DarkTimes - 24Hr Global News Blog

Pakistan's political upheaval is unlikely to affect a USD284-million deal for acquiring 700 air-to-air missiles from a US company, the manufacturer has said.

Raytheon Missile Systems, which is based in Arizona, signed its biggest-ever international deal with Pakistan under which it will supply 500 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, or AMRAAMs, and 200 AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles.

Paul Nisbet, a Raytheon analyst with JSA Research Inc, said action against US arms sales to Pakistan was unlikely. "Politics very seldom has anything to do with changing the contract," he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

Raytheon's deal with Pakistan marks the largest single international AMRAAM sale. The deal will be completed in 2008. The US government will buy the missiles from Raytheon and then supply them to Pakistan under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.

Any defence purchases by foreign governments, such as Pakistan's, have to be cleared by the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency.

The FMS programme, Nisbet said, is intended "to partly shield the company from the politics" and to help countries that don't have the "capability of monitoring these very complex contracts".

Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf has been a key member of the coalition in the “war on terror”, in particular by supporting US efforts to root out Osama bin Laden. Yet Musharraf was a general, now officially out of uniform, who took power in his country in a coup in 1999, and who recently introduced a state of emergency that has seen leading political figures placed under house arrest. These actions sit ill with US president George Bush’s commitment, in his 2005 inauguration speech, to “seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world”.

The problem for those observing current events in Pakistan is that the country’s democratic politicians have, in their attempts to govern, hardly covered themselves with glory. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, prime minister from 1973 to 1977, was executed for involvement in the murder of political rivals. His daughter, Benazir, twice prime minister, was convicted in 1999 of corruption. Her great political rival, Nawaz Sharif, twice dismissed for corruption, was convicted in April 2000 on terrorism and hijacking charges.

Even taking aside the peccadilloes of its rulers, Pakistan is a country wrought by faction. Of its four provinces, Baluchistan, North-West Frontier Province, Punjab and Sindh, only Punjab lacks an independence movement that at some point has aimed to break away. North-West Frontier Province remains in large parts beyond the control of Islamabad and is believed to be the hiding place of Taliban from Afghanistan, and of members of Al-Qaeda.

The country also suffers from religious intolerance, between Sunni and Shia muslims and, within the Sunni community, between Islamists and secularists. Periodic religious conflicts have punctuated Pakistan’s history: indeed the current crisis was precipitated by the storming of the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad, which, the government claimed, was a breeding ground for Islamic extremists.

TANK, Dec 17: Local Taliban militants on Monday denied that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden might be hiding inside or near the tribal areas of the country.

A spokesman for the recently-formed United Taliban Movement of Pakistan (UTMP) in a statement accused President Pervez Musharraf of making false claims to please the ‘Americans’ in order to make money.

President Musharraf had claimed in an interview to The Washington Post that Bin Laden might be hiding in the area that borders Bajaur tribal agency and Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

“No one except Osama knows where he is. Musharraf is making such statements to make more money,” the spokesman, Maulavi Omar, said.

He alleged that such statements were tantamount to inviting US forces to invade the country.

He added that the tribal militants would welcome and protect the Al Qaeda leader if he ever came to their area.

He denied that the Afghan Taliban had formed the UTMP, but acknowledged that they shared the same ideals and goals.

“Of course, our mission is the same and we believe that Mullah Omar is our caliph but, at the same time, we have our own separate struggle which is limited to Pakistan.”

He reiterated his threat to the government that if military operations in tribal areas and Swat were not halted within 10 days, militants would launch attacks on security forces throughout the country.“We have given a 10-day deadline to the government of Pakistan to withdraw troops from tribal areas and Swat.”

He demanded release of all Taliban prisoners, including the Lal Masjid cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz.

“If the demands are not met there were will be large-scale attacks on security forces throughout the country,” he warned.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A British suspect in an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners slipped out the back door of a mosque after two police officers stopped en route to jail so he could say prayers, police said Monday.

New details of Rashid Rauf's escape, a major embarrassment for President Pervez Musharraf's government, emerged two days after he got away following a court appearance in Islamabad on Britain's request for his extradition.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue, said Rauf was being taken back to Adiala Jail — a high-security prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi — when he asked his guards to let him say afternoon prayers at a roadside mosque.

"The policemen accepted his request," the official said. "Rashid Rauf went inside the mosque with handcuffs on, but he slipped out from a rear door."

The official said officers had raided homes of Rauf's relatives with no success. The two police officers acknowledged they were waiting in a car outside the mosque when Rauf went inside, the official said.

The official said police had taken one of Rauf's uncles into custody to determine whether he played any role in the escape.

Rauf's lawyer, Hashmat Habib, identified the uncle as Mohammed Rafique.

But Habib said Rafique had been in the Kashmir region on Saturday and that he doubted his client had fled.

"I know Rashid Rauf was prepared to go to London," he told The Associated Press.

Habib said police commandos had escorted Rauf on earlier trips to court. "How can it happen that only two policemen were traveling with him on Saturday?"

Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz assured Ambassador Robert Brinkely that the suspect's capture was a "priority," British High Commission spokeswoman Laura Davies said Sunday.

Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said security teams were searching the country and would report back within three days.

Rauf, who is of Pakistani origin, was arrested here in August 2006 on a tip from British investigators. Pakistan described him as a key suspect in a purported plot to blow up airplanes flying from Britain to the United States, prompting a major security alert at airports worldwide and increased restrictions on carry-on items.

He was charged with possessing chemicals that could be used in making explosives and with carrying forged travel documents.

Rauf denied involvement in the plot and prosecutors later withdrew the case against him, though he remained in jail awaiting a decision on a British extradition request.

Britain asked Pakistan to hand him over in connection with a separate 2002 murder inquiry. The two countries do not have an extradition treaty.

Members of Rauf's family have appealed for his release, saying he is innocent and desperate to remain with his wife and two daughters.

Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan and Zarar Khan contributed to this report.

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 17  -- A total of 7,335 candidates are in the run for the national and provincial assemblies seats in Pakistan's upcoming parliamentary elections, the country's election commission announced here Monday.

    The parliamentary elections are set for Jan. 8, 2008. A total of 2,252 candidates will contest on the 272 National Assembly seats in the 342-member house. The other seats will be filled with special seats for women and minorities.

    Another 5,083 candidates will run for general seats of the four provincial assemblies.

    Officials said that the publishing of ballot papers started Monday and the process would complete by Jan. 5. The election officials have also started dispatching polling materials to the local offices.

    For the first time, transparent ballot boxes have been imported to avoid any rigging in the polls.

HYDERABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto took her election campaign into her heartland on Monday, telling thousands of cheering supporters that President Pervez Musharraf's allies would be defeated.

Two-time prime minister Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan from eight years of self-imposed exile in October, said a "dark era of dictatorship" was about to end.

"There is no place left for the Q League," Bhutto told the crowd of about 15,000 people, referring to the Pakistan Muslim League that backs Musharraf, at a rally on the outskirts of Hyderabad, in the southern province of Sindh.

Bhutto said her Pakistan's People's Party would emerge in first place from the January 8 general election, with the party of another opposition leader and two-time prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, coming second.

The election is a three-way race between Bhutto, Sharif and Musharraf's supporters. Analysts expect a hung parliament, with no side winning an outright majority.

Bhutto is the daughter of Pakistan's first popularly elected prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was executed by a military dictator in 1979.

Her main base of support is Sindh province, especially its rural areas where her land-owning family has its roots.

Musharraf stepped down as army chief last month and on Saturday he lifted a six-week state of emergency that he had used to purge the judiciary of judges seen as hostile to his October re-election by legislators while still army chief.

Bhutto referred to the rule of Musharraf and military rulers who preceded him as a "dark era of dictatorship, fundamentalism and anti-people forces".

"God willing, the sun of the power of the people will rise on January 8," she said, to shouts of "Long Live Bhutto".

Security was tight with hundreds of police on duty in Hyderabad city and at the rally ground next to a university.

Party security workers used metal detectors to check people entering the dusty ground bedecked with party flags.

Nearly 150 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on Bhutto as she paraded through the southern city of Karachi hours after returning from exile on October 18.

"WE'RE NOT AFRAID"

The crowd appeared subdued on Monday and student Malook Zadi said some of her friends had not come because of security fears.

But that hadn't put her off: "We're not afraid of losing our lives. We will support Benazir Bhutto and the People's Party even if we have to die. We could die sitting at home," she said.

Bhutto said it was because of pressure from the people that the election was called, the emergency lifted and Musharraf stepped down as army chef.

"But another test remains which is the holding of free and fair elections," she said.

The opposition fear Musharraf's supporters in an interim government meant to oversee the vote can engineer its result. Bhutto appealed to all those involved with the election not to rig it.

Musharraf has seen his popularity slide since he suspended the country's independent-minded chief justice in March, sparking a campaign against him by lawyers and democracy activists.

Police in Islamabad fired teargas to disperse about 250 lawyers and activists on Monday as they tried to reach the house of the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, where he has been detained since Musharraf imposed the emergency on November 3.

While political opposition to Musharraf snowballed, militants have unleashed a wave of bomb attacks on the police and security forces, the latest on Monday when 10 recruits were killed.

But for many Pakistanis, it's bread and butter issues that matter most.

"If nothing else, I hope that Bhutto will be able to control prices and provide jobs," said builder Mohammad Ashraf, 29.

 
MINA: Over 2.5 million pilgrims have been performing Manasik-e-Hajj at Mina valley since the early morning Monday.

Arab TV said that over 1.5 million pilgrims drawn from all over the world have started reaching Mina, following the morning (Fajar) payers, while 0.2 million Saudi citizens and 0.8 million foreign residents in the Kingdom were also arriving Mina Monday.

These pilgrims would offer Zuhar, Asar, Maghrib Esha prayers today besides Qasar prayers of Fajar also here tomorrow, thereon, the pilgrims after sunrise would leave for Arafat, where they would perform the most essential part of Hajj Waquf-e-Arafat. The pilgrims here offer their Zuhar and Asar prayers combined.

Later on, the pilgrims tomorrow after sunset would leave for Muzdalfa, where delayed (Qasar) Maghrib and Esha combined prayers would be offered, while in the remaining part of the night, they would collect pebbles for Rami Jamarat.

Eid-ul-Azha will be celebrated in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. The pilgrims would return to Mina valley on Wednesday after offering Fajar prayer. Reaching Mina, they would perform Jamarat ul Aqaba, offer Qurbani and then would leave for Makka al Mukarrama, where they would perform around Baitullah Sharif Tawaf-e-Ziarat and, thereafter, shaving their heads would take off Ehram. Later on, the pilgrims returning to Mina would also perform Rami Jamarat during the next two days.

By SADAQAT JAN

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lost his appeal against the rejection of his nomination for next month's parliamentary elections, an official said Tuesday, eliminating a key opposition leader from the crucial vote.

The Election Commission rejected Sharif's appeal Monday, commission spokesman Kanwar Dilshad said. Dilshad declined to give details, confirming only a report in the Urdu-language Jang daily Tuesday that Sharif was out of the elections.

Sharif, who has been campaigning for his Pakistan Muslim League-N party, has been demanding that President Pervez Musharraf restore Supreme Court judges he sacked during a 42-day state of emergency that he lifted over the weekend.

Sharif's party initially called for a boycott of the vote but decided against it after failing to muster support from other opposition groups for a united action.

The party described the appeal's rejection as a politically motivated decision.

"This also shows that they are still afraid of his popularity and cannot face him," said party spokesman Ahsan Iqbal. "This is also shows that there is no level playing field in these elections."

Other candidates objected to Sharif's nomination, citing charges against him relating to the 1999 coup by Musharraf that ousted Sharif's government and his alleged involvement in a corruption case.

The chief election commissioner also rejected a separate appeal by Sharif's brother, Shahbaz Sharif, against rejection of his nomination for the Jan. 8 balloting.

Since his ouster, Nawaz Sharif has lived in exile in Saudi Arabia and Britain. Like Benazir Bhutto, another two-time former prime minister, he has returned home to be involved in the elections.

Addressing thousands of supporters during an election campaign stop in Hyderabad on Monday, Bhutto sharply criticized Musharraf's rule as a "dark era of dictatorship." She warned that a rigged vote could push the country into "anarchy."

"If the militancy spreads and if, God forbid, the country disintegrates, it would become another Afghanistan," Bhutto said.

Musharraf said curbing militancy was the chief reason he imposed a state of emergency on Nov. 3, though he used it to crack down on dissent and purge the judiciary in his favor.

Musharraf has promised that the elections will be free and transparent, and has said allegations of rigging were an attempt by the opposition to create an excuse in case they fare poorly at the ballot box.

Also Monday, a bomber killed nine Pakistani soldiers as they strolled back to barracks after a game of soccer, the army said, the latest in a string of suicide blasts spreading fear ahead of crucial elections.

The suicide bomber struck near an army base in Kohat, about 80 miles west of Islamabad. Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman, said nine troops were killed and four others wounded.

It was the sixth suicide bombing in the past two weeks. At least 32 people have died — 20 soldiers and police, and 12 civilians. One of the attacks was carried out by a woman, a first in Pakistan.

No one has claimed responsibility, but officials blame militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida who have expanded their influence in areas near the Afghan border.

Police, meanwhile, were still searching for a British suspect in an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners who escaped from police custody over the weekend.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media, said two officers have been arrested for negligence and were being probed for possible links with Rauf's two uncles, who also have been taken into custody for questioning.

Britain has been seeking Rauf's extradition, both to question him as a "key person" in the airplane plot and as a suspect in the 2002 killing of his uncle. He has denied involvement in both cases.

Rauf, who is of Pakistani origin, was arrested here in August 2006 on a tip from British investigators. Pakistan described him as a key suspect in a purported plot to blow up airplanes flying from Britain to the United States, prompting a major security alert at airports worldwide and increased restrictions on carry-on items.

He was charged with possessing chemicals that could be used in making explosives and with carrying forged travel documents. Rauf denied involvement in the plot and prosecutors later withdrew the case against him, though he remained in jail awaiting a decision on a British extradition request.

Britain asked Pakistan to hand him over in connection with a separate 2002 murder inquiry. The two countries do not have an extradition treaty.

KARACHI - President Pervez Musharraf's lifting of emergency rule over Pakistan and restoration of the constitution is insufficient to put the country on the path to democracy, say civil-rights activists.

For one thing, there is the unprecedented situation created by most of the country's higher judiciary refusing to take an oath under Musharraf's Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) of



November 3 that imposed the state of emergency. Anti-press laws and restrictions on the electronic media remain. And last, but not least, is Musharraf himself, elected as president for the next five years while still in army uniform, by an outgoing assembly.

The judges who refused to take oath under the PCO may "have ceased to be judges" according to caretaker Law Minister Afzal Haider, but many of them refuse to accept this position. For the first time in Pakistan's history, the majority of judges of the Supreme Court and the four provincial High Courts refused to legitimize a PCO. The stance of these "non-PCO judges" is also unprecedented: they still consider themselves to be the rightful judges.

Ordinary citizens have taken the lead from the "peaceful defiance" of the judges, symbolized by the deposed chief justice of the supreme court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who has been under house arrest in his official residence since November 3.

Many lawyers support this position. The day after the imposition of martial law, lawyers in Karachi began sending out cell phone text messages proclaiming that non-PCO chief justice Sabihuddin Ahmed of the Sindh High Court "is our chief justice. All judges continue to hold office. We do not recognize [the new chief justice sworn in that day]".

Several of the deposed judges are still in their official residences. When Justice M A Shahid Siddiqui of the Lahore High Court on November 30 received a letter from the Lahore High Court Registrar dated November 16, requesting him to vacate his official residence, he issued a notice to the registrar. Terming the letter "an attempt to intimidate and over-awe judges who have not surrendered to the chief of army staff [Musharraf]," he wrote: "I, therefore, as a sitting judge of the Lahore High Court direct the registrar of this court to explain as to why and at whose instance he issued this letter asking me to vacate my official residence. The reply shall be submitted within a month."

The exchange triggered another chain of events that proved most embarrassing to the government. Students and lawyers began holding vigil outside Siddiqui's residence. Many stayed outside all night in the chill of the Lahore winter, including the well-known activists and lawyers Asma Jahangir and Hina Jillani, along with a host of other high-profile advocates.

"We will continue to hold vigil outside Justice Siddiqui's house," said Hamid Khan, former president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association. Despite threats from police, activists and lawyers rotated shifts around the clock for several days to prevent Siddiqui's eviction.

The saga ended when Siddiqui, a heart patient, had to be rushed to hospital with chest pains. Late that night, police arrested about a dozen lawyers and students holding vigil outside his residence. They were released from prison after a few days and charges against them withdrawn. Siddiqui is still in the hospital, and his family is still in their official residence.

On December 10 - International Human Rights Day, observed by Pakistani lawyers, civil-society organizations and human-rights groups as a "black day" - deposed Sindh High Court chief justice Sabihuddin Ahmed took the position that he could not comment on the PCO because his comments might be misconstrued as a judicial pronouncement "because I am still the chief justice of the high court".

Meanwhile, journalists hold that the lifting of emergency rule is meaningless for the media unless the government withdraws the amended Registration of Printing and Publication Ordinance, 2002 and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority that continue to be used against the independent media.

Mazhar Abbas, general secretary of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, noted that the closure of even one or two private television channels (Geo and Royal TV) is a "violation of Article 19 of the constitution, which provides freedom of speech and expression and freedom of the press. If this article has been restored then why have these channels not been allowed to resume transmission?"

"The continued ban on TV anchors, talk shows and live call-ins has restricted TV channels from free coverage of elections," he said. "It is also a violation of citizens' rights to speech as provided in the constitution."

Musharraf pushed through six more amendments in the constitution through executive orders on Friday, a day before lifting the emergency, revoking the PCO and restoring the constitution. His first act after restoring the constitution was to swear in new members of the Supreme Court.

For many in Pakistan, the fact that Musharraf was elected as president "while still in army uniform by an assembly that had completed its term and had no mandate to elect him for another five years", as one activist put it, de-legitimizes his office.

A Lahore High Court advocate, Asad Jamal, questioned his restoration of the constitution, terming it meaningless, given the over a dozen amendments that Musharraf has pushed through over the past month that provide immunity to himself and his actions. "He has destroyed the character of the constitution," said Jamal. "He will make sure that there is no need to ratify these amendments in Parliament, unless he is sure of the requisite two-thirds majority."

But getting Musharraf out of the equation will not dent the military-backed system he represents. "As long as the military continues to run the show, bankrolled and supported by Washington for its own short-term interests in 'the war on terror', and as long as Pakistani politicians continue to collude with the system without addressing the real issues of poverty, unemployment and education, Pakistan will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis," one analyst said, requesting anonymity.

Pakistani papers have expressed uncertainty about what will happen in the wake of the lifting of the state of emergency on 15 December.

Most see the end of the emergency as an attempt to enshrine constitutional and legal measures that favour President Pervez Musharraf.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Around 9,000 candidates will contest next month's parliamentary elections in Pakistan, officials said, as the country's main opposition leaders hit the campaign trail.

With the January 8 vote three weeks away, the election commission approved the final candidates list, commission official Khurshid Alam told AFP.

He said more than 3,000 people had either been rejected by the commission or had withdrawn, leaving about 9,000 to contest the 1,070 seats for the federal parliament and four provincial legislatures.

Former premier Nawaz Sharif, due to previous criminal conviction, is one of those rejected.

He and another former premier, Benazir Bhutto, are leading their parties in the election contest against the party backing President Pervez Musharraf. Both parties have alleged that the vote will be rigged against them.

Sharif withdrew his decision to boycott after attempts to convince fellow opposition leader Bhutto and a key religious party to stay out of the vote failed.

On Saturday, Musharraf lifted a controversial six-week state of emergency that included a ban on public rallies and demonstrations.

Bhutto was to address a rally in the southern city of Hyderabad later Monday while Sharif was to address meeting in central Pakistani cities of Multan and Khanewal.

Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless military coup eight years ago, imposed the emergency on November 3, citing a surge in attacks by Islamic militants as well as what he alleged was interference by the judiciary.

Opponents alleged the real reason for the emergency was to provide cover for a purge of anti-Musharraf judges, who could have entertained legal challenges to his controversial re-election in October.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — At least nine members of a local Pakistan army football team were killed and four wounded in a suicide attack in the country's restive northwest on Monday, the military said.

The attack took place in a high security area of the garrison city of Kohat in North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said on state television.

The players were on a public road in the area when they were blown up, he said.

"They were coming back from a match," said Arshad, adding that the area had been cordoned off.

It was the third suicide attack apparently aimed at the military since Friday, and came two days after President Pervez Musharraf lifted a state of emergency, saying a wave of militant violence had been stopped.

"The wave of terrorism and militancy has been stopped under the emergency and there has been considerable improvement in overall situation," Musharraf said in an address to the nation Saturday.

Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led "war on terror", has been facing a surge in Islamist violence.

Around 700 people have been killed in militant attacks this year and more than half that number since July, when the army killed around 100 people in a raid on a radical, pro-Taliban mosque in Islamabad.

Earlier Monday, the military announced that 17 pro-Taliban rebels had been taken into custody in the northwestern valley of Swat, another flashpoint in the battles against rebels.

According to government reports, around 330 militants have been killed in the area during the recent campaign to clear the valley of fighters.

The latest men captured were all said to be followers of Fazlullah, a local pro-Taliban cleric known as "Mullah Radio" for broadcasting fiery speeches over his private FM radio station.

He has called for a holy war against the Pakistan government.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A World Health Organization team headed for Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on Monday to investigate how eight people were infected with bird flu, after the country reported its first human death from the virus.

Health officials confirmed at the weekend that eight people had tested positive for H5N1 in the province since late October, of which one person, who worked in a poultry farm, died.

A brother of the dead person, who had not been tested, also died. It was not yet clear if he was a victim of bird flu.

"The team will investigate whom the affected people were in contact with, whether they visited poultry farms or affected persons," Health Secretary Khushnood Akhtar Lashari told Reuters.

"The other people tested positive were not from the poultry farm. Five of them have recovered while two were still being treated."

No more new cases have been reported in the last two weeks.

Humans rarely contract H5N1, which is mainly an animal disease. But experts fear the strain could spark a global pandemic and kill millions of it mutates to a form that spreads more easily.

The three-member WHO team, joined by officials from the Pakistan National Institute of Health, will visit Peshawar, where patients were treated, and Abbottabad, where authorities reported the last H5N1 virus case in wild birds on November 30.

The Pakistani cases bring to nearly 350 the number of people worldwide who are known to have contracted the H5N1 virus, which has killed more than 200 people since 2003.