Twirp : Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Republic Pakistan

01-06-2008, 07:56 PM

US officials helped Pak steal nuke secrets: Report
6 Jan 2008, 1446 hrs IST ,PTI
SMS NEWS to 58888 for latest updates
LONDON: Senior US officials have helped Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets, a whistlebloweer has claimed.

Intercepted communications showed former ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attaches in the Turkish embassy, according to The Sunday Times.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office, it said.

She approached the newspaper last month after reading about an Al-Qaida terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

According to Edmonds, she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

Intelligence analysts said that members of the ISI were close to al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11 attacks on the US. Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a 100,000 dollars wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks, the report said.

The newspaper claimed that it knew the name of the official, who has held a series of top government posts, but he strongly denies the claims.
http://tinyurl.com/3x5db3

Naresh · 01-06-2008, 09:20 PM

[center] <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' />Textile mills decide to lay off labour <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' />[/center]

LAHORE - Around 100 members of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Punjab) has decided to close their mills and lay off the labour.

In an emergent meeting held here at APTMA Punjab office where the members decided to organize a delegation to the Chief Ministerâs office to present a note to the Chief Minister. The note will ask the Chief Minister to order connection of gas and electricity to the industry. The note will also request the Chief Minister to arrange an urgent appointment with the Prime Minister for Tuesday. Members also decided to take a delegation will then go to the WAPDA House and present a note to the Managing Director of PEPCO.

The members underlined that due to heavy losses caused by the closures, many mills are now not in position to pay even the utility bills. They remarked that most of the mills have to now ask their banks to declare a moratorium on repayments for two years. APTMA (P) has appealed to the PM to meet the representatives of the industry urgently and redress their grievances.

APTMA (Punjab) has regretted the situation that the industry in Punjab has been placed in due to shortage of gas and electricity in the province. Almost 300 mills in the province have become idle for most of the days during last week with nearly 70pc loss of production. Thus while govtâs anti industry policies have pushed the trade deficit to $16b level, industry has collapsed under the burden of first cost of energy and now lack of energy and also cost of bank loans. Under the circumstances, the textile industry is in no more position to service its liabilities. While in the meeting with M. D. PEPCO, it was decided to restrict the electric load shedding to 5 hours a day and to ensure smooth supply during rest of the day, LESCO has failed to supply according to the agreement. Similarly according to the EC decision of last year, SNGPL was supposed to provide gas to industry at par with general industry including process industry, the gas utility is giving step fatherly treatment to the textile industry, including spinning, weaving, garments, by disconnecting their gas supply.

Meanwhile, Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) expressed its concern over the move to reduce export finance. Tanvir Ahmad Sheikh President FPCCI in a press statement here Saturday said that the move may discourage the exporters and affect the exports growth. He urged the Governor SBP to realize the importance of finance in stimulation of exports. âThis decision will have an impact on the textile sector as textile sector is its major recipientâ, he added. The availability of export at subsidized rates enables exporters to efficiently execute their export orders at lower costs, he said. President FPCCI also pointed out that if we analyze the effects of this decision, we can see that it will increase the cost of borrowing to the export oriented industries, particularly the textile sector which remains the primary recipient for export credit.

He said textile sector faces this discrimination and may be taken into account.

He said that SBP previous reports has been showing a positive and significant co-relation between export refinances and textile exports.

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

01-06-2008, 10:01 PM

QUOTEUS officials helped Pak steal nuke secrets: Report
Whole world knows Paki and US love story. They looked otherside in 70s and 80s. My question is why now this story in NY? Are they looking for unknown moles in SD or something else?
Think hard.

Naresh · 01-07-2008, 12:02 AM

Mudy Ji :

I refer you to the following photograph of Benazir Bhuttoâs Children :

[center]<img src='http://www.dawn.com.pk/2008/01/02/SlideShow/pic03.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />[/center]

[center]DUBAI - Jan 01: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and sisters Bakhtawar
and Aseefa on arrival at the airport here on Tuesday.âAP[/center]

Whereas Bilawal and Afisa show traits of the Bhutto, Lakhi Bai, Nusrat Isphani and Zardari Roots, Bakhtawar does not show any likeness between her and Bilawal or Afisa!

Any guesses?

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Naresh · 01-07-2008, 12:16 AM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Jan 6 2008, 10:01 PM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEUS officials helped Pak steal nuke secrets: Report
Whole world knows Paki and US love story. They looked otherside in 70s and 80s. My question is why now this story in NY? Are they looking for unknown moles in SD or something else?
Think hard.
[right][snapback]76864[/snapback][/right]
</div>

Mudy Ji :

This could be the reason :

[center]Hillary Clinton proposes joint oversight of Pakistan nukes[/center]

QUOTEMANCHESTER, New Hampshire (AFP) â US White House hopeful Hillary Clinton said she would propose a joint US-British team to oversee the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if she is elected president.

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

01-07-2008, 12:17 AM

The US has no problems with pakis having nukes just as long as they are pointed at India and India alone. This serves the purpose of keeping India in this 'Southasia Box'.

We need to make the pak nukes a US problem and the only way that will happen is if the nukes are in danger of falling in ALQ and jehadi types' hands. Granted India would still be a target for the jehadis but we were a target anyway.

US needs to be put under pressure to handle this monster they have created.

01-07-2008, 07:11 AM

QUOTEWe need to make the pak nukes a US problem 
It is already, Paki already showed world in 9/11 that they don't need Hanif-12 to reach US. US and rest of world should worry or already hell scare of nukes in Paki Army hand.

01-07-2008, 07:37 AM

QUOTEBakhtawar does not show any likeness between her and Bilawal or Afisa!
She is Sanam duplicate.

01-07-2008, 10:37 AM

Pakistani militants kill 8 tribal elders QUOTEISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Suspected Islamic militants killed eight tribal leaders involved in efforts to broker a cease-fire between security forces and insurgents in northwestern Pakistan, a security official said Monday.

The men were shot in separate attacks late Sunday and early Monday in South Waziristan, a mountainous region close to Afghanistan where al-Qaida and Taliban militants are known to operate, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make comments to the media.

01-09-2008, 12:16 AM

Caliphate of Pakistan
Sandhya Jain

ramana · 01-09-2008, 03:18 AM

Op-Ed Pioneer, 9 jan., 2008
QUOTELet there be shari'ah! 

Heavens won't fall if this happens, a Pakistani lawyer tells Sushant Sareen

Education Minister and former ISI chief Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi is convinced that using the Army in a half-hearted manner will be counterproductive, and if the Army has to be deployed against the extremists and jihadis, then it must use all the force under its command to end the menace of extremism once and for all.

This is, however, easier said than done and can actually produce a reaction that could easily unleash a civil-war inside Pakistan. Former ISI chief Lt Gen Asad Durrani, is convinced that there are limits to the use of force and application of force must be part of a larger strategy, which he feels is missing. Gen Durrani believes that rather than trying to use force against the extremists, it might be better to let society throw up alternatives. He places his faith on the innate pragmatism and wisdom of the people, and feels this will eventually manage to moderate the extremists.

There are others who agree with Gen Durrani and say that an unnecessary scare being spread over the issue of Islamisation. "Heavens will not fall if shari'ah is imposed in Pakistan," argues a senior advocate who belongs to a well known and highly respected political family, and is personally an extremely moderate and liberal person. He said most of the laws in Pakistan are already Islamised and there will be hardly any changes in basic law that shari'ah can now bring about. He accepts that those demanding shari'ah are basically aiming their guns at the women and culture. In other words, the big change will be that women will face Taliban-type restrictions and there will be a ban on TV, films and music. But in his view, this is not such a great issue simply because eventually Pakistani society will reject all such antediluvian measures.

The Jamaat Islami's information secretary, Amee-rul Azeem, also scoffs at what moderate Pakistanis call 'Talibanisation'. He said that the Taliban, including those from Lal Masjid, were only exposing and opposing immorality, adultery and obscenity in society, something that many newspapers in Pakistan also do. He wondered why the 'writ of the state' was never invoked against immorality in society. Leader of Opposition Maulana Fazlur Rehman, too, sees no threat from the radical groups. He, in fact, backs the demand for imposition of shari'ah; only he is opposed to bringing in the shari'ah through violence and force of arms.

The wily Maulana accepts that there is a tussle for power and influence between the political mullahs and the militant mullahs, but he believes that ultimately he will be able to bring the militants around. So much so that despite being warned he is on the hit-list of the jihadis, he refuses to believe that the radicals pose any danger to his life. He suspects 'hidden hands' (normally a euphemism for intelligence agencies, both Pakistani and American) to be behind high profile assassinations of influential clerics who at one point or another tried to bring about an accommodation between the jihadis and the state.

Many senior Cabinet Ministers and Opposition politicians are, however, not as blasÃ© about what they see as the rising tide of extremism. Interior Minister and former Chief Minister of NWFP, Aftab Sherpao, is quite candid in accepting that the Pakistani society was undergoing a transformation. He said that it is not only the Pashtun areas that are affected by 'Talibanisation' but also large parts of South Punjab that are becoming radicalised. Sherpao, like many other Pakistani officials, believes that only through a combination of political manoeuvring, reform in education system and creation of economic opportunities, can the society be weaned away from extremism and put on the path of moderation.

The trouble, however, is that everyone in Pakistan talks of the future and gives plans that will yield results in 10 to 15 years, but no one has any solid idea about how to counter the immediate threat that the extremists pose to state and society. In all the time that the state is going to take for its action plan to show results, the moderates are losing the battle of ideas to the Islamists. Worse, President Pervez Musharraf's policy of enlightened moderation is seen as an imposition of Christian values on a predominantly Islamic society and there are not too many buyers for it.
-- Tomorrow: Pakistan's lost frontier

Naresh · 01-09-2008, 03:48 AM

[center] <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /> ElBaradei fears for Pak nuclear arsenal security <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /> [/center]

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

01-10-2008, 01:45 AM

QUOTEPakistan's lost frontier 
Pioneer.com
Jinnah's moth-eaten dream is shattering along Indus, says Sushant Sareen

Nearly half a dozen of my cousins who are officers in the Army have quit in the last year", revealed a Pashtun journalist friend. According to another Pashtun journalist, who has been reporting the Islamist insurgency from ground-zero, there have been many desertions from the paramilitary forces (the Frontier Corp and Tribal Levies). He spoke about a friend of his who quit the tribal levies because he was warned by his father that if he died fighting the Taliban, let alone getting a burial, even his body will not be permitted to enter the village.

Already people in Islamabad and Lahore are talking about an exodus of people from the areas affected by conflict. Tribal maliks and khans, businessmen and local Government officials like district nazim and councilors are moving to Peshawar, and in many cases settling their families in the cities of Punjab.

But uncertainty about the future is also affecting those who are already living in cities of Punjab. A senior Pashtun bureaucrat called a journalist friend and wondered what the future holds for Pashtuns, especially those who are well integrated in Pakistani (read Punjabi) power structure. The journalist, who is himself a Pashtun, later said that people like him who have great associations and friendships in Punjab and have never felt alien in Punjab will be worst affected if the conflict between the Pashtun Islamists and the Pakistani state worsens. He feared that if and when the sentiment in Punjab turns hostile to Pashtuns, people like him will be rejected (if not ejected) by Punjab and will be misfits among fellow Pashtuns.

And it won't take much for the Punjabis to turn hostile towards the Pashtuns. Journalist Imtiaz Alam thinks that a couple of suicide attacks in Lahore will have Punjab baying for blood. For the moment, however, unlike Islamabad, where the fear of terrorist strikes by Pashtun jihadis and suicide bombers is palpable, in Lahore the war being waged in trans-Indus Pakistan is still somewhat distant. This is so partly because until now, the jihadis and Taliban have only targeted the security forces. Civilian casualties in suicide bombings can by and large be classified as 'collateral damage'. But the pattern of attacks could change as the fighting in NWFP and the tribal areas worsens and the military offensive causes heavy collateral damage in both life and property among Pashtuns.

Not surprisingly, many Punjabis are now openly voicing the fear if the deteriorating situation in the Pashtun belt (NWFP and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan) is not arrested and reversed fast, the frontier would be lost. And if the frontier is lost, then Baluchistan, too, would break away from Pakistan.

Popular Urdu columnist Nazir Naji, who has received death threats from the Islamist groups for writing against them, doesn't mince his words in saying that Pakistan is heading for failure. Like many others in Lahore and Islamabad, he invokes the Col Ralph Peters thesis about Pakistan splitting vertically along the Indus.

The only saving grace about the situation that Pakistan confronts in the Pashtun belt is that both the state and society has got out of the denial mode and is recognising that the problem posed by the forces of jihad is far worse than they ever imagined. The setbacks received by the military have ended the cocky confidence that a crack of the whip or a shot of cannon will be enough to restore order in the turbulent Pashtun belt. The state machinery, so effective against unarmed and peaceful protestors like the lawyers, journalists and political workers, has crumbled in the face of battle-hardened and committed to their cause Taliban.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao has admitted that the traditional instruments through which the state established its writ -- tribal jirgas and lashkars, using the influence of powerful maliks, khans and sardars -- no longer work. The social structures have been turned on their head by the militant-mullah compact. He blames two things for this state of affairs: First, the office of the political agent was devalued by the administrative reforms ushered in by Mr Pervez Musharraf's local body system; second, and more damaging was the inaction of the MMA Government in NWFP in taking timely and effective counter measures against the jihadis. For instance, he says, the MMA Government avoided using the Army against the jihadis in Swat even though the troops were on the standby.

Mr Sherpao said that the federal Government could not order Army action without the concurrence of the provincial Government because, not only would it then have been accused of violating the principles of federation, but the MMA would have also exploited the situation politically by inciting the people against the federal Government, as indeed it did after Army action was ordered in Swat.

-- Tomorrow: Is recovery possible?

Naresh · 01-10-2008, 02:47 PM

[center]Suicide attack on Pakistani police kills 21[/center]

QUOTELAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber walked up to policemen stationed outside the High Court in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Thursday and set off his explosives, killing 21 people, most of them police, officials said.

"Most of the victims are policemen. It was a suicide attack," said senior city government official Mian Ejaz. He said 60 people had been wounded.

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Naresh · 01-10-2008, 06:09 PM

[center]TWENTY THREE[/center]

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Shambhu · 01-10-2008, 06:38 PM

Take, make the talk! Â© Naresh

Post above says "a couple of suicide attacks in Lahore will have Punjab baying for blood"

And then immediately 21 (now 23)!

In this new Punjab Tennis Match, the freedom fighters have served. Will TFTA and Pakjabis return the serve?

01-10-2008, 08:49 PM

QUOTEWill TFTA and Pakjabis return the serve? 
Pakjabis are lazy, they want others to do work. Look who is roasting them. Lets see whether they invite IM to help them out.

ramana · 01-10-2008, 11:10 PM

Op-ed in Pioneer by Swapan Dasgupta

10 Jan. 2008

QUOTEYou can't put on Pak blinkers

The tragedy of Benazir Bhutto's assassination should not blind us to the farce that was enacted in Larkana a day after her funeral. For the first time in the annals of dynastic democracy in the subcontinent, the succession issue in a political party was settled on the strength of a Last Will and Testament which, unfortunately, the world will never get to read.

It is undeniable that the major political parties of the region, viz the Pakistan People's Party, Awami League, Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the Indian National Congress, have transformed themselves into proprietorial concerns. It is almost axiomatic that you have to be a Bhutto, a Nehru-Gandhi, a Bandaranaike or a descendant of Sheikh Mujib to secure the top job in these parties.

Earlier there was always the pretence that grassroots pressure and the overriding need for a unifying symbol had catapulted the inheritors into the top job. With the coronation of Bilawal I -- there is no better description for his anointment as PPP chairman -- political inheritance has lost its democratic pretensions. In death, Benazir turned it into a bequest.

{Shades of Muwaiyaa nominating Yazid as the next Caliph!}

The idea is not to mock the bewilderment of a 19-year-old who has had both his mother and the joys of youthful freedom cruelly snatched away from him. Nor does it behove anyone to wait expectantly for Chairman Bilawal I to come into his own, upstage the decrepit Regent and show that he is the true Bhutto. Bilawal's future has all the makings of a family melodrama, now that Mumtaz Bhutto and the daughter of the late Murtaza Bhutto have also staked their claim on the inheritance. Yet, life in Pakistan is too full of inglorious uncertainties to warrant speculative forward trading.

Indeed, the turmoil in Pakistan over the past fortnight should force liberal India to discard the blinkers with which it views the other side of the Radcliffe Line. Pakistan has shown itself to be a bizarre place, not merely on account of the itinerant suicide bombers who hop from place to place. It is the complete non-existence or breakdown of institutions that should worry Indians who believe "they" are like "us".

{This applies to US senators like Liberman who is on avisit there and makes puppy noises about TSP nukes.}

For a start, there are no elementary rules of forensic examination. There was no post-mortem examination carried out on Benazir's body because the husband piously declared he didn't want it. To say this is preposterous is a wild understatement; the wilful lapse has ensured that the cause of death will remain a matter of wild conjecture forever, unless the body is cruelly exhumed.

Second, in proffering the incredible theory that Benazir died after an accidental bump in the head -- a claim contested by the indignant car manufacturer -- the authorities have shown that in the game of cover-ups, brazenness is the rule. Despite photographic evidence of a smartly dressed man in sunglasses pointing a gun at Benazir, sundry military administrators have persisted in following a script that doesn't correspond to reality. That the Government had to call in investigators from Scotland Yard -- who are unlikely to find anything because most of the evidence has been destroyed or removed -- shows how little credibility the Pakistani state enjoys in the eyes of its own people. The revelation that Benazir planned to release a dossier of the ISI's rigging plans on behalf of the King's Party confirms the extent of the rot.

If these shenanigans were confined to the internal affairs of Pakistan, India could have looked the other way. Unfortunately, the state that presided over the murder of one of its foremost leaders and then tried to cover-up ineptly also happens to be the state that the world must deal with. 

For too long, many have tried to make an expedient distinction between the "responsible" and "rogue" arms of the Pakistan State -- A Q Khan being the proverbial rogue and Musharraf the modernist. This distinction is notional. We are now dealing with a criminal entity called Pakistan that possesses nuclear weapons and where jihad has entered the bloodstream.

The implications don't need to be spelt out explicitly.

01-10-2008, 11:57 PM

QUOTEFor a start, there are no elementary rules of forensic examination. There was no post-mortem examination carried out on Benazir's body because the husband piously declared he didn't want it. To say this is preposterous is a wild understatement; the wilful lapse has ensured that the cause of death will remain a matter of wild conjecture forever, unless the body is cruelly exhumed
They are identical twins, only difference one is growing hair faster.

Same happened with Indira and Sanjay. There was no post-mortem. Its not bizarre but mentality is same. Two years back Rahul Gandhi claimed, he can be PM anytime. Bhutto and Gandhi are no different, they are same and people who pop them up are also same.
Bhutto was the one who started Jihadi factory and Sonia Congress is encouraging EJ and jihadi in India by creating false victim syndrome and future jihadi factory in India.

No difference between Elite of Pakistan and India, they are same, they inspire each other. Recent Zardari statement that he will be like Sonia and lets see who will be Paki Moron/Joker/dummy PM. Time had come, people of both countries should reject them.

ramana · 01-11-2008, 01:26 AM

Mudy the article was posted to show that TSP is descending into a jihadi pit. It was not to find equal-equal situations. Dasgupta is addressing =-= folks who say "TSP is just like us" AKA WKK.

Thanks, ramana

Last part of Sareen's article in Pioneer 11 Jan., 2008

QUOTECan Pakistan survive? 

This seems difficult with radical Islamism gaining ground, says Sushant Sareen

Lt Gen Asad Durrani, the former ISI chief, dismisses these conspiracy theories as nonsense. He argues that no military commander will ever get hundreds of his troops killed and allow a situation to develop where large parts of the country go out of control of the state. He also defended his former organisation, ISI, by saying that it is silly to talk of the ISI as a state within a state. The ISI functions as an instrument of the state and while there may be individuals in the organisation who harbour sympathy and share the ideology of the militants, it is impossible for them to go against the policy framework adopted by the Army high command. He said that at best such individuals can pass on some information or look the other way in certain situations.

Notwithstanding the allegations and counter allegations, the blame-game and political one-upmanship, Pakistan is facing an alarmingly serious situation on the ground. Pashtun society has undergone a massive transformation and is getting increasingly radicalised and defiant and the prime example of this is Swat, whose inhabitants were considered to be one of the most peaceful and liberal of all Pashtuns.

Pashtun identity, tribal affiliations and religious zealotry have combined to produce a deadly cocktail to which the Pakistani state seems to have no antidote. Interestingly, the insurgency has absolutely nothing to do with Pashtun nationalism because as puritanical Muslims, the Taliban do not believe in ethnicity. Pashtun nationalists, in fact, are fast becoming irrelevant, so much so that a journalist friend said that even in their own backyard -- Charsadda -- eight out of 10 people are Taliban sympathisers. Even though publicly they protest against the military operations by saying that Pashtuns are being killed, in private they exhort the state authorities to crackdown hard on the Islamists.

Most of the solutions being offered to the crisis will either make the situation worse or postpone the problem until such time when it erupts with even greater virulence. For instance, an all-out military operation will only alienate the people and drive them into the arms of the Islamists. On the other hand, if the state engages the militants in a dialogue and, as many people suggest, gives in to their demands of imposing a Taliban-esque system, then it will buy temporary peace, which will be used by the Islamists to consolidate their position until they are ready to make their next big push.

For instance, in Swat, the radical Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-Mohammadi, which had suffered a major setback after 9/11, distanced itself from Mullah Fazlullah because it thought he is inviting too much attention something that could affect the efforts of the organisation to reorganise itself. But once the fighting started, the TNSM cadre are reported to have joined up with Fazlullah's followers. Ultimately, the shared aim is not to Islamise only the Pashtun areas but to impose their vision and their version of Islam in not only Pakistan but also in Afghanistan.

There is another strategy that people like Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao advocate. According to Mr Sherpao, since the militants do not have a unified command structure and individuals heading militant groups in different areas are not willing to accept the authority of any one person, the state can play one against the other. Tribal divisions and blood feuds can also be exploited to divide and rule the turbulent Pashtun tribes. These tactics paid handsome dividends in South Waziristan when local militants expelled the Uzbeks from the area with the help of the Army.

But this strategy does not take into account the fact that the Islamists have established a sort of confederacy of militant groups, in which differences on the issue of leadership play a secondary role to the primary objective of imposing a Taliban-type political system. This means that even though the Pakistani state might succeed in pitting one militant group against another, the basic demand of Islamisation will remain non-negotiable.

-- Concluded

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