Mustafa Qadri

As US-led forces engage in a major offensive in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, commentators in Pakistan are still taking stock of the London conference and what it could mean for the role their country plays in their neighbour’s stability. Mustafa Qadri reports that many believe the road to such stability and security will inevitably run through Pakistan–and to the Taliban.

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The proposed truth and reconciliation commission is a fine idea. But a lack of historical distance will make it politically thorny

Grievance is at the heart of Pakistani politics. Almost all of the elites that dominate political life here have faced the deprivations – poverty, harassment, imprisonment or exile – experienced by the ordinary citizen at some point in their lives. When at the height of their strength, the powerful always invoke the myriad injustices that plague the common citizen to rally popular support.

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The greatest militant threat facing India comes not from the Islamists who attacked Mumbai but Naxalite Maoist rebels

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 September 2009 09.00 BST

Last November’s fedayeen-style attacks on Mumbai may have reminded the world that India was not immune to terrorism. But few outside the subcontinent are aware that the greatest source of militancy in this diverse country comes not from Islamists but Maoists.

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The knives are out when dictators fall from power, but the politics of retribution is rarely clean or cathartic

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 August 2009 17,00 BST

The tables turn quickly in politics, but for dictators the shift from all-powerful to powerless can be rather sudden. Over a period of 12 months, the last Shah of Iran went from feared dictator to refugee who struggled to find asylum in three different continents (including the US, his one-time staunchest supporter).

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As Pakistan celebrates Independence Day, Mustafa Qadri looks at the country’s unstable beginnings, troubled history and the miracle of its continued existence

“The religious bigot considers me an infidel
And the infidel deems me to be a Muslim!”

With these immortal words, Pakistan’s national poet Mohammad Iqbal captured the eternal quandary that is Pakistan.

The nation created for the subcontinent’s Muslims has always struggle to define itself — is it meant to be an Islamic state or a state for Indian Muslims?

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Pakistan has seen rapid change and frequent conflict in its 62 years. Its resilience is a testament to its people

· Mustafa Qadri

· guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 August 2009 19:00 BST

Karachi’s Saddar Town is the frenetic heart of Pakistan’s commercial capital. A retail hub where anything and everything from cameras to salwar kameez can be purchased, it was once the economic gateway into the northern reaches of British India. That legacy is still visible in Saddar’s fading colonial terraces, but the intricate wooden shutters are mostly gone and the Victorian entrances have been converted into street stalls. Today most are too busy trying to survive to notice the heritage.

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India was once a bulwark against cold war militarism – but now, under US influence, it is buying weapons at an alarming rate

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk Saturday 8 August 2009 15.00 BST

“We both seek a more secure world for our citizens,” wrote US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on the eve of her recent visit to India last month.

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The United States is playing a dangerous game of roulette with India and Pakistan, writes Mustafa Qadri

When it comes to US policy in South Asia, it’s a case of do as we say, not as we do. Consider, to begin with, the rhetoric.

The Obama White House has gone to great lengths to demand that Pakistan end its support for militants targeting India. It wants the Pakistan Army to end its “obsession” with India-inspired oblivion by moving its large reserves from the Indian border to engage the Taliban and al Qaeda on the eastern frontier. Most of Pakistan’s active armed forces are located on the tense border with India where they are more than matched by the much larger Indian military.

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Mustafa Qadri: Stuck between India and the Taliban
The idea that Pakistan is inherently dangerous is a mantra used by those who ignore history and avoid the complicated reality
According to Kapil Komireddi in these very pages, the demise of Pakistan is “inevitable” because it has since foundation been a source of division and extremism. [...]

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Mumbai bombing suspect’s release raises many concerns

Mustafa Qadri 10-Jun-2009

Has South Asia really only brought us grief, Madhav? I don’t think that’s entirely fair, though I admit I’ve increasingly found myself asking that very same question while travelling through the southern mega city of Karachi last week.

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Time to end the insecurity and fear

Mustafa Qadri 28-May-2009

If you speak to most Pakistanis – even the rank and file of the army, as I sometimes do – the answer, Madhav, would be: yes, Pakistanis are ready for more open trade links with India. This shouldn’t be surprising. According to an International Republican Institute poll released a few weeks ago, the priority for most Pakistanis is the economy.

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“Maulvi Sahib! What is Pakistan?” After careful thought he replied: “It’s a place in India where they make razors.”

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Five days of gunbattles between the Indian army and separatist militants in Indian-administered Kashmir have left at least 25 dead — eight Indian army troopers, including one officer, and 17 militants, the Indian military said Tuesday.

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Will Pakistan’s Army Chief step into the political fray the country’s civilian leadership is currently embroiled in? That’s the question I ask in my latest piece for newmatilda.com:

A New Dictator For Pakistan?

Speculation is mounting in Islamabad that a military coup is on the cards, writes Mustafa Qadri. And Pakistan’s most powerful ally doesn’t seem to mind…

Pakistan is facing its greatest political crisis since the resignation of Pervez Musharraf as president last year.

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My latest article, on the peace deal between a pro-Taliban group and the Pakistan Government in the mountainous tribal area of Malakand was published in NewMatilda.com today:
WHAT WILL THIS ‘PEACE’ COST?
By Mustafa Qadri
Pakistan has agreed to entrench Sharia law in its North-West Frontier Province in exchange for peace, but locals are still at risk and [...]

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Police arrested three men Thursday who they alleged carried out a deadly bombing in 2006 in Pakistan on the orders of India’s intelligence agency, a top officer said.
Lahore police chief Pervaiz Rathor told reporters the three Pakistanis had also been told to attack mosques as well as the virulently anti-Indian Muslim organization blamed for the [...]

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The film’s British director, Danny Boyle, has spoken of how he set up trust funds for Rubina and Azharuddin and paid for their education. But it has emerged that the children, who played Latika and Salim in the early scenes of the film, were paid less than many Indian servants.
Rubina was paid $1060 for a [...]

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Hundreds of students angrily protested on Tuesday as a government official took over administrative control of an Islamic charity which is linked to the militant group accused by India to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks.

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“I want to caution my Indian friends: Be wary of your wishes, as they might come true,” Saeed said. “Because the diplomatic cornering of Pakistan, by way of sanctions, by way of coercive diplomacy . . . is going to [create] a tremendous reaction in Pakistan. Any government cooperation with the United States will be [...]

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The South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) and South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) have jointly decided to take a Peace Mission from Pakistan to New Delhi from 21st to 24th January 2009. The 19-Member Delegation will interact with civil society, media and political leadership of India to stress the need to keep the peace [...]

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In fact, the Times’ Sanger reports that a top George W Bush administration official expressed his fears to him that “some groups could try to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India in the hope that the Pakistani military would transport tactical nuclear weapons closer to the front lines, where they [...]

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The fact is that India knows that war will accomplish nothing. Indeed, it is just what the terrorists want - a cause that would rally all Pakistanis to the flag and provide Pakistan’s army an excuse to abandon the unpopular fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaida in the west for the more familiar terrain of [...]

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The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was dealt yet another reeling blow by the recent U.S.-India nuclear deal. The Bush administration not only turned a blind eye to India’s development of nuclear weapons without signing the NPT, it lauded India for its strong nonproliferation record. When you preside over a nuclear arsenal the size of ours, [...]

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My latest piece on the tension between Islamabad and New Delhi following the Mumbai attacks was published on NewMatilda.com today:

My Nuclear Arsenal Is Bigger Than Yours

India is using the Mumbai attacks to flex its geopolitical muscle, writes Mustafa Qadri, as Pakistan risks further international isolation by denying its role in the violence…

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Is available here.

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India plans to break off business, transport and tourist links with Pakistan and isolate it from the rest of the world if it fails to help to investigate the Mumbai terrorist attacks…

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Pakistan’s private Geo television station quoted Gilani as saying Durrani had made unauthorised comments to the media confirming that the lone surviving Mumbai attacker was a Pakistani national.

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The following article, on tensions between India and Pakistan following the November attacks on Mumbai, was published in the Guardian Comment is Free website today:

Are India and Pakistan heading for war?

Pressure is mounting on politicians in both countries to take drastic action in the wake of recent terrorist attacks

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Here are some common assumptions about Pakistan and its citizens that I have come across in the Indian media…

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The problems started after September 11, when the US forced the then-military government of president General Pervez Musharraf to abandon the Taliban. Up to 2001, Afghanistan had virtually been a fifth Pakistani province for which Pakistan arranged day-to-day expenditures. Even the communications network was run by the Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Limited. [...]

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Meanwhile, NATO is looking to protect its supply lines and might have found assistance from Iran, which would reduce its dependence on Pakistan, where supply lines have come under heavy attack.

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Two major events are likely to mark the beginning of 2009 and decide the new rules of war and peace in the region. In Pakistan, the foremost is curtailing the powerful military dominated intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the second is the unveiling of a new strategy in Afghanistan. [...]

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The day after Christmas, the wires buzzed with reports that Pakistan was moving 20,000 troops from its western border with Afghanistan to locations near the eastern border [...]

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At least one top leader of militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or “Army of the Pure,” captured in a raid earlier this month in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, has confessed the group’s involvement in the attack as India and the U.S. have alleged, according to a senior Pakistani security official.

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During a visit to Islamabad, Interpol chief Ronald Noble said Tuesday that Pakistan has agreed to cooperate with the global police force to find the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack. However, he said that India had not shared information about the gunmen.

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The following article, a year in review of the countries I’ve covered in 2008, was published in NewMatilda.com today:

Silver Linings in Short Supply

From the Holy Land to South Asia, violence remained a constant in 2008, reports Mustafa Qadri. Will elections in Palestine and Israel – and the inauguration of Obama – promote dialogue or further violence?

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“And if we get to the stage where there is tangible proof, then I assure you that our democracy will take the action laid down in our law, in our constitution”.

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The following piece, on simmering dispute over Indian-controlled Kashmir, was printed in NewMatilda.com today:

All Road Lead to Kashmir

The Indian Government has done well to paint itself as an innocent victim after the Mumbai attacks. But Lashkar-e-Toiba has its roots in the conflict over Kashmir, writes Mustafa Qadri

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The Charter of the United Nations and provisions of international law, including the right of self-defence, gives us the framework to fulfil these responsibilities.

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As the international effort to defuse the tension intensified, matters started to clear up and by late Saturday evening calm began to prevail. But sources admit that those 24 hours made many people in Islamabad and Delhi and, perhaps in Washington, quite anxious. Perhaps for this reason, the Americans decided against taking any further chances, [...]

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I was interviewed by Phillip Adams on ABC Radio National tonight on the recent Mumbai attacks, sentiments in Pakistan, and an interview I conducted with a Taliban commander from the Swat valley. You can listen to the interview here.

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The network of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which was a major supporter of the ISI in the whole region, especially in Bangladesh, was shattered and fell into the hands of al-Qaeda when Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, chief of Harkat, a hero of the armed struggle in Kashmir who had spent two years in an Indian [...]

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India’s foreign ministry has said investigations have shown that all gunmen involved in the Mumbai attacks were Pakistani nationals.

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The following piece, on last weeks attacks in Mumbai which killed over 160 people, was published in NewMatilda.com today:

Militants shatter ‘Brand India’

Mumbai’s attackers were targeting India’s image as an emerging global power as much as they were targeting foreigners, writes Mustafa Qadri

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“There is a middle class of around 100 million who live very well but 800 million-plus people live in miserable conditions,” he said.

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“That means bringing in the neighbouring countries: Iran, India, and the five Central Asian states, and then resolving some of these regional problems — like the disputes between India and Pakistan, between Iran and the Americans, between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

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