Pakistan may summon BBC as news channel blocked

LAHORE: Pakistan said on Wednesday it was looking at summoning the BBC to demand an explanation over a documentary about the Taliban that has left the BBC World News channel blocked nationwide.

Cable operators pulled the channel late Tuesday amid anger over Nato air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

The move raises concerns about censorship in the conservative Muslim country of 167 million, where Facebook was briefly banned in 2010, just days after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority sought to ban “obscene” text messages.

Khalid Arain, chairman of the Cable Operators Association of Pakistan, confirmed that BBC World News was off-air nationwide and that other Western news channels had been ordered “not to indulge in anti-Pakistan propaganda”.

The row relates to a two-part BBC documentary, “Secret Pakistan,” which questions Pakistan’s commitment to tackling Taliban militancy.

The BBC said it was deeply concerned by the move, and called for its channel to be speedily reinstated.

Pakistan’s media regulator, PEMRA, said: “Definitely, since an issue has been highlighted, the authorities will review the contents of the broadcast and their programmes.”

The authorities can summon BBC representatives and seek an explanation from them,” PEMRA spokesman Tahir Izhar told AFP.

Arain said Pakistan was not legally bound to show any foreign channels and was also monitoring Britain’s Sky News for “any objectionable content.”

Pakistan has aroused increasing criticism overseas and from human rights campaigners within the country over censorship. The row over the BBC saw people post links to the documentary on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“It is clear violation of our basic right to information. I condemn it,” said Shujauddin Qureshi, a human rights activist.

Saad Haroon wrote on Twitter, “They have taken BBC off the air in Pakistan, great, now we will be the LAST to know when they bomb us.”

Last week, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was forced to row back from banning text messages containing any of nearly 1,700 “obscene” words, many of which were seemingly innocuous, following outrage from users and campaigners.

Pakistan blocked Facebook for nearly two weeks in May 2010 in a storm of controversy about a competition to draw the Prophet Mohammed and has restricted access to hundreds of websites because of alleged blasphemy.

Pakistan’s security more important than Afghanistan’s: PM

KARACHI: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday said that Pakistan wanted to have ties with the United States on an equal footing, DawnNews reported.

He moreover said that Pakistan wanted assurance for the respect of its sovereignty.

During a conversation with media representatives in Karachi, Prime Minister Gilani said that Afghanistan’s soil had been used against Pakistan. He said Pakistan’s security was paramount and more important than the security of Afghanistan.

He further said that the Bonn conference was being held for Afghanistan and Pakistan had to work for its own security. The decision to boycott the conference was in favour of Pakistan, he added.

The prime minister moreover said that the United States had been given a deadline of December 4 to vacate the Shamsi airbase.

Another martyr, another widow

It’s all rhetoric. While in an interview with CNN, the Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani warned that there would be ‘no more business as usual’ with Washington after the death of 25 troops in the Nato attacks on Pakistani border posts on the weekend. However, there is no body count of the real victims of all the wars that this country has got itself embroiled in wittingly or unwittingly. These victims remain mere statistics. Touba is just one of those victims whose story remains the same generation after generation. All she asks is ‘but why me?’ Whose side was her husband on when he was killed in the line of duty? Who was the friend and who was the foe? Whose battle is it? With these endless questions, she is left to fend for herself and her infant daughter.

Muhammad Usman Bashir was killed in the Nato Attack. He was 23 year of age and had been inducted in the army six year ago as a commissioned Officer. Presently he was attached with the Azad Kashmir regiment and had been posted since the last year in the Mohmand Agency.

His mother, Uzma Bashir while talking to Dawn, said that Usman was an “obedient” and “talented boy”. She claimed that her son had brought honour to Sahiwal being martyred in the line of duty.

His wife shares those sentiments and said that her husband was very loving.

Usman's infant daughter, Rameen

Notice sent to US for vacating Shamsi airbase within 15 days: FM

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Tuesday that in line with the decisions of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, a notice has been sent to the United States for vacating the Shamsi airbase within 15 days.

Terming the Nato/Isaf attack on border posts in Mohmand Agency as the breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty and violation of international law, the Foreign Minister said, “time has come to review our relations.”

Talking to PTV, the Foreign Minister said Pakistan has supported the international community in the war against terrorism and has rendered great sacrifices.

She said Pakistan’s positive cooperation must be recognized at international level and should not be taken as its weakness.

The minister said Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected at all cost.

She categorically stated that the nation and the government would not tolerate such incidents in future. “We don’t want any aid or assistance, but we want to live with dignity and honour.”

Khar said Pakistan wants complete clarity from the international community about its sovereignty.

She said that Pakistan’s attitude towards the international community has been positive and it wanted to move forward with honour and dignity.

“It is up to Pakistan’s political forces to evolve future strategy, keeping in view the current situation,” said the minister.

“It is for the first time that the decision to halt Nato supply was taken at the highest level,” she said.

The foreign minister said the government’s focus was on preserving the national interests, adding, “We cannot sacrifice our national interests.”

US urges Pakistan to reconsider Bonn talks boycott

WASHINGTON: The United States urged Pakistan on Tuesday to reconsider its decision to boycott a conference on Afghanistan in Germany next week, saying it plays a key role in the future of its war-torn central Asian neighbour.

Pakistan decided earlier Tuesday to boycott the December 5 Bonn conference as it widened its protest over lethal cross-border Nato strikes on Saturday that have exacerbated a deep crisis in US ties.

“It’s important to note that this conference is… about Afghanistan, about its future, about building a safer, more prosperous Afghanistan within the region,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

“It’s very much in Pakistan’s interest to attend this conference,” Toner said.

Toner, who declined to be drawn on whether the United States regretted the decision in Islamabad, said Pakistan had not informed Washington directly of its decision because Germany is the host of the conference.

But he repeated that “it’s in their interests, so we think… it’s important that they be there.”He added: “Pakistan has a crucial role to play in supporting a secure and stable and prosperous Afghanistan.

“It’s absolutely critical that Afghanistan’s neighbours play a role in its future development,” Toner said. “Its relationship with Pakistan has been critical in that regard.”

UAE mounts pressure to get airbase decision reversed

ISLAMABAD: The United Arab Emirates has dived into troubled Pakistan-US ties in a desperate effort to prevent them from unravelling and avert an immediate eviction of the Americans from the Shamsi airbase whose control they enjoy.

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan arrived in Islamabad on Monday on an unscheduled trip and met President Asif Ali Zardari and Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

In both meetings, the UAE minister pleaded against pushing too hard for getting the airbase vacated.

During his meeting with Sheikh Nahyan in the Presidency, President Zardari is reported to have turned down a UAE request to extend the 15-day deadline set by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet for vacating the airbase in Balochistan.

“The one-on-one meeting of the UAE foreign minister with the president was followed by a delegation-level meeting,” Mr Zardari`s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.

According to media reports, Pakistan handed over the Shamsi airbase to the UAE in 1992 for hunting expeditions, but its authorities sublet it to the US for carrying out drone attacks.

The UAE delegation was apprised of the DCC decision, which also stopped Nato supplies passing through Pakistan into Afghanistan.

A statement issued by the ISPR said: “The visiting dignitary (Sheikh Nahyan) remained with the COAS (Gen Kayani) for some time and discussed matters of mutual interest.”

Besides strong diplomatic ties with Pakistan, the UAE has strong influence in Islamabad`s corridors of power. President Zardari is known for being too close to its royal family and WikiLeaks last year confirmed that perception.

According to one of the leaked cables, Mr Zardari had requested UAE President Sheikh Khalifa to allow his family to live in the Emirates in the event of his death.

The military also has strong relations with the UAE. It was at Gen Kayani`s request that the UAE government had last year launched quick impact projects in Swat.

Some analysts believe that in view of the kind of influence the Emirates enjoy in Islamabad it would be `very difficult` for the Pakistani leadership to say `no` to them.

Pakistan to boycott Bonn conference over Nato attack

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan decided Tuesday to boycott a key international conference on Afghanistan next month, ramping up its protest over lethal cross-border Nato air strikes that have plunged US ties into deep crisis.

The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting in Lahore, just days after Islamabad confirmed it was mulling its attendance in the German city of Bonn, where Pakistan’s participation was considered vital.

“The cabinet has decided not to attend the Bonn meeting,” a government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The prime minister’s office said the cabinet agreed that “unilateral action” such as Saturday’s strike in the tribal district of Mohmand and the May 2 US killing of Osama bin Laden near the capital was “unacceptable”.

US-led investigators have been given until December 23 to probe the attacks, threatening to prolong significantly Pakistan’s blockade on Nato supplies into Afghanistan implemented in retaliation for the killings.

The US military appointed Brigadier General Stephen Clark, a one-star air force general based in Florida, to lead the investigation into the attack.

The team, set to include a Nato representative, is yet to arrive in Afghanistan but an initial military assessment team went to the border at the weekend after Saturday’s catastrophic strike killing 24 Pakistani troops.

The Afghan and Pakistani governments are also being invited to take part.

There was no immediate reaction from Islamabad or Kabul, although some analysts

voiced surprise that it will take as long as nearly four weeks.

A Western military official in Kabul said the schedule for the findings being delivered was “way quicker” than initially expected.

US-Pakistani ties have been in free fall since a CIA contractor killed two Pakistanis in January and Saturday’s attack raises disturbing questions about the extent to which the two allies cooperate with each other.

Islamabad insists that the air strikes were unprovoked, but Afghan and Western officials have reportedly accused Pakistani forces of firing first.

In Pakistan, angry protests over the Nato strikes pushed into a fourth day, with 150-200 people demonstrating in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, setting fire to an American flag and an effigy of Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

The crowd carried banners and shouted: “Those who befriend America are traitors” and “We are ready for jihad”, an AFP reporter said.

Pakistan has vowed no more “business as usual” with the United States. In addition to shutting its Afghan border, it has ordered Americans to vacate an air base reportedly used by CIA drones and a review of the alliance.

Yet behind the rhetoric, Islamabad has little wriggle room, being dependent on US aid dollars and fearful of the repercussions for regional security as American troops wind down their presence in Afghanistan in the coming years.

In an interview with CNN, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani stopped short of threatening to break the alliance altogether saying: “That can continue on mutual respect and mutual interest.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama believed Saturday’s incident was “a tragedy”, and said Washington valued what he called an “important cooperative relationship that is also very complicated”.

Last time Pakistan closed the border, in September 2010 after up to three soldiers were killed in a similar cross-border raid, it only reopened the route after the United States issued a full apology.

The US military has insisted the war effort in Afghanistan would continue and has sought to minimise the disruption to regular supply lines.

Nearly half of all cargo bound for Nato-led troops runs through Pakistan.

Roughly 140,000 foreign troops, including about 97,000 American forces, rely on supplies from the outside to fight the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan.

Yet so far, officials say there has been no sign that Islamabad would bar the US aircraft from flying over Pakistan.

Pakistan cable operators threaten Western TV news ban

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani cable television operators on Tuesday threatened to block Western news channels they say are anti-Pakistani, as fury spread over a Nato attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

“We want to send them a strong message to stop this. If they don’t stop this, then it is our right to stop them,” Khalid Arain, president of the All Pakistan Cable Operators Association said in a live press conference. The BBC was the focus of criticism.

Pakistan strike probe report due next month: US

Pakistani soldiers place the coffins of their comrades who were killed in a Nato strike during a funeral ceremony in Peshawar on November 27, 2011.

KABUL: A US-led investigation into a Nato air strike that killed 24 Pakistani troops near the Afghan border will report its initial findings by December 23, officials said Tuesday.

The chief of US Central Command, which oversees US forces in Afghanistan and the Middle East, appointed Brigadier General Stephen Clark, a one-star air force general, to lead the investigation, the US military announced.

The probe is expected to provide an initial report by December 23, it added.

Pakistan has reacted to Saturday’s air strike with fury, cutting off crucial supply routes to Nato forces in Afghanistan, and ordering US personnel to vacate an air base reportedly used by CIA drones and a review of US relations.

Clark will lead the investigation with input from Nato and its International Security Assistance Force.

The Afghan and Pakistani governments are also being invited to take part, despite Pakistan’s furious response to the attack.

“It is USCENTCOM’s intent to include these government representatives to the maximum extent possible to determine what happened and preclude it from happening again,” the US military said.

“The investigation team will focus their efforts on the facts of the incident and any matters that facilitate a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding the deaths and injuries of the Pakistani forces.” ISAF sent an initial assessment team to the border over the weekend.

A Western military official in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the probe team had yet to arrive in Afghanistan but insisted its findings would be reported “way quicker” than initially expected.

The source said it was not unusual for US Central Command to carry out this kind of investigation rather than ISAF, which usually undertakes probes into incidents such as civilian casualties.

ISAF refused to comment when asked whether US Special Forces had been operating in the area when the air strikes were called in.

Pakistan steps up rhetoric over lethal Nato raid

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan vowed no more “business as usual” with the United States after Nato strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, but stopped short on Monday of threatening to break the troubled alliance altogether.

Nato and the United States had sought to limit the fallout of Saturday’s attack as Pakistan shut vital supply routes to the 140,000 foreign troops serving in Afghanistan and ordered a review of its US alliance.

Washington has backed a full inquiry and sent its condolences, while Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Sunday voiced regret over the “tragic, unintended” killings, but did not issue a full apology.

In response Pakistan has dug in its heels, reacting furiously to what it called an “unprovoked” strike, worsening US-Pakistani relations already in crisis after the killing in May of Osama bin Laden north of Islamabad by US special forces.

In an interview with CNN, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said incidents such as at the Nato cross-border attack further alienated the Pakistani masses, leaving his government isolated in its unpopular alliance with the US.

“Business as usual will not be there, therefore we have to have something bigger so that to satisfy my nation, the entire country,” he said in English.

Asked whether the US-Pakistani alliance can continue, he replied: “That can continue on mutual respect and mutual interest”, adding that both were currently lacking.

“If I can’t protect the sovereignty of my country how can we say it’s a mutual respect and mutual interest?”

It remains unclear what happened at the dead of night in some of the most hostile terrain on Earth. Afghan and Western officials reportedly said the Pakistanis opened fire first. Pakistan insists the attack was unprovoked.

Nato and Afghan forces “were fired on from a Pakistani army base”, a Western official told the Wall Street Journal. “It was a defensive action.” An Afghan border police commander, speaking on condition of anonymity as officials have been told not to speak to media before an investigation is completed, said Nato troops hardly ever open fire unless they are attacked.

“To me it’s almost clear that they (Isaf) came under fire from that area. Without that they would have not returned fire,” he told AFP.

He said Taliban, Afghan security forces as well Pakistani security forces have posts very close to each other due to the rugged, mountainous terrain.

“This is not true. They are making up excuses. And by the way, what are their losses, casualties?” Major General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, wrote to AFP in a text message.

He later told Pakistani television channel Geo that 72 Pakistani soldiers have been killed and 250 wounded by fire from across the Afghan border over the last three years.

Asked about expressions of regret by Nato he said: “We do not accept it because such kind of attacks have been taking place in the past… Our leadership will decide about further reaction.” British newspaper The Daily Telegraph on Monday quoted wounded survivors of the raid, who insisted they were victims of an unprovoked attack.

In retaliation, Islamabad has blocked Nato convoys from crossing into Afghanistan, ordered a review of its alliance with the US and is mulling whether to boycott a key conference on Afghanistan next month.

Nato says that for now its troops will not be affected by the disruption.

Hundreds of enraged Pakistanis took to the streets for a third day on Monday, blocking roads to demand that Pakistan end its troubled alliance with the United States.

Key ally China, seen by Islamabad as a crucial counterweight to American influence, said it was “deeply shocked” and called for an investigation.

On the Fox News Sunday talk show, US lawmakers vented frustration over Pakistan, with Republican Senator Jon Kyl demanding Islamabad cooperate with the United States in order to maintain billions of dollars in financial aid.

But John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, laid bare the dilemma for Washington in handling nuclear-armed Pakistan, which has received up to $20 billion in US aid over the last 10 years.

“As long as that country has nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of radicals and be a threat worldwide, they have incredible leverage,” he said.

Pakistani rupee hits record low of 88.04 to USD

KARACHI: The Pakistani rupee hit a record low on Monday, touching 88.04 to the dollar on increased import payments and negative regional sentiment on currencies.

The rupee was trading at 88.00/10 to the dollar at 10:13 a.m. (0513 GMT), compared with Friday’s close of 87.75/80.

Its previous low point was in September at 87.92.

“So far there’s been about one (import) payment of around $50 million to $60 million, but there is generally cautious to weak sentiment about currencies of the region,” said a dealer at a foreign bank.

According to a poll conducted by Reuters last week, investors have grown more bearish on most emerging Asian currencies in the last two weeks as Europe’s debt crisis deepens.

Dealers said there was also some pessimism regarding the country’s economy, which put the rupee under further pressure.

Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves fell to $16.96 billion in the week ending Nov. 18, after hitting a record $18.31 billion in the week ending July 30.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also assessed that the outlook for Pakistan’s economy for the current year ending June 2012 was “challenging”, dealers said.

In a statement last week, the IMF said that ongoing security concerns were likely to limit capital inflows.

Imran reiterates holding Karachi public meeting

KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Monday said he would hold a public meeting in Karachi on December 25 “come what may”, DawnNews reported.

Addressing a press conference in Sukkur after the inclusion of two nephews of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani in his party, Khan claimed that his opponents would face more blows in the near future.

He said the country’s educated and intellectual class was joining his party.

Khan lamented that the country had almost defaulted because of theft and corruption and said the right leadership would rectify all wrongs.

Pakistan fuel suppliers protest against Nato attack

ISLAMABAD: The main Pakistani association that delivers fuel to Nato forces in Afghanistan said it would not resume supplies anytime soon in protest against an air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at the weekend.

Nawab Sher Afridi, general secretary of the All Pakistan Oil Tanker Owners Association, said the association would reconsider only if the Islamabad government and the military accept an apology for the incident.

Pakistan a responsible nuclear state: FO

ISLAMABAD: The foreign office on Monday termed the statement of Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal as baseless and stated that Pakistan was a responsible nuclear state, DawnNews reported.

A statement issued by the foreign office said there was no truth in Qureshi’s statement regarding Pakistan’s nuclear program.

After the passage of the 18th Amendment, the transfer of powers took place and the National Commander Authority was now functioning under the prime minister, the statement said, adding that no compromise would be made on Pakistan’s defence system.

The statement said an effective system was in place to protect Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

Pakistanis demand end to US alliance

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of Pakistanis called on Islamabad Monday to break off its alliance with the United States and get out of the war on Al Qaeda as protests against a lethal Nato strike pushed into a third day.

Twenty-four Pakistani soldiers were killed in the cross-border attack early Saturday by Nato helicopters and fighter jets.

Members of civil society, lawyers, traders and students organised the rallies, still relatively small, in major cities of the country of 167 million people, where opposition to the US alliance is rampant.

Lawyers went on strike across the country, demonstrating outside court buildings, chanting slogans against Nato and the United States, officials from bar associations across the country said.

“We marched at the Islamabad High Court premises and expressed our anger against this attack, none of us went to the courts today,” Ashraf Gujjar, president of Islamabad High Court Bar Association, told AFP after one rally.

“The government should cut Nato supplies permanently, take back military bases from the US and plead that this cases violates the borders in the UN Security Council,” he quoted from a resolution passed by lawyers.

In Peshawar, the main city in northwest Pakistan where an Al Qaeda and Taliban-led insurgency is rife, several hundred students blocked a main road, chanting “Death to US” and “Quit the war on terror”, an AFP reporter saw.

Scores of tribesmen also gathered in Mohmand, the tribal district where the soldiers were killed, to protest against the attack and demand that the government change its pro-US policy, Khalid Khan, an administration official in the district told AFP.

Some 200 lawyers blocked the national highway to the east of Karachi, chanting slogans in the favour of Pakistani army, police said.

In Multan, Jamatud Dawa, blacklisted by the United Nations as a terror group, gathered a crowd of several hundred, burning an effigy of US President Barack Obama and US flags, an AFP photographer said.

In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, around 600 people in the town of Garhi Dupatta joined the relatives of a soldier killed in the attack, and chanted slogans against the US, police official Ishtiaq Gilani told AFP.

“The government must retaliate and should suspend the relations with the US until there is a fair and free investigation,” Zafar Iqbal, 25, the brother of fallen soldier Tahir Iqbal told AFP from the protest.

Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan fight opium smuggling

Afghan Minister of Counter-Narcotics Zarar Ahmed Moqbel Osmani, second right, speaks as Pakistan's Minister of Counter- Narcotics Haji Khuda Bux Rajjar, left, Iran's Interior Minister and the Secretary General of Drug Control Headquarters Mustafa Mohammad Majjar, second left, and Yury Fedotov, right, under Secretary general and executive director of United Nation Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) are seen during a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 28, 2011.

KABUL: Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan on Monday agreed to bolster regional cooperation to combat drug smuggling at a time when the cultivation of illicit opium poppy is increasing.

Afghanistan provides about 90 per cent of the world’s opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, and the UN and Afghan government have long tried to wean the country off the lucrative crop. Money from the sale of opium is also used to fuel the insurgency, helping to buy weapons and equipment for the Taliban.

The largest areas of opium poppy cultivation are in the violent south of the country, where it can be hard to make money on legal crops and where criminal networks exist to buy and sell the poppy crop.

“Despite a decade of initiatives by the Afghans and international community, opium production is increasing,” said Yuri Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

“This situation can’t continue.”

Most of the opium from Afghanistan is shipped through Iran and Pakistan, and the three countries have for the past four years been involved in a UN-sponsored initiative to set up joint planning cells in each country to coordinate their efforts. They pledged to bolster joint operations targeting smugglers and the networks they use to get the drug to the international marketplace.

“Iran is a transit route and the production of drugs in Afghanistan is on the increase,” said Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najar, who heads the country’s counter-narcotics department.

“The reason is high demand.”

Ministers in charge of counter-narcotics for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran met in Kabul on Monday at a UN organised gathering.

The UN has said that insecurity and rising opium prices have driven Afghan farmers to increase cultivation of the illicit opium poppy by 7 per cent in 2011, despite a major push by the Afghan government and international allies. Production in Afghanistan had dropped significantly in 2010 because of a plant disease that killed off much of the crop.

Revenue from the drug has helped fund insurgents, and the number of people invested in the underground opium economy has made it difficult for the Afghan government to establish its presence in opium-heavy regions.

Other countries in the region have also expressed worries about increasing production. The Russian government recently said about 2 million of its citizens are addicted to opium and heroin – most of which comes from Afghanistan. It has repeatedly called on Nato forces to do more to stop Afghan production.

A report last month showed that opium cultivation is spreading to new parts Afghanistan, a troubling trend as international troops are trying to stabilize the country so that they can hand over security responsibilities to the government by the end of 2014.

Much of this is attributed to soaring prices. Dry opium costs about 43 per cent more than it did a year ago.

Nato attack could hurt Afghanistan cooperation: Athar Abbas

Army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas. 

ISLAMABAD: A Nato cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at the weekend could hurt cooperation on Afghanistan, Pakistan’s army spokesman said on Monday.

“This could have serious consequences in the level and extent of our cooperation,” Major General Athar Abbas told Reuters.

The military also denied reports that Nato forces in Afghanistan came under fire before launching the attack.

“This is not true. They are making up excuses. What are their losses, casualties?” said Abbas in a text message.

A report, citing Afghan and western officials, had said that fire from a Pakistani military outpost into Afghanistan prompted the air strikes.

Abbas said Nato forces’ regret on the incident was not enough and said the incident could result in serious consequences.

He recalled that such activities had been carried out in the past, adding that he did not think these would be tolerated anymore.

Abbas said the top leadership would decide how to further take up the incident. 

Steps to implement DCC decision taken

Trucks are parked at a road as authorities closed the Torkham border for Nato supply trucks at Pakistani border town of Torkham on Saturday, Nov 26, 2011.

ISLAMABAD: Sunday saw a flurry of activities in the capital as the government went into overdrive to express its anger over the Nato air strike that took place in the early hours of Saturday.

While the American administration was informed of the decisions taken by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, including the blocking of the Nato supply routes as well as the deadline to vacate Shamsi airbase, the opposition raised questions about the preparedness of the military personnel who had been killed in the attack.

In accordance with the DCC decision, Pakistan suspended Nato supplies to Afghanistan and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was informed about it.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar spoke to Ms Clinton by telephone in the early hours of Sunday, conveying the decisions taken by the DCC.

Talking to reporters, Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed that the supply of Nato had not been suspended, but “stopped permanently” in line with DCC’s decisions.

He said all other decisions of the DCC would be implemented in letter and spirit. “The decisions of the DCC are final and would be implemented.”

The minister said Nato containers, which had been stopped, would not be allowed to cross the border into Afghanistan.

According to a statement issued by the Foreign Office, the foreign minister conveyed “deep sense of rage felt across Pakistan” over loss of 28 soldiers and told Ms Clinton that “such attacks are totally unacceptable”.

She said that such strikes demonstrated complete disregard for international law and human life and were in stark violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.

The foreign minister was quoted as saying: “This negates the progress made by the two countries on improving relations and forces Pakistan to revisit the terms of engagement.”

She also informed Ms Clinton about the DCC decision that the US should vacate the Shamsi airbase within 15 days. The US secretary of state offered condolences over the loss of life, the statement said.

Ms Clinton said she was deeply saddened by the event and conveyed the US government’s desire to work with Pakistan to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, the military authorities negated the US claim that Nato had carried out strikes after its helicopters had come under fire from the ground.

“These were lame excuses that the attack was made after Pakistani soldiers opened fire on Nato forces or that Nato forces were chasing the Taliban in the area,” said Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Maj-Gen Athar Abbas.

Nato has already been communicated about two Pakistani posts in Mohmand Agency called ‘Golden’ and ‘Volcano’ on the top of the height in the area with national flag hoisted over them. “Even then they were attacked,” he said.

He said Mohmand Agency had been cleared of militants during the four-month operation and there was no militants’ hideout in the area. Therefore, he said, the US claim that Nato forces were chasing the Taliban was ‘ill-logical’.

Gen Abbas said the Nato attacks continued for a long time during which the military’s General Headquarters contacted the Nato authorities and apprised them of the aerial attacks. However, Nato officials did not take any action to stop such provocative strikes.

Asked if Pakistan will be involved in investigation announced by the Nato chief to probe into the incident, he said the modus operandi of the investigation was yet to be decided.

PRESIDENT-PM MEETING: President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met at the presidency and discussed the Nato attacks for the second consecutive day.

Sources in the presidency told Dawn that the president and the prime minister were worried that the Nato strikes had taken place soon after the ‘memogate’ that had soured relations between the civilian set-up and the military establishment.

OPPOSITION: Calling for a joint session of parliament to debate the Nato air strike, Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan questioned at a news conference why army officers and soldiers had been caught unawares and unprepared.

The PML-N leader said that although he considered the present rulers mainly responsible for the killings of soldiers, the military leadership could not be absolved completely of its responsibility.

Not only the rulers, but even Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had in the past threatened to retaliate if the US carried out drone attacks, he said, adding that the drone attacks were continuing and there had been no response from the military.

He said the May 2 Abbottabad incident and recent Nato air strikes on security posts had raised many questions about the defence preparedness of the armed forces. Was there any arrangement to provide the soldiers a cover at the posts against any aggression? he asked. He said if anti-aircraft guns are installed at these posts. “If the guns are there then why these were not used?”

He said: “Previously former army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf sent the troops to the top of a hill at Kargil and later left them to be killed.”

Chaudhry Nisar said soldiers in such a large number could not be killed simply by strafing if they had been in bunkers.

When asked if his party wanted a commission to investigate the incident, he said first the replies to these questions should be presented in parliament.

The PML-N leader said his party wanted a joint session of parliament within a few days much before Ashura. He demanded that it should be an open session because the time had come for the nation to be informed about facts.

He welcomed the decisions taken by the DCC, but raised serious doubts about their implementation. He regretted that the government did not take any step to implement the resolutions adopted by parliament and the all-party conference.

Chaudhry Nisar claimed that it was the PML-N which had raised the issue of Shamsi airbase in a joint session of parliament and demanded that its foreign control must be ended.

Despite an announcement by the government that the US had been asked to vacate the airbase in Balochistan, it is not clear who controls the base.

When asked what would be the line of action if the US did not vacate the base in 15 days as recommended by the DCC, ISPR director general Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said “Speculative. Speculative means we will cross the bridge when it comes.”

During a briefing to parliament in June in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, top military officials had disclosed that the airfield, long suspected of housing US drones, was actually not a Pakistan Air Force facility and its control had been handed over to the United Arab Emirates in 1990s.

Later, in an interview with AP a UAE official denied that his country had any operational role in the base, although he said that wealthy Arabs occasionally used it to fly to Pakistan on hunting expeditions.

The US reportedly used the airbase as a forward staging point in the initial period after it invaded Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. Reports surfaced in the media in 2008 that the drones used in attacks on tribal areas were taking off from the Shamsi airfield.

Two weeks after the parliamentary briefing, Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said that Pakistan had asked the US to withdraw its forces from the airbase and that it would be vacated soon.

The minister had even claimed that the Americans had started moving equipment and materials from the airbase. A defence ministry official had stated that the government had decided to get the base vacated because of a significant reduction in the flow of US funds and growing trust deficit between the two countries.

A US Embassy spokesperson at that time stated that there were no US military personnel at the base.

Attempts were made to contact officials of the US Embassy in Islamabad to get its version over the government decision to get the airbase vacated, but there was no response.

Pakistan retaliation leaves Nato drivers in limbo

PESHAWAR: Pakistani truck drivers carrying supplies to Nato troops in Afghanistan say they are worried about militant attacks after their country closed its border crossings in retaliation for coalition airstrikes that allegedly killed 24 Pakistani troops.

Nearly 300 trucks were stranded at Pakistan’s two Afghan border crossings Sunday, a day after the alleged Nato attack and Islamabad’s quick decision to block the coalition’s supplies.

“We are worried,” said driver Saeed Khan. He spoke by telephone from the border terminal in Torkham. “This area is always vulnerable to attacks. Sometimes rockets are lobbed at us. Sometimes we are targeted by bombs.”

Khan and hundreds of other drivers and their assistants barely slept Saturday night because they were worried about potential attacks, he said.

Some drivers said Pakistan had sent paramilitary troops to protect their convoys since the closures, but others were left without any additional protection.
Even those who did receive troops did not feel safe.

“If there is an attack, what can five or six troops do? Nothing,” said Niamatullah Khan, a fuel truck driver who was parked with 35 other vehicles at a restaurant about 125 miles from Chaman. “It is just a matter of some bullets or a bomb, and that’s it.”

Nato ships nearly 50 per cent of its non-lethal supplies to its troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan. The trucks are periodically targeted by suspected militants as they travel through the country, and their occupants are sometimes killed.

Nato has said these attacks do not significantly impact its ability to keep its troops supplied.

A prolonged closure of the border would, however. Nato has reduced the amount of supplies it ships through Pakistan from a high of around 80 per cent of its total non-lethal supplies by using routes through Central Asia, but they are costly and less efficient. It would likely be difficult to increase significantly the amount of supplies shipped on these alternative routes in a short timeframe if Pakistan’s borders remain closed.

Some critical supplies, including ammunition, are airlifted directly to Afghan air bases.

Turkish FM expresses solidarity with Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu early Sunday morning telephoned Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to express solidarity with the people and government of Pakistan on the Nato attack in Mohmand Agency that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Khar thanked Davutoglu for Turkey’s expression of solidarity and condemned the attack by terming it “unprovoked and totally unacceptable”. She also said that Nato’s action shows a complete disregard for international law and human life.

Davutoglu assured the Pakistani foreign minister that as a member of Nato, Turkey would ask for an impartial inquiry into the attacks. He added that loss of Pakistani soldiers was “as painful as losing Turkish soldiers”.

Troops buried amid fury over Nato strike

PESHAWAR: Pakistan on Sunday buried 24 troops killed in a Nato cross-border air raid that has pushed a crisis in relations with the United States towards rupture.

The attack was the latest perceived provocation by the United States, starting with the secret raid which killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May, and the question is whether ties will break or whether the two sides will remain stuck in a bad marriage of convenience.

Nato helicopters and fighter jets attacked two Pakistan military outposts on Saturday, killing the soldiers in what Pakistan said was an unprovoked assault.

Nato and US officials expressed regret about the deaths of the Pakistani soldiers, but the exact circumstances of the attack were unclear.

Television stations showed the coffins of the soldiers draped in green and white Pakistani flags in a prayer ceremony at the headquarters of the regional command in Peshawar.

About 500 members of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s most influential religious party, staged a protest in Mohmand tribal area, where the Nato attack took place.

“Down with America” and “Jihad is The Only Answer to America”, they yelled.

Around 40 troops were stationed at the outposts at the time of the attack, military sources said. Two officers were reported among the dead.

“They without any reasons attacked on our post and killed soldiers asleep,” said a senior Pakistani officer, requesting anonymity.

Two scouts gunned down, violence erupts in Karachi

KARACHI: Two young scouts were gunned down and three others injured in an attack by unidentified armed men on a Muharam-ul-Haram procession at Numaish Chowrangi on Sunday evening, police said.

The incident took place when the procession was passing by a mosque in the limits of Soldier Bazaar Police Station.

An official Shoaib at the police station said the deceased were identified as Zain and Ali, volunteers of Abu Turab Scouts. However, identity of the other three severely injured are yet to be ascertained.

The bodies and injured were shifted to Civil Hospital Karachi.

The armed culprits opened the fire on the volunteers and mourners, when they were going to join the central congregation (majlis) of Imam Hussain (as) at Nishtar Park.

The participants of the procession staged demonstration at Numaish Chowrangi against the attack by terrorists and blocked central M.A.Jinnah Road in protest against the incident. Police and Rangers cordoned the area after the incident.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi joins Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ex-foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi joined forces with cricketer-politician Imran Khan Sunday, becoming the most high-profile defector to his growing campaign to win the next general election.

Qureshi made the announcement at a rally led by Khan in the southern town of Ghotki, part of the broad hinterland in the southern province of Sindh and central province of Punjab where the former minister is considered powerful.

“I announce I am joining a movement, which is struggling to win justice for people,” Qureshi said of Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice) which is fast emerging as a powerful player in the run-up to elections due early 2013.

Qureshi lost his position as cabinet minister in a February reshuffle. He was offered another portfolio, which he refused, and this month resigned as lawmaker representing the main ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

“Winds of change have now begun,” Qureshi told the rally attended by several thousand supporters 420 kilometres (260 miles) north of Karachi, Pakistan’s port city used by the US to ship supplies to landlocked Afghanistan.

“I am embarking on a new journey and from today onwards, Shah Mehmood is part of your team,” he told Khan to thunderous applause.

Qureshi fell out with President Asif Ali Zardari around the time of the reshuffle and says he withstood pressure to approve diplomatic immunity for a CIA contractor who killed two Pakistanis in Lahore in January.

He used the rally to criticise Zardari, whose five-year mandate expires in 2013, a day after Pakistan was plunged into fresh crisis with the US over accusations that Nato air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border.

“They have indulged in loot and plunder,” he said. “The time has come to seek a fresh mandate from the people,” Qureshi added.

Khan, a staunch critic of the US alliance, condemned the Nato strike and demanded that Pakistan order all CIA agents to leave in protest.

“We should raise the issue at the UN Security Council because it was an attack on our country and soldiers,” he said.

“We need not bow before any one. The time has come to build a new Pakistan by introducing a new system reflecting will of the people.”

Pakistan protests attack ‘in strongest terms’ with Nato, US

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said it was reviewing its alliance with the United States and Nato after up to 26 soldiers were killed in cross-border Nato air strikes, plunging frosty US ties into deeper crisis.

Pakistan sealed its Afghan border to Nato, shutting down a supplies lifeline for some 130,000 US-led foreign troops fighting the Taliban, and called on the United States to leave a secretive air base reportedly used by CIA drones.

Islamabad protested to Nato and the United States in the strongest terms — summoning US ambassador Cameron Munter, branding the strike a violation of international law and warning there could be serious repercussions.

The US-led Nato force in Afghanistan admitted it was “highly likely” that the force’s aircraft caused the deaths before dawn on Saturday, inflaming US-Pakistani relations still reeling from the May killing of Osama bin Laden.

The US commander in Afghanistan promised a full investigation and sent his condolences over any troops “who may have been killed” on the Afghan border with Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt, branded an al-Qaeda hub by Washington.

The military said funerals will be held at 9:30 am Sunday in the northwestern city of Peshawar for those soldiers killed.

Nato troops frequently carry out operations against Taliban insurgents close to the border with Pakistan, which in many places is unmarked, although the extent to which those operations are coordinated with Pakistan is unclear.

Afghan and US officials accuse Pakistani troops at worst of colluding with the Taliban or at best of standing by while insurgents fire across the border from Pakistani soil, often in clear sight of Pakistani border posts.

At the same time Pakistan, battling its own Taliban insurgency in the northwest and dependent on billions of dollars in US aid, gives the US-led war effort in Afghanistan vital logistics support.

Key questions remain unanswered about what exactly happened in Mohmand district, just hours after General John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, discussed coordination with Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.

Pakistan said Nato helicopters and fighter aircraft fired “unprovoked” overnight Friday-Saturday on two army border posts, killing 24 to 26 troops and wounding 13, adding that Pakistani troops had returned fire.

The government said the attacks were “a grave infringement” of sovereignty, a “serious transgression of the oft-conveyed red lines”.

A spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson, confirmed that foreign soldiers, working with Afghan troops, called in air support for an operation near the border.

“It’s highly likely that this close air support, called by the ground forces, caused the casualties,” Jacobson told AFP.

Pakistan swiftly sealed its border with Afghanistan to Nato supplies — holding up convoys at the Torkham and Chaman crossings on the main overland US supply line into landlocked Afghanistan from the Arabian Sea port of Karachi.

An extraordinary meeting of cabinet ministers and military chiefs ordered the United States to leave the Shamsi air base within 15 days, despite reports that American personnel had already left.

It also said the government would “undertake a complete review of all programmes, activities and cooperative arrangements with US/Nato/ISAF, including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence”.

In Afghanistan, Allen promised a thorough investigation “to determine the facts” and extended his condolences to the loved ones of anyone who died.

Munter expressed “regret” over any loss of life and pledged the United States would work “closely” with Pakistan to investigate.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States have been in crisis since American troops killed bin Laden near the capital without prior warning and after a CIA contractor killed two Pakistanis in Lahore in January.

Pakistani, US and Afghan officials have traded complaints about responsibility for cross-border attacks, with each side accusing the other of not doing enough to prevent insurgent assaults on military positions.

In September 2010, Pakistan shut the main land route for Nato supplies at Torkham for 11 days after accusing NATO of killing three Pakistani troops.

The border was reopened after the United States formally apologised.

Americans have long accused Pakistan of playing a double game with the Taliban, and the issue came to a head in September when the then top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, accused Pakistan of colluding in a US embassy siege in Kabul.

US drones carry out routine missile attacks on Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan’s tribal belt, where American officials say neutralising militants is vital to winning the war in Afghanistan.

Pakistan last week forced its envoy to the United States, Husain Haqqani, to step down over accusations that he sought American help in limiting Pakistan’s powerful military after the bin Laden raid.

His successor, Sherry Rehman, has yet to arrive in Washington.

US told to vacate Shamsi base; Nato supplies stopped

ISLAMABAD: Furious over the pre-dawn Nato attacks on border posts, the government on Saturday reacted sharply by indefinitely closing down supply routes used by western forces in Afghanistan and once again asking the United States to vacate an airbase previously used for drone operations. The government also said it would carry out a thorough review of its cooperation with the US and Nato.

The retaliatory decisions were taken at an emergency meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC), the country’s highest forum for defence policy consultation and coordination. The meeting was convened to discuss the Nato air strikes and make strategies for a response.

“The DCC decided to close, with immediate effect, the Nato/Isaf logistics supply lines. It also decided to ask the US to vacate the Shamsi airbase within 15 days. The DCC decided that the government will revisit and undertake a complete review of all programmes, activities and cooperative arrangements with US/Nato/Isaf, including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence,” said a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office after the meeting.

The decisions, though sounding tough, apparently kept the window for negotiations open.

It was originally proposed to unilaterally terminate the Nato supply route, but ultimately the DCC settled for keeping it indefinitely closed even as it had been squelched soon after the incident and the decision by the country’s top civilian and military leadership appeared as a formal closure announcement.

The supply route remained closed for 11 days last year after Nato choppers intruded into Pakistani airspace and fired at a paramilitary force, killing two soldiers. The issue was resolved after apologies from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Nato leaders.

About 40 per cent of Nato’s non-lethal supplies are transported through Pakistan using Chaman and Torkham border crossings — the preferred routes for being economical.

Nato has developed an alternative northern route through central Asian states as a contingency for a situation where the Pakistani route is choked.

It was for the third time this year that the US has been asked to vacate the Shamsi airbase, 300kms southwest of Quetta. But this time it has been given a 15-day ultimatum for leaving the airfield, which is under the United Arab Emirates’ control.

The two previous occasions when similar demands were made from the US were after the CIA operative Raymond Davis episode and then in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden denouement. Drone operations from the base were believed to have ceased in April and the facility is now supposedly being used for logistic purposes.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will brief parliament on how the government intends to conduct its rocky relations with Washington in the future.

The attack is likely to cause yet another dent in Pakistan-US ties that were still recovering from strains following the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad.

Islamabad is also likely to reduce its cooperation for a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan. According to a source, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar may cancel her trip to Bonn for a conference on Afghanistan and the country may be represented there at a lower level. A final decision may depend on how Washington moves to prevent the frayed ties from taking yet another slide.

PM, FM MEET PRESIDENT: President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani met at the presidency before the DCC meeting to take stock of the situation and discuss response options.

The president, according to a presidency official, told Mr Gilani and Ms Khar that the strike constituted an attack on sovereignty, was totally unacceptable and merited a forceful response.

Earlier, US Ambassador Cameron Munter was summoned to the Foreign Office over the attack. Spokesperson Tehmina Janjua said Ambassador Munter was called, on the instructions of the prime minister, to see Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.

Mr Bashir told the ambassador that the “unprovoked attack by Nato/Isaf aircraft … deeply incensed the government and the people of Pakistan”. Ambassador Munter was further told that the Pakistani leadership believed that the “attacks are totally unacceptable, constitute a grave infringement of Pakistan’s sovereignty, are violative of international law and a serious transgression of the oft-conveyed red lines and could have serious repercussions on Pakistan-US/Nato/Isaf cooperation”.

The American envoy regretted the incident and said Washington would work with Pakistani authorities in investigating the matter.

Protests were also lodged with the State Department in Washington and Nato Headquarters in Brussels.

The Chairman of the parliamentary committee on national security, Senator Raza Rabbani, asked the government to take up the issue at all appropriate forums with full force and sought an effective strategy to deal with any such happenings in future.