  against militant leaders including Pakistanis while Islamabad fumes.

One possible reason Washington can get away with it is that the base may not belong to Pakistan. Ahmed said that Shamsi had been leased to the United Arab Emirates in 1992 and they had handed over operational control to the United States when it launched the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and eventually Pakistan.  Pakistan’s air force made the same disclosure during an in-camera hearing for parliament following the secret raid to kill Osama bin Laden in May, the Pakistani press reported at the time and again this week as controversy swirled over Mukhtar’s comment.

It raises troubling issues of sovereignty for Pakistanis as an editorial in The Daily Times noted :

The questions are many. What is the agreement regarding Shamsi air base? If the Pakistanis are in control of it, what need is there to `ask` the Americans to leave? If the Americans control it, under what laws and agreement have they been permitted to and who on the Pakistani side has signed off on it?

It is not the first time the issue of control of Shamsi has erupted in public. A 2005 U.S. diplomatic cable published by Dawn records the UAE government’s displeasure at leak of reports about its military cooperation with the United States inside Pakistan.  The cable from the U.S. embassy in Abu Dhabi says that the UAE government had complained about  General Tommy Franks, former Commander of U.S. Central Command, writing  in his book, “”American Soldier”” that U.S. forces had made use of Sheikh Zayed’s private airstrip in Baluchistan, Pakistan.  The cable said :