Pakistan has largest number of refugees

The United Nations sought Monday to debunk what it called ‘worrying misperceptions’ about movements of displaced people saying that developing countries hosted 80 per cent of the world’s refugees.

“Meanwhile it is poorer countries that are left having to pick up the burden.” The UNHCR’s annual report on refugee trends found that most of the world’s displaced were seeking sanctuary in developing countries, including those which are among the world’s poorest.

Pakistan is host to the largest refugee population of 1.9 million, Iran is host to 1.1 million and Syria to one million.

The cost to these economies is also proportionally large. Pakistan has the biggest impact with 710 refugees for each dollar of its per capita GDP, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo with 475 and Kenya with 247.

In comparison, Germany has 17 refugees for every dollar of per capita GDP, the UNHCR pointed out.

Overall, 43.7 million people are displaced worldwide, including 15.6 million refugees. About 27.5 million are displaced internally – a 10-year record high – and there is another 850,000 asylum seekers.

The total figure, up from 43.3 million in 2009, is the highest in 15 years, the agency said on the occasion of world refugee day.

Afghans make up the largest number of refugees at three million, followed by Iraqis (1.6 million), Somalis (770,200), along with people from the Democratic Republic of Congo (476,000) and Myanmar (415,700).

The country of first choice for asylum seekers is South Africa with 180,600 requests registered in 2010, or one fifth of world requests, three times more than the United States (54,300) or France (48,100).

The data do not take into account displacements in 2011, such as those in Libya, Ivory Coast and Syria.

Osama’s or Obama’s Pakistan? - Blog by Murtaza Razvi

In the aftermath of the American military action that killed Osama bin Laden, the debate in Pakistan has decisively shifted to the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by the US, as was perhaps expected. The big question as to why the world’s most wanted terrorist was found here in the first place has all but disappeared from the national radar. Once again the nation is found dozing off at a time when hectic and earnest efforts are needed to inquire into the matter that can bring Pakistan to the centre stage of the US-led ‘war on terror’.

Let’s face it: it is less about our sovereignty and more about accountability to the people of Pakistan and to the international community. If we have terrorists with global linkages living in and working out of Pakistan unbeknown to our otherwise menacing security agencies and we don’t get on their trail, the US (and others) will. The outrage here should have been over the fact that bin Laden was living here for the past many years undetected, and not over who took him out with the least collateral damage caused to Pakistan in the process.

It is still not past the time when the war against terrorism should be owned and called our own battle. Terrorism has killed and maimed more Pakistanis than any other nation anywhere in the world since 9/11, but there isn’t much we done about it. For instance, how many terrorists are apprehended by our law enforcement agencies and brought to justice? Our security forces can find and kill an octogenarian Baloch leader hiding in a cave because he and a handful of his close associates had defied a general but they cannot be commissioned to nab the terrorists who have attacked the armed forces, the police and innocent citizens alike. They have not even spared our dead ones and attacked the shrines regularly. This is simply beyond comprehension.

Even in those rare cases when terrorists are apprehended, the police have failed to build a strong prosecution case against them and the courts have had to let them walk free for lack of evidence. Not only that, known and dreaded militants and hijackers wanted by India and others, the entire Islamabad Lal Masjid brigade and the likes, are free citizens who do not operate out of their mountain hideouts but are allowed to disseminate their hate-filled agenda in the cities and towns across the land.

Banning outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaatud Dawa, Jandullah, Jaish-i-Mohammed, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and so many others, which openly brook sympathy for al Qaeda and its global terrorist agenda, has not made their leadership run for cover. Far from it. They are free to preach, train and plan attacks across Pakistan, and perhaps elsewhere. Does any other country provide hate-mongers such an open platform from which to operate?

Then, there are tiers of extremist elements that are well tolerated by the state. A majority of these comprise homegrown militants and not runaway fugitives from their home countries. It starts right there in our parliament where MPs belonging to rightwing parties derail all and any debate on curbing extremism. The PML-Q leaders protected the Lal Masjid militants after Musharraf’s action against them, and even announced lifetime scholarships for their upkeep; Mullah Fazlullah of Swat and his Taliban commanders are at large. The PML-N leaders have known allies among extremist elements in southern Punjab, the hotbed of Punjabi Taliban and the like. Both the parties deny the existence of Punjabi Taliban, thereby protecting such elements and their identities from public scrutiny. Imran Khan’s PTI disowns the ‘war on terror’ altogether, calling the tribal jihadists patriotic Pakistanis who have made many sacrifices in the past.

The presence of the religious parties and their stance in parliament is blatant. There are no subtleties involved in deciphering their views on the raging extremism. The JUI and the Jamaat-i-Islami vehemently demand that Pakistan opt out of the partnership with America in its fight against terrorism. The JUI MPs condemned the killing of bin Laden in most unequivocal terms and led protest rallies. Others offered funeral prayers for him in the streets of this country.

Rightist elements also man the airwaves of Pakistan’s independent media. Obscurantist talk show hosts and lecturers holding forth on geo-political affairs is the norm on TV. Over the years so much ground has been ceded to extremists that their spin doctoring of issues has now become the mainstream discourse in the media. It is an environment where global thought patterns in interpreting current affairs are rejected and logical debates and discourses snubbed. Xenophobia in regard to the rest of the world envelopes most national discourse. Issues are twisted beyond recognition, and imagination is allowed to run wild, which brings into spotlight nothing but Pakistan’s enemies surrounding it from all sides.

This victim mindset that we continue to nurture by evading the real problem of extremism and not doing anything about it, places us at the mercy of the Osamas and the Obamas of the world. It is a free country for either to beat down upon, as a meek government and a powerful military establishment look the other way.

Fortified and ensconced in the safety net of the security apparatus that both the civil and military leadership is, it is hard to understand why the leadership should not own and fight the war of Pakistan’s survival against extremism with full force of the state. Complacence is a respectable word for it implies that a conscious choice has been made; ‘free for all’ is more likely what is at work here.

Osama Ghost still haunting Abottabad & Pakistan

Intelligence authorities have rounded up more than 30 people and questioned several others as part of the Abbottabad probe, Islamabad’s ambassador in Washington Husain Haqqani said.

Haqqani revealed that Pakistani intelligence detained or questioned several people to identify members of eliminated al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s support network.

“Even if some people were arrested for collaborating with a foreign intelligence service, that would not be different from the United States arresting Jonathan Pollard for spying on behalf of America’s friend Israel. Allies share intelligence. They should not be found conducting espionage on one another,” he wrote on the CNN website.

The envoy argued that the bin Laden episode is a moment of introspection for both Pakistan and the United States.

In an appearance on ABC channel’s This Week program Sunday morning, the ambassador pointed out that it is unfair to say that bin Laden was allowed to be in Pakistan and made it clear that the al Qaeda chief “just happened to be there.”

“It is now time for all of us to take a deep breath and objectively evaluate the realities of the relationship between America and Pakistan in a way that furthers our shared goals and objectives.”

The ambassador said that al Qaeda is a common enemy for both the US and Pakistan. The arrest of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, he added, is a top priority, and Pakistan will assist the United States in capturing the militant leader.

“The fear that the United States will desert Pakistan once again, as it did at the end of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1989, is widespread.”

“America asks whether Pakistan is an ally and can be trusted. And of course, the same questions are being asked about the United States in Pakistan.”

Pakistan has paid an enormous price in its fight against extremism and terrorism: 35,000 civilians killed, more Pakistani soldiers lost than all of Nato combined, 2000 police dead, the assassination of our leader Benazir Bhutto and massive losses to our economy in investment, trade and infrastructure, he wrote.

“We appreciate America’s help, but the notion that America has ‘given’ Pakistan $20 billion since 9/11 needs to be seen in context. About $12 billion of this figure is Coalition Support Funds, reimbursements for expenses incurred by Pakistan in counterterrorism operations. They covered the cost of the fuel, ordnance, training and execution of counterterrorist operations.

“The blood, sweat, effort, grit and guts are those of a Pakistan that bears the brunt of the battle against terrorism, a battle clearly in the national security interests of the United States.”

Drone strikes kill 11 in NW Pakistan

Suspected US drones fired missiles at a vehicle and a house in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 11 people, including several suspected militants, Monday in a rare attack in the area, reports said.

The identities of the suspected militants killed in the strikes were not yet known.

The attacks were confirmed by two Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

The Obama administration has dramatically stepped up covert CIA drone attacks against militants in Pakistan, but there have only been a handful of strikes in the Kurram tribal area.

Most of the recent drone strikes have taken place in North Waziristan, an important sanctuary for the Haqqani network, which US military officials have said is the most dangerous militant group battling foreign forces in Afghanistan.

The US has repeatedly asked Pakistan to launch an offensive against the network in North Waziristan, but the military has said that its forces are stretched too thin by other operations in the tribal areas.

Local tribesmen said late last year that the Haqqani network cut a deal with Shia Muslim militias in Kurram to allow the militants to cross through the area on their way to fighting in Afghanistan. The route would help them avoid the drone attacks that have rained down on North Waziristan.

One killed in Quetta car bomb blast

A car bomb exploded near a women’s college Quetta, killing one person and wounding 12 others. Four of the wounded were in a critical condition. Moreover, four shops were destroyed as a result of the blast.

Police officer Hamid Shakil said the bomb appeared to have been detonated Monday by a timing device. The car was parked near a women’s college in the capital of Balochistan province.

Shakil did not say who was suspected of carrying out the attack nor did he indicate the target. Balochistan has experienced frequent attacks by nationalists who demand a greater share of the province’s natural resource wealth but car bomb attacks are rare.

The province, which borders Afghanistan, is also widely believed to be home for many Afghan Taliban militants, including the group’s leader, Mullah Omar.

Police check Post attacked in Peshawar

At least 50 militants attacked a Police Check Post late Friday in Sarband area of Peshawar, however, no loss of life was reported in the incident.

According to the media reports, the militants fired three rockets at Riaz Shaheed Check Post in Sarband area, about 30 km southwest of Peshawar.

The exchange of fire between militants and Police last lasted for some minutes. The militants managed to flee after the attack.

The check Post, located near the tribal area of Khyber Agency which borders Afghanistan, often comes under attack by militants.

US drops charges against bin Laden

Federal prosecutors dropped charges against Osama bin Laden from attacks spanning more than a decade, officials said in court papers filed in US District Court in New York Friday. Charges included more than 200 counts of criminal activity such as murder, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against civilians and more.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan approved the request, which is a common procedure when the defendant dies.The charges included bin Laden’s role in the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.None of the charges were related to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.he court papers filed on Friday included a statement from a Justice Department official declaring detailed evidence that bin Laden was killed by US forces in a raid on May 2 in Pakistan.

The statement said DNA samples, facial recognition analysis and the confirmation of one of bin Laden’s wives all confirmed the identity of the Al Qaeda leader.“These tests confirmed that the sample from the Abbottabad raid genetically matched the derived comprehensive DNA profile” for bin Laden, the official wrote in the statement. “The possibility of a mistaken identification is approximately one in 11.8 quadrillion.”

Pakistan, Indian diplomats to meet in Islamabad

The top diplomats of Pakistan and India will meet in Islamabad next week to discuss Kashmir along with peace and security issues, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Friday.

The two countries in February announced the resumption of peace talks after a meeting between Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao in the Bhutanese capital Thimphu.

“Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet in Islamabad on June 23 and 24,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua said in a statement.

They will discuss “peace and security, including confidence building measures, Jammu and Kashmir, and promotion of friendly exchanges”, the statement said.

The rival South Asian states suspended talks more than two years ago after gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai.

Twelve insurgents killed in Bajaur

Pakistani security forces killed 12 militants during a search operation in a troubled northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border.

Tariq Khan said the insurgents were spotted and killed Friday in the Mamond area of the Bajaur tribal region.

He said the search was launched following intelligence reports that an unspecified number of insurgents had entered the region from Afghanistan to target tribal militiamen and troops deployed there.

Pakistan’s army has carried out multiple operations against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters hiding in Bajaur, but the militants still manage to mount occasional attacks.

South Waziristan clash kills two soldiers, six militants

Security forces killed six militants after insurgents attacked a military checkpost in the South Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border, killing two soldiers, DawnNews reported.

The attack occurred in the tribal region’s Ladha area.

South Waziristan was the main sanctuary for the Pakistani Taliban before the military launched a large ground offensive in October 2009. But attacks against security forces have continued in the area.

Pakistan: Explosion in Panjgur, 1 dead

At least one person was killed in a bomb blast in Balochistan province’s Panjgur area on Saturday.

The blast occurred at the Bismillah chowk and wounded eight people.

Police said the bomb was planted on a motorcycle.

Security was beefed up in the area following the blast and the wounded were shifted to a nearby hospital.

Ilyas Kashmiri's family wants proof of his death

Several days after reports of Ilyas Kashmiri’s death emerged, the militant commander’s family members say they know nothing about his fate and nor do the intelligence agents who visit them.

Thathi, the home village of Kashmiri, is an arduous six-hour drive from Islamabad, pushing ever higher into the foothills of the Himalayas, carpeted in lush grass but remote and depressingly poor.

Kashmiri’s family members say they have not seen him in six years. Nor has he sent money.

Elder brother Chaudhry Asghar speaks almost angrily about the burden of having to care for Kashmiri’s frail wife and four growing children.

“We don’t believe he’s dead,” said the 50-year-old, speaking at a village shop and refusing to let reporters visit Kashmiri’s house or meet the rest of the family until the situation becomes “clearer”.

But the humble mud building can be seen in the distance, sitting on the bank of a stream in front of a small mosque and madressah that Kashmiri built. It is here that his eldest son Khalid Ilyas, 18, daughter Maryam, 15, sons Osama 12 and Huzaifa, eight, live with their mother, not far from the Line of Control.

Thathi is a place where most people are poor, and depend on agriculture, including cattle. Others join the army and send their salaries home.

“We haven’t seen his body or any part of his body and unless we get some evidence we can’t accept he’s dead. We want concrete proof,” said Asghar. “So far we have no official confirmation of his death. Even intelligence officials have been coming, asking if we’ve received any information.

“We tell them we have no information… If he has been killed in jihad we’d appreciate it because it would be martyrdom.”

Years ago, Kashmiri used to visit once in a while, stay a couple of days and disappear. But Asghar has not seen his brother since 2005, when he got out of prison. The two argued and Kashmiri left.

“We told him to stop his activities and start family life. He didn’t agree. He insisted he’d fight US troops in Afghanistan,” says Asghar.

“I left the village, hoping he’d decide to stay. But he left anyway, telling his children `I must continue my mission`.”

He says Kashmiri never sent money to his family, who suffer as a result. “Sometimes they have to go to school hungry and weeping,” he said of his niece and nephews, while the militant’s sick wife looks old beyond her years.

But however upset he might be with his brother, Asghar cannot believe that he is guilty as charged of attacks on the military in Pakistan. “He told me he was dead against any terrorist act in Pakistan. He loved Pakistan and its army… He always said that he’d like his son to join the army as a commissioned officer.”

Schoolteacher Mohammed Razaq, 55, who says he taught maths to the teenage Kashmiri, remembers him as “an obedient student, a good athlete and an excellent debater” with an interest in politics. “But then he became interested in jihad.

Three soldiers killed in South Waziristan

A roadside bomb struck a military convoy in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border, killing three soldiers, intelligence officials said.

The officials said Monday’s attack in the Ladha area of South Waziristan also wounded four soldiers. The bomb was detonated by remote control and destroyed one military vehicle.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

South Waziristan was the main sanctuary for the Pakistani Taliban before the military launched a large ground offensive in October 2009. But attacks against security forces have continued in the area.

Another Suicide attack in Islamabad

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a bank in a commercial district of the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Monday and initial reports said one person was killed, a police official said.

The body of a security guard could be seen lying in front of the bank.

Read this blog to know how Pakistani bloggers spread hatred against India & America

A blog by a bastard called Nadeem F. Paracha in blog named 

"Freedom from darkness"

Dear Pakistani Muslim brethren (and sisterren who became breteren), our armed forces have been fighting a war on two fronts. One is against corrupt civilian politicians, who want us to submit our sovereignty to Christian/Jew/McDonalds America and Hindu India, and one against uncircumcised Hindu/Christian/Atheist /Jain men posing to be Muslim warriors.

In this day and age of utter chaos and confusion in our Islamic republic, it is the duty of patriotic Pakistanis to continue informing their young compatriots as to why this country was formed.

There is so much these days out there in the electronic media and the cyber world about Pakistan, but unfortunately a lot of it is squarely aimed at confusing our young generations and making them rebel against their land’s ideology.

Dear compatriots, I must remind you that Pakistan came into being, first and foremost, to challenge the hegemony of the West, especially the United States.

To quote our great leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah: ‘You are free to go to your mosques or some else’s mosques but only to a mosque in this Islamic republic. Religion is the business of the state and the business is gooood!’

It was such thoughts that made our great leader so unpopular with the Americans and Hindu India. Though many history books tell us that Jinnah had TB and died from this dreaded disease, the truth is far more tragic. He was murdered.

He was given slow poison by Lee Harvey Oswald who was sent by the CIA and was masquerading as a British doctor. He is the same guy who was later accused of shooting American President John F. Kennedy.

CIA agents in the then Pakistani government hid this fact from the people and forced Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan to join the US camp.

I have been privy to certain documents that include some pages from Liaquat Ali Khan’s diary. This is what he wrote after Jinnah’s death: ‘Today the beloved Islamic republic has lost a great modern day caliph due to the conspiracies of the Christian west. And now some of their agents in the Pakistani bureaucracy are asking me to make fraaaandship with the US. But I am not going to make fraaaandship with America. I will expose the agents. I will save the Islamic republic. But first I will go to mosque.’

We all know what happened to Liaquat Ali Khan Sahib. He was murdered at a rally in Rawalpindi. So now you know why he was killed. CIA agents in Pakistan claimed that he was killed by a demented Pushtun who in turn was killed on the spot by the police.

This is true, but what is not known is the fact that Liaquat’s killer was not a Pushtun but a Caucasian American posing as a disgruntled Pushtun.

Only the Pakistan army and some religious parties knew such truths, but they were throttled by the CIA agents in the bureaucracy and parliament, until Field Marshal Ayub Khan toppled the government and imposed Martial Law in 1958.

Dear readers, I am sure you have been told how it was Ayub Khan who took Pakistan further into the US camp. This is unfortunate because it is a blatant lie.

The truth is it was his foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was the real architect of US-Pakistan relations.

He worked on Ayub’s back, keeping Ayub in the dark, sometimes quite literally, saying Pakistan was facing electricity crises for which it needed American aid.

I have with me pages from Ayub’s book, ‘Friends, Not Masters,’ that were not allowed to go into final print by Bhutto. I shall reproduce a paragraph from one such censored page.

‘For hours my office did not have any light. I called a minister and told him I am sitting in an office in the dark, I mean I am the president! The minister told me that my foreign minister, Z A. Bhutto, was on a state visit to the US for this very reason. I was floored. No one told me Bhutto had gone to Christen America. So when he came back I called him in my still darkened room and asked for an explanation. He stumbled and fell over a chair and said that had we been America’s friend, this room would have had light. I was furious. I told him how can we make fraaanship with Christian America! I told him we should make fraaaandship only with other Islamic countries. Like China.’

Throughout Ayub’s benevolent rule, he was kept in the dark by Bhutto, who then betrayed Ayub at the peak of the 1965 war against Hindu India. It was Ayub who wanted to keep the war going and liberate Kashmir. In fact according to insiders, Ayub also wanted to liberate West Bengal by invading Calcutta from East Pakistan. But Bhutto played a double game and convinced Ayub to sue for peace with Hindu India. However, once that was done, Bhutto left the government and began accusing Ayub of losing a won war on the negotiating table.

PPP dissident leader, Naheed Khan, showed me a page from a diary Bhutto kept but on which he only wrote with invisible ink. Naheed showed me how by cursing Asif Ali Zardari the invisible ink becomes readable. This may sound strange, but it’s true. She proved it to me while showing me a page from the diary, written by Bhutto the day he convinced Ayub to end the war with Hindu India. This is what he wrote:

‘I don’t believe it. He actually fell for it. LOL!’

Dear compatriots, we all know what happened next. CIA agents were back in business after Ayub’s fall. Bhutto took over as president and then prime minister and sustained a six-year attack on Islam and on those who wanted to challenge America and Hindu India. What’s more, Bhutto also humiliated our armed forces by misleading them in the 1971 war against Hindu India.

After keeping Yayah Khan in the dark as well, he sent the army to East Pakistan saying that it was West Bengal. He told the army to loot, plunder and rape Hindus of West Bengal. Yes, dear compatriots, our army jawans were mislead into believing that Dhaka was Calcutta. They were just simple men.

Had the army not toppled Bhutto’s regime in 1977, Pakistan would have become a part of the Christian/Jew American Empire.

There is so much negative propaganda against Ziaul Haq today. The truth is he was a humble and pious mustachioed man who simply defended Pakistan’s status as the last great bastion of Islam.

After hanging Bhutto, he had a meeting with the then young Hamid Gul and told him: ‘I am a humble and pious mustachioed man who has simply defended Pakistan’s status as the last great Playstation ® of Islam.’

Gul is said to have shed tears of joy after hearing this and is believed to have gone out and single handedly flogged over a hundred PPP activists in public.

It is a misconception that Zia Sahib entered the Afghan Civil War against the atheist Soviet Union on the behest of Christian America. Gul told me that Zia and his generals along with the great Jamat-i-islami at once drew an elaborate plan to construct a world caliphate by going to war against Soviet Union.

This, they rightly felt would draw the anti-Soviet US into the war. After defeating the Soviets with American help, Zia planned to turn his guns on Christian America and defeat them too. For this Zia began preparing future jihad armies, yes, the same ones whom we now so unfortunately call extremists and terrorists.

Zia turned Pakistan into a pious and mustachioed Playstation ® of Islam where everybody was a Muslim and a man (mashallah, even the women became men as well), and were free to go the mosque and only to the mosque, he defeated the Soviet Union.

But, alas, just as he was about to activate the second part of his elaborate and ingenious plan by starting a war against Christian/Jew/Pornographic America, a traitor broke wind.

That’s how America got wind of this plan and unleashed their agent, Benazir Bhutto. It was her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who worked closely with the CIA in drawing out a diabolic plan to assassinate Zia.

Just before Zia set off on that fateful plane journey he told Gul: ‘I am a simple and pious mustachioed man who just wants to become a simple and pious mustachioed caliph. But yesterday when I said this to some of my generals, one of them broke wind. I asked him about it and he said it was just a case of gas, but now I believe his breaking of wind was some kind of a coded message to my enemies.’

Gul started shedding tears of anger and is said to have ran out in slow-motion and single-handedly created the anti-Bhutto alliance, the Islami Jamhoori Itehad (IJI).

With the tragic assassination of Zia, Pakistan’s dream of becoming the leader of an international caliphate was wiped out and we again became slaves of the Christian America.

The US and its agents in the Pakistani media are winning the propaganda war in which they are portraying liberation fighters like Taliban and al Qaeda as terrorists, when the truth is, it is these simple, pious bearded men and women who have become men are our best strategic assets to one day help us liberate Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, Iraq, Lebanon and most of all, Papua New Guinea.

They are the noble seeds with which Pakistan will truly become the greatest Playstation ® and Nintendo ® of jihad, hijab, halal chips and nonalcoholic perfume.

Keep your eyes and ears open. Give your tax money to the army and don’t believe that liberal atheistic hype about putting more money into building schools, hospitals, factories, roads and all.

Mosques are all we need, because we are free to go to them.

Taliban deny responsibility for Peshawar twin blasts

Pakistan’s Taliban on Sunday denied responsibility for twin bomb blasts that ripped through a crowded market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 39 people and injuring dozens.

The attack, one of the deadliest in a series to hit Pakistan since US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in May, devastated the Khyber Super Market district which includes a hotel, shops and student accommodation.

A small initial blast at around 11:30 pm local time Saturday drew onlookers and emergency services before a second more powerful blast, believed to be from a suicide strike, detonated and was heard for miles around.

“Death toll has risen to 39 in the blasts as four wounded people died in hospital,” senior local police official Ijaz Khan told AFP. He said the explosions were just four minutes apart.

“The first blast was quite small but as people gathered close to the site of the explosion, the second one, which was real big one, went off.”

Those killed included two journalists working for English-language newspapers Pakistan Today and The News.

Abdul Hameed Afridi, chief doctor at Peshawar’s main Lady Readings hospital, confirmed the death toll and said 108 wounded were brought to the hospital overnight, with 47 of them admitted for treatment.

The Pakistani Taliban, who have vowed to carry out attacks to avenge the killing of bin Laden, denied any role in the bombing and said they target only the government and military.

“We did not carry out this attack in Peshawar. It is an attempt by foreign secret agencies who are doing it to malign us,” Tehreek-e-Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP on phone.

“We do not target innocent people. Our targets are very clear, we attack security forces, government and people who are siding with it,” Ehsan said.

Nearly 4,500 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on Taliban and other Islamist extremist networks based in the nearby tribal belt since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007.

The latest Peshawar bombing badly damaged six shops and the hotel. Pieces of human flesh, along with debris including smashed crockery and broken furniture from the hotel, were scattered outside.

Latest News: IED blast in Islamabad

An explosive device buried on the edge of a road outside the Pakistani capital Islamabad detonated Sunday, wounding three men, police said.

The blast happened near Malpur village, just outside the city.

“It seems to be an old explosive device buried long ago under the bush and garbage,” senior police official Bani Amin told.

“A father and his son riding a motorbike and a man travelling in a car were wounded in the blast,” Amin said.

“The bomb disposal staff have collected some material from the blast site and are investigating. It could be an old hand grenade or a cracker,”.

Pakistan: fatal explosions in Peshawar

Two explosions ripped through a busy market in Pakistan's volatile northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 34 people and injuring nearly 100. Police said that the first blast was relatively small and drew rescue workers to the site before a larger explosion rocked the market area a few minutes later causing scores of casualties.

Jamal Khan, a 22-year-old student who was rushing to the scene as the second blast occurred, said: "The explosion was so huge I will never forget it all my life. It was deafening, and then there was a cloud of dust and smoke. When the dust settled, I saw people crying for help and body parts scattered everywhere."

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the bombing, but the Pakistani Taliban have pledged to carry out attacks in retaliation for the American special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden in an army town outside Islamabad last month.

Initial reports indicated the second blast in Peshawar was caused by explosives placed in a vehicle and detonated by remote control, said Dost Mohammed, a senior local police official. The source of the first explosion was unknown.

The attack took place across the street from the offices of the top political agent to Khyber, part of Pakistan's volatile tribal region, and a short distance from army housing units. Peshawar borders the tribal region and has been repeatedly hit by bombings over the past few years.

Doctor Mohammed Farooq said many of the victims were so badly burned they were difficult to identify and that the dead included at least one journalist. Four more journalists and at least 10 police officers were also injured, he said.

Pakistan: A failing state: article in The Gaurdian

It is often said that two things bind a country as diverse as Pakistan: Urdu and cricket. After yesterday's shootout on the streets of Lahore, the list has shortened further. The attack on the coach carrying the visiting Sri Lankan team spelled not just the suspension of international cricket - or indeed any international sport in Pakistan. Pakistan has also just lost its last great link with the outside world. A link that had survived military dictators, a nuclear standoff and the decades of conflict with India has just fallen victim to an audacious commando-style raid outside a stadium in one of Lahore's leafier suburbs. Analysts are not exaggerating when they say that the attack poses existential questions for the Pakistani state. If the state can not protect a visiting cricket team from well-aimed and well-prepared terrorism, what can it do?

Not since the Munich Olympics have athletes been specifically targeted - and the ramifications of yesterday's attack spread just as wide. No group has claimed responsibility for the actions of 14 masked and heavily armed men who arrived in rickshaws and all escaped. But the similarities with the attack in Mumbai which claimed 170 lives are evident and legion, and the possibility that the second major headline-grabbing hit could be the work of a hardline Islamist organisation like Lashkar-e-Taiba, on which Pakistan has only just started to crack down, is obvious. India lost no time yesterday in saying so.

If this shooting does not galvanise Islamabad to take action nothing will. Asif Zardari has made an inauspicious start as president. He has locked himself into the otherwordly luxury of his official residence with a handful of advisers, while mayhem reigns in the country outside. If there is a government in power, it is not obvious to its citizens. Barely 100 miles away from Islamabad, he has just surrendered a large swath of territory in the Swat valley to the Taliban. Pakistan's foreign minister pleaded in Washington this week that the deal was not as bad as it sounded. The sharia law that Swat will now be subject to is said to be milder than the traditional kind. But acceptance of sharia by the residents who remain in the valley (half have left) should not be viewed as the triumph of Islamist clerics, but rather as a sign of their lack of faith in the state's ability to protect them.

Closer to home, all bets are off with Mr Zardari's former coalition partner and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, after the decision by the supreme court to uphold a ban on Mr Sharif's contesting elections due to a past criminal conviction. Was the supreme court right to uphold the judgment? Its ruling was legally consistent. But was the unreformed court acting independently of the president? Probably not. But by refusing to work with the president, Mr Sharif is also responsible for the fallout. All he will achieve is more popularity in a state which his party already controls, but not in Sindh, Baluchistan or the North-West Frontier Province. Mr Sharif's political ascendancy bodes ill for the unity of the federation.

All of which makes the job of Richard Holbrooke, Barack Obama's envoy to the region, a whole lot more complicated. It is hard enough to devise a multinational plan which involves three nations acting in concert to dampen a growing insurgency. It is harder still when two of the nations, Pakistan and India, are regional rivals and rarely far from conflict. It is next to impossible if one key player, Pakistan, starts to fissure into parallel states. Washington and its previous satrap in the region, the ousted president Pervez Musharraf, are far from blameless. But if a flawed but still democratic ruler in Pakistan cannot seize control - if he cannot be seen to be acting in Pakistan's own interest - then other forces will move into the vacuum. The alternative is oft foretold: regime change scripted or enacted by the army.

Pakistan troops caught on film shooting unarmed teenager dead: Report

Pakistan's security forces are facing criticism after paramilitary troops were caught on camera apparently shooting dead a teenager at point-blank range.

The footage, broadcast repeatedly on local television, is likely to further undermine faith in the country's powerful security establishment, which is already facing allegations it helped conceal Osama bin Laden.

The video, captured by a cameraman from Pakistan's Awaz television channel, shows a youth, identified as Sarfaraz Shah, arguing with paramilitary rangers in Karachi. The 18-year-old appears to plead for mercy before being shot at close quarters. He then falls to the ground and screams in pain as blood pools beneath his legs.

Zohra Yusuf, head of Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission, condemned the killing as "another indication of law enforcement personnel becoming increasingly trigger happy."

She said the violence depicted in the video was a trend seen across Pakistan that reflected the impunity of the country's law enforcers.

Pakistan's prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, said an inquiry would be launched and the culprits punished. Six members of the paramilitary Rangers, who are controlled by the interior ministry, have since been arrested.

Major general Aijaz Chaudhry, who commands the force, described the incident as "deplorable". "The Rangers have no authority to kill any unarmed individual and they can fire only in self-defence," he said. "On completion of the inquiry, all those found responsible will be given strict punishment."

The incident is likely to further dent public faith in the government's ability to control its security forces at a time when the US ally is facing questions about how bin Laden could have hidden for so long without the complicity of intelligence officials.

"What we saw on television shows that now there is the law of the jungle in this country and no one is accountable for his action or deeds. This is pathetic," Mohammad Sultan, a retired soldier, told Reuters.

"What we are seeing is visual records of what we have long documented, which is the culture of impunity in the Pakistani law enforcement agencies," said Ali Dayan Hasan, a researcher for Human Rights Watch. "What is becoming clear is that the free for all, the culture of wanton abuse and killing, is becoming untenable in the age of new media and cell phone cameras."

In one media interview, a man identified as Salik Shah, the victim's brother, said: "My brother was a victim of barbarism, brutality and aggression and everyone has seen it. The innocent young man was begging for his life regardless of whether he had done anything wrong. He was asking to be pardoned by the rangers; despite his repeated requests they did not listen to him, they did not arrest him, instead they were adamant about killing him and in the end they did."

Hundreds of people showed up at Shah's funeral a day after his death and denounced the Rangers. Some shouted "Rangers, murderers!" and others carried signs that said "Down with the Karachi Rangers."

The video's broadcast comes a few days after a prominent journalist was tortured to death after reporting claims about al-Qaida. Military intelligence officials have rejected claims they played a role in the killing.

Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper said the military, paramilitary forces, police and intelligence agencies "who confidently violate human rights" should be held accountable for their actions.

"The security and law enforcement forces that do not respect the law themselves are inviting anarchy, which arguably is already under way," it said in an editorial.

Pakistani Boy Killed by Army: Video

Al-Qaida bomber Fazul Abdullah Mohammed killed, may hurt Pakistan

The terrorist behind the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa – the attack that brought al-Qaida to global attention – has been killed in Somalia. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who had a $5m price tag put on his head by American authorities, was one of the most wanted Islamist militants in the world.

The embassy attacks – in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania – killed more than 200 people and injured several thousand. The majority of the casualties were local African staff or passersby caught in the multiple explosions that destroyed the buildings.

Mohammed also organised the 2002 attacks on two Israeli targets, including the bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya, which killed 13 people, and an attempt to shoot down a passenger plane on a flight to Israel.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who was on a visit to Tanzania as news of the death broke, described the killing as a "significant blow to al-Qaida, its extremist allies, and its operations in east Africa".

"It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and elsewhere – Tanzanians, Kenyans, Somalis and our own embassy personnel," she said.

A senior American official in Washington said that his killing removed one of the group's "most experienced operational planners in east Africa and has almost certainly set back operations".

News of Mohammed's death comes just six weeks after the death of the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, in a US special forces raid in Pakistan. Last week Ilyas Kashmiri, another senior terrorist with ties to al-Qaida, was also reported to have been killed.

Kenyan police, who cited Somali officials, said Mohammed had been shot dead when he and an associate refused to stop at a checkpoint north-west of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, earlier this week. The dead man, thought to be aged 38, had a false passport and $40,000 in cash it was reported.

"We have confirmed he was killed by our police at a control checkpoint this week," Halima Aden, a senior national security officer in Somalia, told Reuters. "He had a fake South African passport and other documents. After thorough investigation, we confirmed it was him."

No independent confirmation of Mohammed's death was immediately available but the AFP news agency published images of the face of the dead man which resembled those previously published by American investigators. There was also some confusion over what had happened to Mohammed's remains, with reports saying they had been buried and others claiming they had been handed over to the American authorities.

Born in the Comoros Islands, off the coast of Mozambique, Mohammed was educated in Saudi Arabia before travelling to Afghanistan in the early 1990s. He is also thought to have been in Mogadishu in 1993 during fighting there. He narrowly escaped death in an American air strike in Somalia in 2007. American authorities have steadily tracked down almost all those responsible for the 1998 bombing attacks. Many were brought to trial in America in 2001.

The death of Mohammed will be a loss for al-Qaida in east Africa but is unlikely to have a significant impact on the overall capabilities of the hardline leadership element based in Pakistan. Like most regional branches of al-Qaida, even those violent Islamist extremists in east Africa who have sworn allegiance to Bin Laden have remained largely autonomous.

C.I.A. Director Warns Pakistan

Leon E. Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, confronted Pakistani intelligence officials face to face with what the United States believes is evidence of collusion between Pakistani security officials and militants staging attacks in Afghanistan, an American counterterrorism official said Saturday.

During an unannounced trip to Pakistan’s capital on Friday, Mr. Panetta met with the leader of the Pakistani intelligence service, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and showed him satellite photographs and other evidence of what the C.I.A. believes to be two facilities for the manufacture of bombs used by militants based in Pakistan against American forces in Afghanistan, the official said. The bomb facilities were in the northwestern districts of North and South Waziristan, both havens for militants.

The official said Mr. Panetta was compelled to confront General Pasha after the C.I.A. alerted the Pakistanis about the existence of the bomb-making facilities several weeks ago and asked them to raid the locations. But when the Pakistani Army showed up, the militants were gone, making the C.I.A. suspicious that the militants had warning from someone on the Pakistani side.

“The targets seem to have been tipped off,” the American official said, adding, “There are indications that some senior Pakistani officials aren’t happy about it, and neither are we, of course.”

A senior Pakistani official said Saturday that at first there was no reason for Pakistan to be suspicious that the bomb makers had disappeared. “Extremist groups often move locations,” the official said. But, the official said, “now that the U.S. side has drawn our attention to the possibility of the Taliban being tipped off between the day the intelligence was shared and the day of our military action, we will work on finding out what happened.”

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

Mr. Panetta’s meeting with General Pasha and the theory that there was a tip-off about the bomb-making facilities were first reported by Time magazine.

Tensions between the United States and Pakistan have worsened since the American military raid that killed Osama bin Laden near the Pakistani capital last month. American officials say they have uncovered no evidence that anyone in Pakistan’s senior leadership knew about Bin Laden’s hiding place, although the departing defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, said recently that he thought “somebody” in Pakistan knew.

American officials did not tell Pakistan about the raid until afterward.

American intelligence and military officials have long said that elements of Pakistan’s intelligence service have close links to Pakistani insurgents and the Pakistani Taliban. American officials say Pakistan supports the insurgents as a proxy force in Afghanistan, preparing for influence after American soldiers leave.

Mr. Panetta, who is due to replace Mr. Gates as defense secretary on July 1, said during his confirmation hearing last week that Pakistan, an important American ally, also remained a serious problem.

He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the relationship with Pakistan was “one of the most critical, and yet one of the most complicated and frustrating relationships that we have.” Mr. Panetta added that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons remained a concern because of “the danger that those nukes could wind up in the wrong hands.”

Operation Geronimo – Pak-US deal

To the bewilderment of the Pakistani nation and surprise of the entire world, eye-popping information continues to surface in the aftermath of US operation Geronimo – the Hollywood style raid in Pakistan’s major city of Abbottabad that took out the world’s most wanted leader of al-Qaeda.

Just when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani attempted in his typically unconvincing and fumbling way to take into confidence the nation whose self-esteem has already hit nadir, the British media exploded yet another bomb. 

The Guardian in its breaking news, quoting serving and retired Pakistani and US officials, revealed that the US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil.

The accord was made between the then president General Pervez Musharraf and his US counterpart George Bush after Bin Laden disappeared into the thin air in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001.

The pact allowed the US forces to launch a unilateral assault inside Pakistan in a bid to hunt down Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Both sides also agreed that following such raids, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.

In this context what PM Gilani said in his speech in the National Assembly aimed at addressing the nation’s trepidations, would seem to make a whole lot of sense. He warned that if US conducted any such raids in future, Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force.

The Guardian, quoted a senior Pakistani official, saying that the deal was sealed under Musharraf and renewed by the army during the "transition to democracy" – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected.

The official, referring to the Abbottabad operation, added: "As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement."

This latest report has, at least, shed some obscurity shrouding the manner in which Pakistani civilian and military officials reacted following the US raid in Abbottabad that eliminated bin Laden.

One now wonders if the in-camera briefing by the military to the joint parliamentary sitting next Friday holds any significance for the nation that had constantly been kept in the dark on Pakistan’s role in the war on terror not just by Musharraf’s military rule but also by the incumbent civilian government.

It's a Bad..Bad..Bad World..: By Madiha Ishtiaque

Hi, friends, See this is a blog by a Pakistani Blog writer, this displays the true face of Terror in Pakistan.Great writing, so i have given her article a place in my blog...................................... Kumar

Its disgusting and sickening and we have simply had enough of it! This morning switching on TV swept waves of awe and repugnance at yet another live show of barbarism and cannibalism. The video footage clandestinely played by all the channels present a streaming show of violence in which an un armed young man is begging for his life, in front of steel-virtued rangers, with no hint of humanism let alone mercy, shooting him dead, after battering and castrating him. How amusing is it? The true reason why people have abandoned cinema these days is the ubiquity of such shows of theatricality with all the elements of drama in it, predominantly violence. But let’s swap the situation for a while..It could have been your brother and my brother, and we could have been in mourning..It seems, God forbid, we are waiting for the day to come…all silent and watching….

What should we call it….shameful or inhumane…three reported incidents in a row… the Kharotabad incident where five Chechans were killed at the hands of police and FC alleging them as foreign terrorists, the Sialkot incident where people brutally murdered two brothers accusing them of robbery and murder and now this one…

It appears a prediction-defying devolution of morals, its some time people and at others the law enforcing agencies acting like their own independent court of law, justice and reprimand. You’re allowed to kill some one you find robbing a shop just because it is the right thing to do and beating that person to death just because it’s fair, is the prevalent norm. What have we become as people, self-proclaimed enforcers of justice and law. Where on one hand we put up a strong fight to save our judiciary, on the other hand, all bent to deny and obliterate even its traces. After all this, I believe we are people with a plain set of dichotomies. A strange bunch of people who cry their hearts on losing a cricket match and sit silent and contented at home when an innocent fellow citizen is killed. And then we bawl over the fact how our country is nearing devastation! How can we afford to live with our patterned hypocrisy? When would we be able figure out which side are we.. good or the bad?

With our law enforcing agencies playing God and havoc around just because they happen to hold the gun, and so deserve the inherent right to shoot someone they see as a potential danger, or when they just wish to kill out of pure mischief. Are our armed men a set of trained killers, brainwashed into being pure cannibals, or are they ever taught the basic human virtues and how to use the power granted to bring the guilty to justice and ,that not by killing butby bringing him to the court of law where he would be indicted or set free of charge…I mean some sense of responsibility or accountability…or is it plainly a jungle rule?

Seeing that ranger pointing his gun and shooting that young man reminded me of my once favorite game “Counter-Strike” that instructed this as a rule that no innocents should be killed or one will lose their number of lives. In these times of reality shows and programs, perhaps we are not even taught that. Perhaps, life is too cheap, or we have a population flood, mothers have too many children, loosing one would not murder her motherhood, people don’t have a spare stock of tears to shed nor strength to stand up against the tyrant. At the end of the day, perhaps all of us are trained killers, some kill their fellowmen, and the rest have killed their own conscience. 

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(Madiha Ishtiaque is the content writer and person-in-charge of the The News Blog.)