Grand Trunk Road

I found this perfect little quote from a New York Times article via IOZ:

“For me it doesn’t matter that he’s black or his name is Hussein,” said Ahmed Amin, 34, as he drank a beer in a downtown Cairo bar. “He’s an American, and so I disagree with most of what he says about the Arab world. I mean, Condoleezza Rice was black and poor, and she still invaded Iraq.”

I’m not putting it up here to show how much I hate American politicians. I’m putting it up because it stresses something that I’ve been thinking about for the last two months the importance of which Pakistani liberals are forgetting at an alarming rate: The US and Pakistan do not have common interests. Somewhere, deep beneath the bullshit of the Pakistan Army’s crazy geopolitical ambitions which have been riding on the back of US ambitions since 1947, there is a set of interests that belong to the Pakistani people. And fighting the US-led, going-nowhere war on terror goes directly against them. We cannot afford to treat the people of the tribal areas as global terrorists. They are a part of our country that, as a direct result of our army and army-led government’s policies, has collapsed and they should be treated as such, not co-opted into an amorphous brigade of global enemies of freedom.

Here’s another story about the recent deal between the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and how it is causing a rift between the ANP and the Balochistan-based Pashtun nationalist party the Pakhtun-khwa Milli Awami Party PMAP as well as tensions within the ANP itself.

The article refers to the deplorable remarks made about Karachi’s Pashtuns by Karachi Nazim Mustafa Kamal (who is affiliated with the MQM) to NPR in its recent series on Karachi. Here’s what he said:

These Pashtuns means like fundamentalist — religiously fundamentalist, religiously extremist,” Kamal says. “They are coming in. When it comes to ethnicity, when it comes to Islam they all are … the same.”

The mayor gives a tour of the area, driving past squatter neighborhoods and Islamic schools. He passes the area where the journalist Daniel Pearl was found slain. And he points out the window at a bearded man.
“The man who’s coming in front of you … look at him, look at his face,” Kamal says.
The mayor says he is convinced that Pashtuns are planning the locations of the illegal housing settlements. He says they are choosing strategic spots that block his own plans for the city.
“It’s a very strategic location, you see?” Kamal asks. “The superhighway is there. They can control the whole highway. … They had a master plan before me. And they definitely have a master plan.”

I always find it interesting when political tensions in Pakistan arise out of remarks made by prominent individuals to the US media, Aitzaz Ahsan’s recent controversial interview to the New York Times Magazine being the other example of this phenomenon just in the last week.

On a related note, MQM Senator Abbas Kumaili spoke at length about what he termed the “explosive situation” in Parachinar, the capital of Kurram Agency FATA which has been paralyzed by sectarian violence between the Shia and Sunni population the last 14 months.

Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik responded by acknowledging the problem but blaming it on “foreign hands”

OINN: Former army generals demand open trial of Musharraf
OINN: Burney deported due to ’glitch’ in airport look-out list
The News: Govt-Baitullah talks suspended
Daily Times: Militant strategy and the new government
Daily Times: Swat village still militant den
Pakistan Policy Blog: Pervez Musharraf Staying Alive

Bad things are happening along the Jammu and Kashmir border. Last week, militants tried to cross the border at Samba, in Jammu. Today, Indo-Asian news service is reporting¹ that there was gunfire in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch which started at around 7:15 am and killed an Indian soldier of the Ghorka Rifles. Lt Col S D Goswami, defence spokesperson in Jammu, said that the firing from Pakistan was unprovoked and that “Rockets, UBGLs (under barrel grenade launchers) and small arms were used in the firing,”

Even worse, there were unconfirmed reports that at least six militants infiltrated into India under cover of the firing. “An official of the Gorkha Rifles, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: ‘We have instructions to play down such incidents.’”

¹(May 19, 2008). “Indian soldier killed in firing from Pakistan, militants sneak in”. The Hindustan Times.

Iqbal states that the Indian border security force (BSF) is confirming that militants from Pakistan did try to cross the border at Samba district in Jammu on May 8. As a result, the BSF has decided to post up to more 1000 soldiers at the border and to install more surveillance equipment. What makes this particular part of the border more vulnerable than others is the existence of an earthen bund (barrier) that was initially constructed to protect the initial builders of the border fence from Pakistani artillery. The bund is now being dismantled in order to improve visibility to make the spot less vulnerable to incursions by militants. This is an interesting article from 2005 providing some background about life in the Jammu border districts.

Article: BSF posts more jawans on border

Author: Zaffar Iqbal
Publication: NDTV.Com

Ahmed reports that, for the first time since Pakistan’s November 2003 declaration of ceasefire, its troops have fired at Indian positions in Tangdhar Sector of the Kashmir valley. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is quoted as finding this to be a worrisome development. Violence is on the increase in the Valley as well as in the plains.

Article: Firing at LoC, India concerned
Author: Rashid Ahmed
Publication: The Hindustan Times