Tuesday, December 18, 2007
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.
