Mustafa Qadri

The US has promised Pakistan $7.5bn of aid over five years – if it agrees to oversight of its most sensitive security issues

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 20:00 BST

You would think that the citizens of a developing country promised $7.5bn over five years would be dancing in the streets. Instead, last week’s approval of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, formerly the Kerry-Lugar bill, by Congress met with widespread howls of condemnation in Pakistan.

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In the Pakistani army’s offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, the line between victims and villains remains unclear

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 October 2009 16.30 BST

The Pakistan army’s invasion of the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan this week brings few surprises. For years observers in Washington and Brussels have been pressing for an assault on this scale. The army says its aims in Operation Rah-e-Nijat (“Road out of Misery”) are to finally eliminate the main sanctuary for the Taliban and al-Qaida in Pakistan and, according to army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the foreign and local “elements” that given them succour.

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Pakistan is not an ally or an enemy—it’s not coherent enough to be either. There is a free judiciary and a free press, but the there’s no civilian control of the army, especially the intelligence services, which have been backing the bad guys.

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It appears the Pentagon is opposed to too much oversight of civilian aid to Pakistan, including a provision in a proposed bill that would prevent aid in the event of a military coup: After promising last month that U.S. aid to Pakistan would no longer be a “blank check,” the Obama administration is attempting to [...]

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The Pakistan Army intensified its operation Tuesday against militants in the Lower Dir district in the country’s northwest. The operation, which began on Sunday, has already claimed the lives of 50 militants and 13 security forces. In response, the Pakistani Taliban have suspended their talks with the government.

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My analysis of the Obama Administration’s new AfPak policy for the Common Grounds News Service was published today:

Obama’s new “AfPak” strategy – the view from Pakistan
by Mustafa Qadri

30 April 2009

Karachi, Pakistan – People with a hammer only see nails. This well-worn maxim aptly describes the United States’ relationship with Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past several decades. As early as 1954, the United States identified the country as a bulwark against regional encroachment by the Soviet Union when Pakistan received its first substantial tranche of American military and economic aid.

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Not everybody is in a position to write a column, but may have a profound experience or perspective to share. In this feature we seek out such people and report back so the Unleashed audience can absorb and discuss unique, fascinating or moving stories.

In our latest instalment of “Unleashed Voices” Mustafa Qadri meets a boy from Pakistan who has trained to become a Taliban suicide bomber.

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Just back from a visit to Pakistan, Sen. John Kerry says the Obama administration’s plan for that volatile country, rolled out last month with great fanfare, “is not a real strategy.”

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My latest column for The Guardian, on the Taliban and the psychology of fear, was published today:

Taliban preys on Pakistani fears

The Taliban’s extreme version of Islam is the logical conclusion of the region’s violent past and feeds on insecurity

Pakistanis have been offered a frightening glimpse into the true character of the Taliban over the past weeks. Last Monday, 30 March, a group of heavily armed men in police uniforms stormed a police academy killing 11 and injuring close to another 100. Those traumatised police cadets that survived painted a grisly picture of bloodstained walls and body parts. The leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella network of pro-Taliban groups in the country, Baitullah Masud claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Pakistan could get $2.8 billion in military aid from the US in addition to the proposed $7.5 billion civilian aid package spread over five years, a defence official has been quoted as saying.

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My latest column for The Guardian is on the quandaries of supplying NATO forces in Afghanistan:

NATO’s soft underbelly

Nato operations in Afghanistan depend on a precarious international supply system – and the Taliban have realised it

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There’s nothing new in Barack Obama’s foreign policy – but the way it is knitted together offers hope… See also TIME magazine’s appraisal: Did George Bush leave one of his old speeches in the Resolute Desk? As President Obama unveiled his Afghanistan-Pakistan policy Friday, it was hard to miss the echoes of his predecessor’s “surge” [...]

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My latest piece on the situation in Pakistan for The Guardian was published today:

Rough Justice in Swat

The growing influence of the Taliban in the North-West Frontier Province is a direct threat to Pakistan’s fragile democracy…

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My analysis of the grassroots democracy movement that led to the reinstatement of Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry as Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court was published in the Los Angeles Times today:

Pakistan’s clear message to the West

It’s not all fanaticism and violence. A grass-roots democratic movement is making strides.

By Mustafa Qadri

March 21, 2009

Writing From Islamabad, Pakistan — Politics is never dull in Pakistan. This week, it was inspirational too.

On Monday, I watched people flock to the home of Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. A tense standoff between the government and a coalition of opposition groups over Chaudhry’s reinstatement as chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court had finally been resolved. After two years of government-enforced “retirement,” Chaudhry would return to the bench…

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President Obama and his national security advisers are considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan far beyond the unruly tribal areas to strike at a different center of Taliban power in Baluchistan, where top Taliban leaders are orchestrating attacks into southern Afghanistan.

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It is another irony that as football is the game of poor masses in Pakistan, the teams and players are given the lowest priority in terms of security. Bartalan Bisciki, the noted Hungarian football coach, was selected last month by the Pakistan football association to coach the national team, but he refused to take up [...]

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A test of progress will be if refugees in camps in Peshawar begin to head home. Despite the military’s declaration of victory against the Taliban in Bajaur late last month, many say it’s still too unsafe to return. Travelers and residents say the Taliban haven’t been flushed from two of nine districts there.

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Tuesday’s attack in the Pakistani city of Lahore on a convoy carrying Sri Lankan cricketers was carried out by disgruntled Punjabi militants seeking to extract concessions from the government, Asia Times Online has learned.

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A Gallup poll last month showed that 62 percent of Americans support either an investigation or prosecution of Bush administration officials for torture. Sources familiar with the administration’s thinking say Obama’s team has thoroughly thought through the concept of a torture investigation. President Obama, however, has remained cool to the notion in his public statements.

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The failures of this government and its inability to defend the country’s interests or its population from drones or terrorist attacks are paving the way for the return of the army to power as a way of avoiding a serious split within its own ranks. All that is awaited is a green light from the [...]

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In an admission that its dependence on the Pakistani military has yielded few results against the Taliban, the United States is now seeking to change its relationship with Pakistan – the world’s sole Muslim nuclear power and home of Al Qaeda’s leadership.

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In January I interviewed a member of Lashkar-e-Toiba, the pro-Pakistan militant group believed to have been involved in the Mumbai attacks, for The Diplomat magazine. The interview has just been published in the latest edition of the magazine and is available online here.

JIHAD: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

02-Mar-2009

Mustafa Qadri investigates the organisations believed by many to have been behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks

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Maj Gen Tariq Khan, the commander of military operations in five of Pakistan’s seven tribal agencies, said his paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) had driven extremists out of Bajaur, where Pakistani forces have waged a six-month long campaign.

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It was hoped that t he election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States would bring a change of course to the beleaguered US effort in Afghanistan. But word that representatives of the Taliban and the infamous Afghan drug trafficker and extremist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar might be on the president’s list of possible [...]

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The following article appears on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Unleashed website today:

Taming the Taliban

Mustafa Qadri

This month the world reacted with surprise and trepidation at the news that Pakistan had reached a peace agreement with religious groups closely aligned to the Taliban. The accord relates to the mountainous Malakand division of the North Western Frontier Province that borders Afghanistan. It covers the beautiful Swat valley, the onetime alpine honeymoon resort, that, since 2007, has been gripped by a Taliban insurgency.

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The U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide has now been officially posted to the U.S. Department of State offical web page. Organizations involved in the drafting of this document included Department of State, Department of Defense, U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Justice, Department of The Treasury, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture, Department of [...]

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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 [...]

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Muslim Khan, the Taliban spokesman in Swat, said the group claimed responsibility for abducting the administrator. “He is our guest. We have to discuss some issues with him. We will serve him with tea and then free him,” he told Reuters.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that Washington could accept a political agreement between the Afghan government and Taliban rebels along the lines of a truce in neighboring Pakistan.

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Pakistan’s constitution already contains provisions protecting against un-Islamic laws. Why then does the country need an agreement with violent extremists to ensure Islamic laws? And who will pronounce on these laws? The militants? And if the army is to remain in a “reactive” mode, as a government minister explained, will they stand by and watch [...]

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With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government.

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Pakistan needs a modern day “Marshall Plan” to help it fight Taliban militants through economic development, President Asif Ali Zardari said, referring to the U.S. aid plan for Europe after World War II.

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Here, published in NewMatilda.com today, is an analysis of the recent Taliban suicide attack on Kabul and the build of US troops in the country.

“It’s Like Fighting Quick Sand”

As Obama commits another 17,000 US troops to the flagging US war effort in Afghanistan, a commando-style attack by the Taliban in Kabul serves as a reminder of the challenges that lie ahead, writes Mustafa Qadri

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The following piece, on the recent peace agreement between the Pakistan Government and Islamic leaders in the northern Malakand district, was posted on the Guardian Comment is Free website today:

Peace or appeasement in Pakistan?

The recent deal between religious leaders in tribal Pakistan and the government legitimates the Taliban insurgency…

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The transparency group Wikileaks has issued a press release regarding a confidential NATO report that details the dramatic increase in civillians deaths, the rise in civil disorer and the lack of basic health care and education in Afghanistan. (Thanks to Reuben)

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The credibility of the international mission in Afghanistan was dealt a blow yesterday with the announcement that presidential elections have been put back by three months.

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U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan have killed more than 50 people in the past three days in what appears to be an escalation of the military campaign in the troubled region along the Afghan border

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Pakistan government officials said they struck a deal on Monday to accept a legal system compatible with Shariah law in the violent Swat region in return for peace.

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The Pakistani government should act immediately to protect hundreds of thousands of people from insurgents in the Swat valley and elsewhere in the country, Amnesty International said today. See also Amnesty’s “Swat deal threatens human rights”.

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A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States.

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Soviet veterans marking 20 years since their defeat in Afghanistan warned the United States it would never truly control the country, citing bitter memories of a fiercely proud people and unforgiving landscape.

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Britain appointed its own Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and named Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, currently its Ambassador to Afghanistan, for the post on the day US President Obama’s Special Representative for the two countries arrived in Islamabad. You may recall that Cowper-Coles was the British diplomat who got into a bit of hot water [...]

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Pakistan advised President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Tuesday to reach out to reconcilable elements of the Taliban movement as part of a strategy for peace in the region.

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And I gave an example of the fact that USAID had built forty-one courthouses at a cost of over $200 million, and the day the US ambassador went to the minister of justice to sort of hand over these courthouses, the minister of justice knew nothing about it and said, “Well, that’s very nice, that’s [...]

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My latest article, on US policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan under President Obama, was published in NewMatilda.com today:

From War on Terror to Plain Old War

Early signs suggest an escalation of the Bush administration’s policies on Afghanistan and Pakistan under the new President, writes Mustafa Qadri

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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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Mohammad Saad breaks into sobs and gut-wrenching moans when he details six years’ humiliation, interrogation and ill-treatment under US orders in Egypt, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

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Every night around 8 o’clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan’s most important cities, crowd around their radios. They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing — or a beheading.

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Two remote U.S. missile strikes that killed at least 20 people at suspected terrorist hideouts in northwestern Pakistan yesterday offered the first tangible sign of President Obama’s commitment to sustained military pressure on the terrorist groups there, even though Pakistanis broadly oppose such unilateral U.S. actions.

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Businessman Ata-u-llah expressed the distrust of the Western intervention that is widespread in Afghanistan. “There will be no change because infidel countries always have the same politics against Muslim countries and their target is to give a bad name to Islam and extend Christianity and Judaism,” he said.

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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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“A strategy destined to fail?” Guardian: Comment is Free 9 October 2008

A major new intelligence estimate by US defence establishment casts doubt on military strategy in Afghanistan.

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Benazir Bhutto’s widower is accusing President Musharraf of siphoning off millions from aid intended to support war on terror.

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“Guilt by association” NewMatilda.com 7 July 2008
(On the punishment of NGOs coordinating their activities in the Gaza Strip with Hamas)

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Locked into the mantra of preserving its Jewish character, Israel refuses to comprehend the extent to which it has forsaken the memory of the oppressed for the fruits of the oppressor.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel. Here is my take on what Israel represents in the 21st century.

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The relative lack of critical analysis of the United States’ military aid package to favoured Middle East nations reveals a great deal about contemporary measures of peace and security (Report, August 1). How, exactly, does a $20bn military aid package foment peace? The US offers yet another golden handshake to regimes, Jewish and Arab alike, [...]

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The respected international relations theorist and former United States Department of State employee Samuel Huntington explains the significance of the West as agent of civilisation:

“The West has, in short, become a mature society entering into what future generations, in the recurring pattern of civilizations, will look back to as a “golden age,” a period of peace resulting in… “the absence of any competing units within the area of the civilization itself, and from the remoteness or even absence of struggles with other societies outside.””

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Musharraf’s dismissal of the Pakistani Chief Justice reveals the true face of the War on Terror.

Friday, or ‘Jumma’ as it is known to Muslims, is the holiest day of the week. It is usually a day of rest and reflection. It was on a Friday, 9 March 2007, that President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan told the country’s senior most judge, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry of the Supreme Court, that he was being dismissed due to allegations of misconduct. Little detail of the alleged misconduct was made public by the Government. What information is known of the allegations came from an open letter to the Chief Justice from a noted pro-Government lawyer and television presenter, Naeem Bokhari.

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It seems that every so often a new terrorist mastermind emerges who is to be hunted down and brought to justice. Now it seems these masterminds also offer blanket, if remarkably convenient confessions. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the latest individual to fit this description. Mohammed has allegedly confessed to being the mastermind behind the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States and to beheading American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

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On 3 February 2007, the United States brought new draft charges against David Hicks for his alleged involvement in terrorist activities. The charges are still draft because they have still to be ‘approved’ by the authority overseeing the Military Commission established to prosecute him.

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