The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has not only claimed the attack, but also made it clear that the spillover from the military operations in Swat and other tribal areas will not end in Lahore.
‘Residents should leave the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Multan,’ the purported aide of Baitullah Mehsud warned.
Is the Pakistani state ready to deal with the emerging threat? What measures should the authorities take to ensure the security of citizens in cities and the rest of the country?
Good Terrorists and Bad Terrorists?
That’s what I read on this board, with its plethora of comments.
Until you see terrorists as terrorists, you are doomed as a country. Stop supporting Kashmiri ‘Jihadists’ while condemning the Taliban.
Lets use our colorful emotions for Good of mankind. Al Mighty Allah will show the results of our goodness and wickedness in this world. Mark my words.
There is no matter of win or loss. Everybody has right to say what one wants but it should not be against the state, agaist our rules, law and consitution. Withing the framework of out society you can do anything. If anybody with gun want to destroy oursystem, our nation. It is not allowable. If you are against the country, you are not Pakistani, no riht to live here. Be Pakistani and call PAKISTAN FIRST, otherwsie should be wipeout. We should adopt this rule, PAKISTAN FIRST.
whenever there is a terrorist attack in pakistan,the pakistani govt.and media invariably blame “THE FOREN HAND”which has become comical akin to the “HAND” in Adams family.
Interesting comment by Shakil Ahmed “IT’S extremely shameful to see the military operation in Malakand, so helplessly, where innocent men, women and children are killed inhumanly and millions are displaced from their homes. Our puppy and puppet civil and military leadership is doing nothing except promoting Zionist agenda to pave the way for the Indo-American control of the region, under the cover of “War on Terror.” Our leadership has proved over and again that they have nothing to do with the interest and integrity of Pakistan, but to please their foreign masters by tearing apart the socio-polotical and econo-religious fabric of the society for their heavy rewards, like Mr Jafar and Mir Sadiq. We have to believe that the US, as spearheading the Neoconic Jews and Christians, wants to take the control of the whole world and rule as the only superpower, with one secular world, one WTO/IMF-slave economy and puppet rulers in different countries to eliminate all such forces/elements, who cause any barrier to their agenda. As they did in the Middle East, Asia and Africa openly but in Europe, Russia and china covertly. ……I don’t want to talk about Asif Ali Ghaddari, who publicly declared the Kashmiris and Pushtoon as terrorist but India as his friend. What can you expect from such a world known criminal. But Gen Kiyani should realize the gravity of the geo-political situation and learn from history. As India claims that they exhibited 70,000 trousers in 1971 and the figure will be much higher this time. It’s better to die with honour instead of living as captive. Nobody else but traitors and black sheep in our society are responsible for our disgrace and decline. I can assure you, the moment we realize that we have to fight for Pakistan, all Pakistanis are brothers and we can save and serve our country without any begging or dictation, the risk for our integrity and sovereignty, I swear to Allah that these conspiring Americans and Indians will flush out like dirty water in drains. May Allah give us the strength to wakeup and sacrifice our personal & political affiliations, ego and benefits over the interest of the state and its people. Amin!
Lots of cash coming in from US if we strike Taliban, lets have a war like situation, then when we get our hands on money lets divide them and put in our Swiss Bank accounts.
Who cares for displaced people oh yes.. UN is there they will take care of them.
Thats what exactly whats going on.
A Game of Chess
The war in Afghanistan is in stalemate. It is clear that without Pakistan’s support, no governments in Afghanistan can survive. The west came to conclusion that Pakistan is as much entangled in Afghan as they are. They knew that the Afghan military operation had pushed over millions of refugees into Pakistan. The resistance in Afghanistan must be fueled and operated from across the border. The problem was to get Pakistan flush the selective Afghans out, especially the former rulers such as Jalal Uddin Haqqani and Quetta-Shura. But, why would Pakistan do that? They are the refugees not threatening to Pakistan. Pakistan declined or just played along without really doing anything against them. That frustrated the western analysts.
Then, suddenly a new genre of Taliban emerged on the scene mostly those who never fought in Afghanistan, neither soviet or in the civil war. They never studied in madaris from where most of the Taliban came from; they just transformed from a mechanic, gym trainer or a painter into a warlord overnight and assumed the title of Taliban. To satisfy their followers, they would occasionally go and do some token fight in Afghanistan, while their major agenda remain to destabilize Pakistan.
Who created them and who financed them is quite clear by the directions of their actions. Obviously the beneficiaries are the financiers and designers of the scheme. These are not mujahid turned into terrorist. These are terrorists hijacking the identity of the Taliban.
Devil lies in the injustices in the world. Our problem as Pakistani’s is that it does not matter where the injustice is, we feel deep heart felt solidarity for them, be it israel- palestine or India’s internal problems.
So while the world including India may go on and commit injustices against minorities, we will have a concience and will cry for them.
As far as the current problem is, yes at our doorstep.But foreign sponsored and initiated, so before long this epicenters ripples will be felt soon all over and ground zero will be calm.
BAsically, if the ISI is functioning effectively, how can it be unaware that people with 140 kg of explosives had landed in Lahore?
My point is that all of ISI’s attention is diverted towards India. If it changes its focus to protecting Pakistan – the citizens of Pakistan will have nothing to fear.
taliban feel that their version of Islam is the best..but this problem lies with most of the muslims in the world..if you watch the islam channels (including zakir naik) , everybody is telling the viewers that islam is the best religion and others are not as good as Islam. Muslims,including educated ones, have a habit of relating everything to their religion. But surprisingly, when it comes to monetary benefits,muslims put their religious commitments behind. Muslims go to any length to claim UK benefits and the british prisons have disproportionate muslim prisoners (check the net).Muslims pray more than any other religious groups, and yet they are disproportionately very corrupt. Sorry to say but too much addiction towards religion without understanding the spirit of it, is the main cause why muslims are most poor,illiterate and unemployed in the western world.
A simple story :
A man envious of his rich neighbor, dug a hole under the fence and would send over poisonous snakes into the neighbors yard creating terror. This worked for a while but after a while, the snakes irritated with their treatment turned on the man himself and killed him.
infer your own morals.
Saf:
Well done for articulating the feelings and sentiments of many right thinking Pakistanis.
We can keep blaming everone but ourselves until the cows come home but this will not change any thing.
Saf — I have a comment.
If only Pakistan had even 15% of the population with your line of thinking — it would be a Turkey, Morocco or a Malaysia today.
Alas !
Congratulations, SAF for your frankness. For them all, INDIA and USA have become the favourite punching bag and any problem Pakistan is mired in, they associate it with India and USA. We, Indians understand the pain u people are going as on now, hounded by terror and only wish u well in getting rid of them. But u need to introspect and come to conclusion that the devil of all your current problems lies at your own doorsteps.
This is proof that there is a god. What else would make militants and terrorists bite the hand that feeds them ? If you sow evil, that’s the harvest you will reap. Inshallah, the “jihadi” groups in Bahawalpur and Muridke should turn against their masters next.
It was amazing reading the comments here. For quite a few of the commentators, they see conspiracies against Pakistan all over – by India of course, but also from U.S and Israel.
Wake up! The myth of pushing outside-of- border enemies were propagated by most if not all, Pakistani Governments and the Defense Department and all their cohorts are still laughing all the way to their banks while education and health and infrastructure have all been ignored, leading to millions of poor who have now become talebans -once useful to fight the Indians in Kashmir and other places. Your Government that way keeps your focus on something else while they rob the exchequer. While you sing “Zindabad Pakistan”, they send their kids abroad for education and a good life. If you want to have a reality check Irfan Husain on his blog here.
By the way, I am a native of India ( and I am aware India Govt. has blood on their hands too!) but having been several times to Karachi, I wish all Pakistanis well but the country ( and I mean the people) needs to seriously re-consider who the enemies are and in the mean time, Good luck!
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/irfan-husain-little-time-and-few-choices-059
Dear Brother Saqib, I am not against free speech but when Pakistan is at war, it is our duty to support our government and not to create mistrust against head of the state who is doing everything possible to save Pakistan. Pakistan is a sovereigns country and does not have to take orders from any foreign country to save Pakistan. Only enemies of Pakistan who want Pakistan destroyed, will say what you said “Zardari taking orders from America”, so Zardari should stop the Army to fight Talibans and that will lead to more beheadings and bloodshed and eventual take over of Pakistan by Talibans.
I have to disagree with Yasir Hussain and Saqib Khan.
As Yasir Hussain says, “America is part of the problem”. Agreed. But you let Pakistan off the hook? Totally disagree!
You act like we had nothing to do with Afghanistan. Don’t kid yourself. Afghanis dislike of Pakistanis isn’t some Indian cooked up phenomenon. Our army and ISI guys trained them personally (including our own Pakistani youth), not the Americans. They provided guns and funds, but the people on the ground were OURS and the teachers came from various backgrounds like the Salafist Saudis which we accepted.
From our meddling in their politics and land, and our handling of their refugees (I don’t know how many Afghani friends you may have, but I know quite a few, some are ambivalent about their attitudes toward Pakistanis because of our treatment), we were always part of the problem.
Saqib, its clear you’re one of the conspiracy theorists of a US/Israeli/Indian (you included Brits as well, so be it. I don’t know why you didn’t include Saudis, Iranians, Moroccans, Uzbeks, Tajiks, etc.) nexus. But lets ask ourselves…are they the only countries in the world with their own agendas? Hardly. What is Pakistan’s agenda?
Did you think that a country that invests whatever stolen taxes into its army and make toy soldiers out of its population to fight proxy wars in its neighboring POROUS borders was going to make ANY progress?
We supported the Taliban in Afghanistan because it was beneficial to have a government that was extremely pro-Pakistan and extremely anti-Indian, and the harder they could scream they were ‘true’ Muslims, the better. We didn’t care whether they were treating their people good or bad, just as long as we could get control. Hell, we even let them dictate their sectarian agendas in our provinces by carrying out sectarian killings of Pakistani Shia Muslims. The ISI always blamed India’s RAW, yet NOT ONE Indian was publicly indited. Every perpetrator turned out to be Pakistani or Afghani and every journalistic agency with integrity tracked the money to our so called Arab ‘brothers’ in Saudi Arabia, sponsoring militancy.
How about Kashmir? Did you know how many of our army men defected to join militant groups to fight in Kashmir? By law, including army policy it, was illegal. However many in the Pakistani army had looked the other way and never bothered to implement discipline or true trials. Do you know what brutal tactics the militants had used in Kashmir to get people to support them? Trust me, there’s a reason that many Kashmiris ‘hate’ us. (Mind you, what is the story on Lashkar-i-Tayyaba? House Arrest? What a joke. Many journalistic and intelligence agencies have pointed out our erratic behavior amongst our security apparatus that seemingly seems to purposely be counter-productive to our war-efforts)
Lets talk about the people of Pakistan. Why isn’t there progress? Are you seriously suggesting Pakistan’s misery is because of ‘foreign elements’? Give me a break. Look at the Pakistani brothers around you. Corruption, Law and Order, poverty, education. You’ll blame this on ‘foreign elements’?
NO! Enough is enough. Point the finger at yourselves. The BIGGEST CONSPIRATOR are Pakistanis who’ve been BETRAYING Jinnah’s vision by undermining Pakistan with their low standards (integrity, critical thinking, etc) and sell the Pakistani next to him for a quick benefit. With such backstabbing maybe we deserve to disintegrate!
Until we realize this is a failure caused by Pakistanis from top to bottom and stop making these EXCUSES, we’ll stay in misery and rot with all these conspiracy fallacies and ask when its all over ‘yeh kaisay hua?’.
The cure is Secularism.
Dr Towghi,
Now what you said does give an idea of how ignorant the native americans are. The biggest problem with most of you is being ridiculously irresponsible!
Take for example the Taleban. At least Pakistan had the courage to accept its participation in the making of Taleban, you dont even seem to have the idea that these devils were created by your own political, military leaders in the past, but you might then be studying at a school “peacefully” or indulging in “merry making” as what happens commonly.
If you create a problem, face it, accept it and try to rectify and correct it!!!
No one is purely innocent in this case, so why do the usual moaning, something that is becoming a national habit of AMERICANS!
No doubt that Pakistan’s army will defet Taliban movement on the battlefield. However, the main problems are coming after ending of military action. No food, no shelter, no prosperity, no education, no hope for ordinary Pakistan’s people. International humanitarian aid and millitary support to Pakistan Government might increase corruption of the governemnt’s administration that can provoke more and more human desparate, that could inspire dramatical growing Taliban’s influence in Pakistan’s society. To avoid possible problems, for Pakistani government is very important to create clear social-welfare program and to to create an new vision of the country develoment. That is the most important duty for the Pakistani government.
I read with interest the accusations by SAQIB HUSSAIN against my country India. They are absolutely baseless and deserve to be straightway dumped into the trash can without being read. This is my response. I must say that u have got a very creative brain to whip up fabulous cock and bull stories. Nobody is involved in destabilizing Pakistan and what’s happening in your country is payback time by its own creations. Isn’t Pakistan responsible for the creation of numerous terror groups from Taliban to Al Qeada, LeT, LeJ, JeM, HM, Al Badr, etc?? Isn’t Pakistan armed forces and intelligence responsible for nurturing and patronizing these terror groups during goody goody times??? Having created, nurtured, funded, trained and mollycoddled the devils, it is now getting back the taste of its own medicine when it is being compelled by circumstances in Pak to neutralize them. Pakistan is now reaping what it only sowed for the past 2 ½ decades. So, instead of finding scapegoats, look into your own backyard and suggest solutions to clean it up.
Its tough time for people of Pakistan, but I truly belive this monsters will wiped out soon. All you need to do is trust your army and support them.
Every one in the worl need peace .. we all hope we will live peacefully
Navneeth ( India )
Glad to see that on these blog some acknowledgement self responsibility, but the rhetoric on involvement of ‘foreign powers’ is still too strong. Effective change comes with a higher degree of self responsibility and some sense of self control.
Unfortunately, Pakistani Army is not trained to Fight counter insurgency wars. Its high time that we learn from this experience and maybe create a special force in the army to deal with militancy. ISI should have been used to infiltrate these Militant movements and we should have assasinated all the leaders overnight and not displaced 1-2% of the country.
I am afraid the methods being used right now will create more militants amongst the refugees.