Pakistan: Now or Never?

Bangladeshi group fingered for Indian serial blasts linked to Osama

In the absence of any claims, and a denial of involvement by the main local separatist group, the Indian media is  are starting to point the finger at a Bangladeshi militant Islamist group for Thursday’s multiple bombings that left 65 left dead and more than 300 wounded in Assam state.

If it is indeed the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HuJi) Bangladesh that orchestrated one of the most deadly attacks in the far flung northeast state, then it could end up hardening the mood in India against not just Bangladesh, but also once again against Pakistan.

For the group, which was formed in the early 1990s to establish Islamic rule in  Bangladesh, is an organisation with tentacles running all the way to Afghanistan and to Osama bin Laden and in so doing, is seen as linked with Pakistani militant groups, some of whom have enjoyed backing in the past from the Inter-Services Intelligence. (more…)

America’s escalating “Predator war” in Pakistan

In the dying days of the Bush administration, the United States military has stepped up missile strikes by remotely piloted Predator aircraft against militants in the mountains of Pakistan.

The raids have become deeper – as much as 25 miles into Pakistani territory – and more targeted like the latest one in a compound in South Waziristan where militants had gathered to mourn the victims of a previous strike two days before.

The U.S. has launched 18 Predator attacks since the beginning of August. compared with five strikes during the first seven months of 2008, the New York Times  reported . It said that the White House was relying on air strikes after a ground operation by U.S. Special Forces triggered a furious reaction from the Pakistani government.

Will the U.S. have to turn to Iran for help on Afghanistan?

Will the United States have to turn to its old nemesis Iran for help in Afghanistan? A couple of articles out this month suggest it will.

In this article published by the MIT Center for International Studies, the authors argue that the hostility between Washington and Tehran has been bad for the United States, Iran and Afghanistan, and played into the hands of the Pakistan military, the Taliban and al Qaeda.

After 9/11, Iran cooperated with the United States to hep defeat the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan. (Shi’ite Iran has traditionally been opposed to the hardline brand of Sunni Islam espoused by the Taliban and al Qaeda.) So from Tehran’s point of view, the country felt badly betrayed when in return for its help, President George W. Bush labelled Iran as part of the “axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea. (more…)

IMF bailout: the coming medicine for Pakistan?

Is the International Monetary Fund going to force Pakistan to swallow its classic bitter pill – which to some is worse than the disease – as a price of rescuing it from economic meltdown?

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has said loans to countries hit by the global financial turmoil would be faster, and with fewer conditions, than in the past. Conditions for lending should be defined by what is needed for the programme and should not be an “attempt to fix the world”, the IMF Survey magazine quotes him as telling staff.

India, Japan in security pact; a new architecture for Asia?

While much of the media attention during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan this week was focused on a free trade deal the two sides failed to agree on, another pact that could have even greater consequences for the region was quietly pushed through.

This was a security cooperation agreement under which India and  Japan, once on opposite sides of the Cold War, will hold military exercises, police the Indian Ocean and conduct military-to-military exchanges on fighting terrorism.

It doesn’t sound very grand, but its significance lies in the fact that pacifist Japan has such a security pact with only two other countries – the United States and Australia.

And it comes in the same month that India and the United States closed a nuclear cooperation deal that won New Delhi a place on the world’s nuclear high table, ending three decades of isolation following its first nuclear tests in 1974. (more…)

Seeking regional peace for Afghanistan

Given the focus on U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan since 9/11, it’s easy to forget the regional context. In an article in Foreign Affairs, Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid try to set that right, calling for a regional approach that would take account of the interests not just of Afghanistan, but also of Pakistan, Russia, Iran, India and China.

“Both U.S. presidential candidates are committed to sending more troops to Afghanistan, but this would be insufficient to reverse the collapse of security there. A major diplomatic initiative involving all the regional stakeholders … is more important,” it says.

“No government in the region around Afghanistan supports a long-term U.S. or NATO presence there. Pakistan sees even the current deployment as strengthening an India-allied regime in Kabul; Iran is concerned that the United States will use Afghanistan as a base for launching ‘regime change’ in Tehran; and China, India, and Russia all have reservations about a NATO base within their spheres of influence and believe they must balance the threats from al Qaeda and the Taliban against those posed by the United States and NATO,” it adds. (more…)

from Reuters Editors:

What does journalism owe to its subjects?

Is there a responsibility owed by journalists to the countries we report on?

A big topic, for sure, and one I was thinking about during a debate organised by The Orwell Prize on 'Is journalism failiing failing states?' Ostensibly the panel were discussing the adequacy of coverage of places like Congo, Burundi and Afghanistan. Adequacy for what, you might ask, and the discussion revealed a gap between the role some wanted journalism to play in crisis zones and what it actually achieves. Some sense of duty to inform, to shine a light in dark places and to educate motivates a lot of coverage of the world's trouble spots. Yet the high-minded pursuit of truth is compromised by the impatience of viewers and readers, who respond to human drama rather than deep detail and nuance. It is also compromised by the ego indulgence of reporters who put themselves rather than their subjects at the centre of a story. And it is compromised by the decreasing ability of big news organisations to fund foreign reporting. John Lloyd of the FT and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism suggested we can no longer expect to get in the mass media the complex information needed for deep understanding. We must turn to books, long-form journalism and blogs, he argued, which necessarily have smaller audiences.

So if 'failed state' reporting is often flawed, is it still worth doing? By and large yes, the panel agreed. For what purpose, though? That discussion touched on the efficacy of the journalism of engagement versus the school of dispassionate observation. The BBC's Jeremy Bowen recalled the coverage of the Bosnian war was motivated by a burning sense that the injustices and inhumanities of that conflict could not remain concealed. It was derided as 'something must be done' journalism by the then Conservative government in Britain, but arguably it had an effect on awakening public opinion. Panellist David Loyn of the BBC, who has just published on Afghanistan, wondered if  coverage there since 2001 has actually been unhelpful. Over-simplification, distortions of history, failure to portray the perspectives of ordinary Afghans and unquestioning acceptance of a flawed Western strategy were hallmarks of most reporting on the confict, he argued.

(As an aside, I have just come back from Afghanistan where I was reviewing Reuters coverage. It struck me as the kind of place where our brand of well-informed observation and balanced reporting works well. We may not be writing the definitive history of the conflict but we are having a decent stab at its first draft.)

Panel participant Lord Paddy Ashdown supported the "shining a light" model of journalism, particularly for Afghanistan, where he said Western engagement was on the verge of failing grievously. Ashdown has lengthy experience of trying to fix failing states, having spent nearly four years as the international community's overseer in Bosnia from 2002 to 2006. He almost took up a similar role in Afghanistan, until the Kabul government took fright at the scope of the powers being envisaged for his post.

Key to success in Afghanistan and in other international politico-military interventions, said Ashdown, was "strategic patience." That long-term, grind-it-out approach to a crisis is a challenge to contemporary journalism, he argued, with its wish for quick wins and instant fixes.

Al Qaeda – From bin Laden’s cave command to regionalised “franchise company”?

Osama bin Laden is no longer involved in the day-to-day planning of attacks, Germany’s spy chief says, arguing that al Qaeda has turned from a centralised force into a regionalised “franchise company” with power centres in Pakistan, North Africa and the Arab peninsula. Does this weaken or strengthen the Islamist militant group? And how does it influence its operations, planning of attacks and its efforts to recruit new followers?

Ernst Uhrlau, who heads the BND foreign intelligence agency, Germany’s equivalent of the CIA, says al Qaeda’s “concept” has changed significantly over the past few years. “After the centralisation phase and the break-up of its bases in Afghanistan, when it had the backing of the Taliban government, we have seen a regionalisation over the past four years — something like a franchise company.”    “Today, there is al Qadea in the Maghreb, al Qaeda on the Arab Peninsula, in Iraq, in Yemen,” Uhrlau told Reuters in an interview this week. (more…)

from Global News Journal:

Al Qaeda and the financial crisis

The  global financial crisis has become a topic of feverish debate for al Qaeda sympathisers on militant Internet forums.

According to  the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors  al Qaeda-linked propaganda on the Web and translates it for the benefit of security analysts and counter-terrorism officials, the militant chat rooms have been buzzing for weeks with excited comment.

"Now Sheikh Osama bin Laden has an historic opportunity to crash America completely. Al Qaeda, which has caused America to be ruined economically in Iraq and Afghanistan, has an opportunity to deliver the fatal blow," wrote a member of a Turkish militant forum recently.  "Al Qaeda could bury America into the landfill of history with an operation similar to or greater than September 11."

In a discussion on al-Hesbah, a password-protected forum linked to al Qaeda,  one participant gloated that the U.S. economy is "on the precipice", SITE reported.

He continued: "Now is a golden opportunity and a gift from Allah that we should not lose. If America is hit now, by Allah, it will never survive, until Allah permits it ... I can see that victory is closer than expected."

Such "chatter" has attracted the attention of Western intelligence officials. Ernst Uhrlau (pictured), head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency, told Reuters in an interview this week that the financial crisis had emboldened some Islamist militants but it was too early to say if it would help them attract new recruits.

"We're hearing some first voices on this. Some see the fact that the United States has been so shattered by the financial crisis, and that its dominant role in the world is shaken, as confirmation the West can be beaten," Uhrlau said.

Pakistan, IMF to begin crisis talks

Pakistan will begin talks with the International Monetary Fund over the next few days to secure funding to avert a balance of payments crisis, the IMF said in a statement from Washington.

The statement came after days of speculation that seemed to have gathered pace after President Asif Ali Zardari’s trip to China where according to these media reports he failed to win a commitment for cash to shore up the country’s reserves, barely enough to cover six weeks of imports.

“The amount of Fund financing under a stand-by arrangement has yet to be determined. Financing could be made within the framework of the Fund’s Emergency Financing Mechanism,” IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.

Pakistan needs $10 to $15 billion of support from foreign lenders, according to Shaukat Tarin, adviser to the prime minister on economic affairs.

Inflation in Pakistan is running close to 25 percent, the budget deficit is unsustainable, government borrowing from the central bank has squeezed liquidity in the banking system, and the international bond market has priced in a debt default.

Such reports of a fast-approaching economic meltdown and even talk that this could be Asia’s Iceland would rattle any country, given the instinctive resistance to approaching the IMF with all its dreaded conditionalities.