Monday, November 21, 2011

Haqqani to meet political, military leaders today

ISLAMABAD: As the memogate scandal deepens with fresh revelations by US-based businessman Mansoor Ijaz, the man at the centre of the controversy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani twice met President Asif Ali Zardari at the presidency on Sunday and is reported to have stuck to his stance that he had nothing to do with the memo allegedly sent to former US military chief Mike Mullen to stave off a possible military takeover.
Sources close to the president told Dawn that these were informal meetings and, therefore, there was no official word about it from the presidency.
President’s Spokesman Farhatullah Babar neither confirmed nor denied that the meetings had taken place. He only said: “Today being a Sunday there was no official meeting slotted.”
The sources said a high-level formal meeting with Mr Haqqani would be held in the presidency on Monday and it was expected to be attended by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI’s Director-General Maj-Gen Shuja Pasha and Ambassador Haqqani.
Mr Haqqani who arrived in Islamabad on Sunday morning spent a busy day and held informal meetings also with some officials of the armed forces and Foreign Office officials, the sources said.
At the presidency, one-to-one meetings between the president and Mr Haqqani on Sunday continued for a few hours and the ambassador presented his version in detail.
The first meeting took place in the morning and the second in the evening.
“I think the problem has been resolved and details will be made public in a couple of days,” the source said.
Before the meeting, it was expected that Mr Haqqani might tender his resignation as he had already said that he could quit if ordered by President Zardari to do so.
Mr Haqqani’s primary defence is that the memo is unsigned and unverified. The sources, however, said Mr Haqqani was asked not to tender his resignation and face the situation with the assertion that he was not involved in the matter.
It is believed here that the matter will eventually go to the Supreme Court because PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif said in his public meeting in Faisalabad on Sunday that he would take it to the apex court in two days if the government did not launch an inquiry.
Mr Ijaz, who had claimed to have handed over the memo to the US military chief on behalf of the Pakistani government to seek US help against a possible military takeover claimed in an interview with a private TV channel that he had given important evidences to the ISI chief Gen Pasha in London confirming that he had
forwarded the confidential memo to the then US military chief on behalf of the government.
The PPP’s core committee at a meeting on Friday decided that Mr Haqqani would be given a chance to present his version.
President Zardari was of the view that Mr Haqqani could not get himself involved in such an anti-state affair.
The sources said President Zardari was expected to order an inquiry into the controversy to ascertain who had written the memo and at whose behest.

Afghan team to Pakistan in Rabbani probe: official

KABUL: Afghanistan is sending an official delegation to Pakistan “soon” to investigate the killing of Kabul’s peace envoy, a presidential spokesman said Monday.
Pakistan has agreed to accept the delegation, spokesman Aimal Faizi told reporters, adding that it could leave as early as Tuesday.
Rabbani was assassinated by a turban bomber at his Kabul home in September in a move which stalled efforts to talk peace with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials say the killing was planned in Pakistan and carried out by a Pakistani suicide bomber. They have also previously accused Pakistan of refusing to cooperate in the probe.
But at a conference in Istanbul earlier this month, the two sides agreed to cooperate on an investigation into the killing.
“The government of Afghanistan, in order to further investigate the assassination of professor Burhanuddin Rabbani… will soon send a delegation to Pakistan. Pakistan has accepted to receive the delegation,” Faizi said.
“After the pressures that Afghanistan and Turkey put on Pakistan at the Istanbul conference, Pakistan finally agreed to accept our delegation.”
The delegation will feature officials from Afghanistan’s defence and interior ministries, plus its intelligence service.

Fourteen Pakistani troops killed in rebel ambush: military

QUETTA: Fourteen Pakistani soldiers were killed on Monday in an ambush blamed on separatist rebels in the country’s southwestern Balochistan province, the Frontier Corps paramilitary force said.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani troops and marked the highest number of military dead in a single incident since March when friendly fire killed 13 soldiers on the northwestern border with Afghanistan.
Up to four dozen rebels struck before dawn in the Musa Khel district, 400 kilometres (250 miles) southeast of the provincial capital Quetta in one of the most troubled and deprived parts of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
The military said the troops were guarding a private coal mine and blamed the attack on Baloch rebels, who rose up in 2004 to demand political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the province’s wealth of natural resources.
“Fourteen paramilitary personnel, including a major, were killed and several others were wounded. Baloch militants were involved,” the spokesman told AFP.
Security officials said the rebels were armed with automatic weapons and that most of the soldiers died from gunshot wounds in the remote area.
The wilds of Balochistan, virtually a no-go area for journalists, is deeply troubled not only by local insurgency, but militancy and a rising number of sectarian attacks on minority Shia Muslims.
The province straddles a key Nato supply route into neighbouring Afghanistan and on Sunday gunmen torched three trucks carrying supplies to US-led troops.
The federal government, elected in February 2008, has struggled to implement reforms and inject more money in order to appease Baloch nationalists.
Security officials said Musa Khel, which is dominated by ethnic Pashtuns and borders the Baloch-dominated district of Kohlu, had seen several private coal mines closed due to local tribal disputes.
Troops intervened to resolve those disputes. The coal mines were inaugurated by army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in August and work began with the military providing protection, the officials said.
But Baloch separatist rebels oppose the military presence and there have been a string of attacks on troops in the area.
The scene of Monday’s attack was not far from Sui town, where two other soldiers were killed in a bombing on Saturday.
Last month, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the government planned to create 20,000 jobs in Balochistan, admitting that past neglect of the region had fuelled its troubles.
He announced a six percent employment quota in some federal government departments and the introduction of 3,000 jobs in tribal police for Balochistan residents.
But previous attempts at regional reform have failed to raise the sparsely populated area from poverty and conflict.
In November 2009, the government announced a package of reforms, including an increase in the provincial budget as well as constitutional, administrative, political and economic reforms in a bid to grant Balochistan more independence.
But there is dispute over how much of the deal ever came to fruition.
Hundreds of people have died since Baloch insurgents rose up in 2004 demanding autonomy and a greater share of the profits from natural resources in the mineral-rich province.
Disappearances and the discovery of bullet-riddled and tortured bodies in the province that the families of victims blame on security and intelligence forces have led human rights activists to call for investigations into the killings.