Ramanisblog

Category: Pakistan

  • US Blocks Pakistan’s Bomb Supply.Stop Fertilizer Supply.

    The US has initiated a prpgraame to cut the supply chain of Pakistani Militants from using bombs inside Afghanistan by going afer the source of the essential ingredient of bomb making,fertolizer.

    Improvised Explosive Device in Iraq. The conca...
    Image via Wikipedia

    Inside defence has reported measures taken by the US in this direction.

    How one is going to find out what is going to be used in Bomb making, short og blocking entire fertilizer supply.

    More trouble for Pakistan economy and a fresh issue for US-Pakistan relationship.

    ”

    The Pentagon’s bomb squad has a new idea to thwart Afghan insurgents’ weapon of choice: by adding chemicals that’d render its main ingredient non-explosive or even make it lethal to the bomb builders themselves.

    The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, wants to tamper with the supplies of fertilizer, the primary component in the bombs that have killed 719 American soldiers in Afghanistan since 2001. One small problem: Most of the 480,000 pounds of fertilizer used in Afghanistan’s bombs issmuggled out of Pakistan, and U.S. officials have hardly convinced that country to clamp down.

    “We’re not going to solve the IED problem inside Afghanistan,” a senior U.S. military official told ABC News last week. “If we don’t go after the supply, we’re playing defense.”

    That’s exactly what JIEDDO’s looking to do. The agency’s new call for research, first spotted byInsideDefense.com, asks for ”additives and methods to disrupt or discourage [bomb] manufacturing from fertilizer.”

    A fertilizer bomb is little more than ammonium nitrate, fuel and a simple detonator, and it can be assembled in one of two ways: For the most potent explosives, bomb makers can boil the fertilizer to separate its constituent parts and score a supply of ammonium nitrate — the chemical they’re actually after. Or, they can crush up the fertilizer’s granules and use ‘em as a quick-and-dirty bomb-building base.

    JIEDDO is hoping to mess with that process. They’re interested in compounds that’d make the fertilizer turn to foam or gel when mixed with water — rendering the boiling process futile (and rather messy). Or, JIEDDO wants some kind of “grinding inhibitor” that would keep the fertilizer granules in one piece, making them entirely useless to terrorists trying to dissolve or grind them.

    But one of the most promising possibilities, floated during JIEDDO chief Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero’s recent trip to Pakistan: “adding coated urea fertilizer granules to the bags of ammonium nitrate. The combination of urea and ammonium nitrate has a strong affinity for water and would be very difficult for insurgents to dry into an explosive powder,” the Washington Post reported. “The urea additives would not stop the insurgents from processing the fertilizer into bombs, but it would complicate their task and potentially make the blast less potent.”

    The agency’s also got more malevolent ideas. They’re open to additives that would actually make bomb-building a lethal endeavor for insurgents, by “increasing the inherent risk when processing materials.”

    Of course, enhancing the safety of ammonium nitrate fertilizers is already a priority — largely a futile one — in military and law enforcement circles. Last year, U.S. manufacturer Honeywell debuted a new fertilizer meant to be less explosive by combining ammonium sulfate — a fertilizer and fire retardant — with ammonium nitrate. Company execs even pitched the U.S. government on the product, but tests concluded that the fertilizer’s constituents could easily be pulled apart and the ammonium nitrate used in bombs.

    http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/pentagon_looks_to_sabotage_pakistan_s_bomb_supply

     

    “Description of Opportunity: Buried improvised explosive devices (IED), person-borne IEDs and vehicle-borne IEDs are employed against U.S. or coalition forces anywhere in the world, but especially in Afghanistan. The manufacture and transport of homemade explosives (HME) and their precursor chemicals enables these IEDs. JIEDDO is seeking focused, short-term (i.e. 3-6 months) studies that will define the signatures and available observables for these various IEDs and HMEs, as well as aid in the development of capabilities to counter these threats. Proposals must address one of the following requirements:

    A. New formulations of ammonium nitrate (AN) based fertilizer that decrease detonability and explosive output. (See Section II)

    B. Additives and methods to disrupt or discourage HME manufacturing from fertilizer precursors. (See Section III)

    C. Additives and methods for increased detection and identification of HMEs and precursors during transport, manufacture and IED emplacement. (See Section IV)

    D. Enabling ground truth studies. (See Section V)”

    http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/pentagon_looks_to_sabotage_pakistan_s_bomb_supply

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  • Is Imran Khan The Leader Pakistan Desperately Needs?

    Imran Kahn has been in the Pakistan National scene for quite some time now.

    His views on Terrorism, Religious Extremism,US,ISI,Army and India are often contradictory.

    However, he seems to have a view at least for Pakistan more than for himself unlike others in the Government or the Military.

    They seem to be more occupied with their problem of either retaining/consolidating their position or trying to destabilize the other.

    May be Imran Khan might turn out to be so when and if he comes to power.

    It  is one thing to talk fervently against Corruption,but it a different ball game when you come to power and have to manage and administer.

    It is equally a tough task to decide on partners to capture power, especially so in Pakistan where the power centres are too many- Extremist parties,Pseudo Secularists,Army,ISI and the present Civilian Government.

    Add to this the confusion of General Pervez Musharaff threatening to enter Pakistan, paving the way for a fresh confrontation between the Judiciary and the Executive and you have Nawaz Sherif and Zardari to think of.

    Much to the discomfort of these power centre, out there is the People of Pakistan about whom no body thinks of.

    Of vital importance, is his approach to India-none ignore the India factor in Pakistan.

    He has to balance it with the sentiments in Pakistan and international pressure in normalizing relations with India.

    The advantage Imran has is that he is known internationally and the people of Pakistan seem to think of him as an alternative.

    He is known to  have been dictatorial and imperial when he was the Captain of the Pakistani Cricket team, had more enemies ,on /off the field.

    Though he is yet to prove his policy on various issues and  Political management, Imran seems to be the only available option in Pakistan,Insha Allah.

    Picture of Imran Khan.

    “I’ll start by highlighting points made recently by two Pakistani writers. In a long and excellent profile in the magazine The Caravan, Madiha Tahir writes: “The political worldview of the middle and upper classes — whether it’s the politics of personal expression and individual rights, moral outrage against corruption, or the outspoken embrace of tradition and piety — has almost no point of overlap with the needs and desires of millions of  of Pakistanis who are too poor to exercise meaningful choice in such matters.”

    ”

    This cuts close to something Westerners and some Pakistani liberals willfully fail to understand about Pakistan: that it’s not really feasible to promote both Western-style or Western-leaning secular liberalism and the interests and aspirations of the much larger numbers of the Pakistani rural and urban poor. Which gets in turn to a very interesting contradiction in Imran’s own character and position: he is an elitist populist. He is “at his strongest,” writes Madiha Tahir, “delivering a trenchant critique of the often self-satisfied assumptions that underpin secular liberalism.”

    On AlJazeera.com, Akbar Ahmed, professor at American University in Washington, DC and former Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK, begins with an obvious but crucial point: “There is a direct correlation between the depths of the gloom in Pakistan and the high expectations of salvation from Imran Khan. It is clear that the greater the despair in the country, the more fervent the hopes in one man as saviour.”

    And he cautions: “There are already danger-signs as some old faces who have done the rounds with different parties have now jumped onto Imran’s bandwagon. The balance between making deals in order to chip away at the power base of the ruling Zardari-Bhutto dynasty and the Sharif one, and maintaining his integrity will be crucial.”

    http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/23/is-imran-khan-the-leader-pakistan-needs.html

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  • Coup in Pakistan? Zardari in Dubai-to step down.

    English: Asif Ali Zardari.
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    It is reported in the US media that Zardari ,President of Pakistan,is reported to be in Dubai for Treatment of Heart Attack and Dawn of Pakistan has reported that he is advised rest and kept under observation.

    In the meanwhile,US Media speculates that Zardari has offered to step down in the wake of memogate and has been under severe pressure and during his telephonic talk with US President Obama on Memogate was reported to have been incoherent.

    Now this is interesting.

    The rumors of a Coup is possible and more than probable, considering the political situation in Pakistan,with Imran Khan being projected as an alternate  to Zardari with some parties supporting him along with intelligentsia,Nawaz Sharief having scored a political point by moving the Supreme court to order an enquiry into memeogate scandal and consolidating his position .

    Add to this the possibility of Zardari anointing his son Bilawal to succeed him with the support of some groups.

    In this cauldron the Military stand is unclear and they seem to be upset over memogate and the attack by NATO.

    Let’s see how this plays out.

    Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari left Pakistan suddenly on Tuesday, complaining of heart pains, and is now in Dubai. His planned testimony before a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament on theMemogate scandal is now postponed indefinitely.

    On Dec. 4, Zardari announced that he would address Pakistan’s parliament about the Memogate issue, in which his former ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani stands accused of orchestrating a scheme to take power away from Pakistan’s senior military and intelligence leadership and asking for U.S. help in preventing a military coup. Haqqani has denied that he wrote the memo at the heart of the scheme, which also asked for U.S. support for the Zardari government and promised to realign Pakistani foreign policy to match U.S. interests.

    The memo was passed from Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz to former National Security Advisor Jim Jones, to then Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen on May 10, only nine days after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani military town of Abbottabad.

    Ijaz has repeatedly accused Haqqani of being behind the memo, and Ijaz claims that Haqqani was working with Zardari’s implicit support.

    Early on Tuesday morning, Zardari’s spokesman revealed that the president had traveled to Dubai to see his children and undergo medical tests linked to a previously diagnosed “cardiovascular condition.”

    A former U.S. government official told The Cable today that when President Barack Obama spoke with Zardari over the weekend regarding NATO’s killing of the 24 Pakistani soldiers, Zardari was “incoherent.” The Pakistani president had been feeling increased pressure over the Memogate scandal. “The noose was getting tighter — it was only a matter of time,” the former official said, expressing the growing expectation inside the U.S. government that Zardari may be on the way out.

    The former U.S. official said that parts of the U.S. government were informed that Zardari had a “minor heart attack” on Monday night and flew to Dubai via air ambulance today. He may have angioplasty on Wednesday and may also resign on account of “ill health.”

    “If true, this is the ‘in-house change option’ that has been talked about,” said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, in a Tuesday interview with The Cable. Nawaz said that under this scenario,  Zardari would step aside and be replaced by his own party, preserving the veneer of civilian rule but ultimately acceding to the military’s wishes to get rid of Zardari.

    In Islamabad, some papers have reported that before Zardari left Pakistan, the Pakistani Army insisted that Zardari be examined by their own physicians, and that the Army doctors determined that Zardari was fine and did not need to leave the country for medical reasons. Zardari’s spokesman has denied that he met with the Army doctors

    http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/06/president_zardari_suddenly_leaves_pakistan_is_he_on_the_way_out?test1=test1

    Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is in Dubai for treatment for a heart condition, the government said on Wednesday, with one source saying he had suffered a minor heart attack and fuelling speculation that the leader may resign.

    The statement from the prime minister’s office said Zardari went to a Dubai hospital at the insistence of his children, who live there. It contradicted earlier reports from Zardari’s own office that the tests were scheduled and routine.

    “The president went to Dubai following symptoms related to his pre-existing heart condition,” Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s media office said.

    “The president will remain under observation and return to resume his normal functions as advised by the doctors.”

    A presidential spokesman later quoted Zardari’s doctor as saying his condition was stable.

    A Pakistani source in Dubai familiar with the 56-year-old president’s condition told Reuters that he had suffered a minor heart attack.

    “Two days ago, he had chest pain” and decided to go to Dubai, the source said.

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  • Pakistan SC orders enquiry into ‘MemoGate’ -To what end?

    It is not new for Pakistani Rulers(civilian and military) to seek the help of foreign powers to bail out either for the country or for themselves.

    To protect them from the Military, the Civilian Presidents/PMs call for help, especially from the US or Saudi Arabia overtly.

    If a former President/PM is involved,either they seek help for themselves or ensure that their political opponent is offered sanctuary abroad as in the case of Nawaz Sharief and Pervez Musharaff.

    People are also aware what Ayub Khan,Yahya Khan,Benazir were up to.

    It is the accepted practice in Pakistan.

    What if the Commission finds that the memogate is true?

    The SC shall dismiss the Government?

    Waste of time?

    ISLAMABAD, Dec 1: President Asif Ali Zardari was dealt a second supreme blow in less than a week.

    Within days of having rejected the government’s review petition against the NRO judgment, the Supreme Court moved on Thursday decisively and rapidly against the government on a petition filed by PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif.

    It ordered an inquiry to be completed into the ‘memogate’ scandal within 15 days, barred former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani from leaving the country and issued notices to the president, the army chief and others concerned with the case.

    A nine-judge larger bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry took up nine petitions moved by PML-N leaders from four provinces, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan and
    two individuals.

    Mr Sharif himself presented his case by reading out the entire petition in the tightly packed court.

    The chief justice passed the order at the end of the four-hour proceedings without much deliberation or hesitation.

    The immediate ‘affectee’ of the order is obviously Mr Haqqani who has been directed not to leave the country without prior permission and to cooperate with the commission set up by the court.

    The commission will be headed by former secretary of the Anti-Narcotics Force Tariq Khosa, who will be free to conduct the inquiry on his own or to associate any expert to collect forensic evidence.

    Mr Khosa, who has also served as inspector general of Balochistan police and director general of the Federal Investigation Agency, is a brother of Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Punjab Chief Secretary Nasir Khosa.

    http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/02/one-man-commission-named-ppps-angry-reaction-president-coas-isi-chief-to-explain-position-sc-orders-memogate-inquiry-tells-haqqani-not-to-go-abroad.html

     

    Related: Memogate History.

    HUSAIN Haqqani will not be enjoying Christmas festivities in Washington DC. The former journalist and spin-doctor was simply outmanoeuvred by his opponents in the field he thought he had mastery of.

    He did not lose his job for contributing to the drafting of the alleged memo. He was not punished for courting Americans to influence Pakistan’s political and security set-up. He was booted out for committing perjury. Perjury, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “is the voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath”. Husain Haqqani vowed that he has not been a party in the correspondence with Mansoor Ijaz that ultimately led to the memo delivered to Mike Mullen.

    In the media trial, he is charged with the crime of peddling to the Americans, thus compromising the sovereignty of Pakistan.

    He is reprimanded for bringing a bad name to the Pakistan armed forces and to one of the country’s intelligence agencies. His detractors are not content with him losing the coveted ambassadorial spot. They want to dig deep and see who else in the political hierarchy — implying none other than President Asif Zardari — might have been part of washing Pakistan’s dirty political laundry in the American laundromat.

    Armed with the sabre of sovereignty, anchors of independent electronic media have joined ranks to cut the likes of Haqqani down to size. Letting Pakistani sovereignty be violated by the Americans, if one believes the talk shows, appears to be the present government’s invention. Nothing can be farther from the truth. In theory, Haqqani is accused of trying to rope the Americans into what should be the exclusive domain of Pakistan’s national politics. If he is to be reprimanded for doing this, then the pioneer of this trend was none other than Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first prime minister.

    Liaquat Ali Khan did not write or instruct the then ambassador to send any secret memorandum to the Americans. He was pretty open about it. During his first trip to the United States in 1950, he met the press at the National Press Club in the American capital. A reporter asked how large a standing army Pakistan wanted. Liaquat Ali Khan’s reply was quite simple to the inquisitive American reporter and here is a direct quote from the prime minister’s answer: “If your country will guarantee our territorial integrity, I will not keep any army at all.”

    So if Pakistan now has an all-powerful army, it is partly thanks to the American hesitation in extending the guarantee Pakistan’s first prime minister was seeking.

    It is ironic, bordering on being comical, the way commentators de-contextualise the issues at hand. What Mr Haqqani has purportedly done is part and parcel of the Pakistani ruling elite’s historical trait. In 1953, Ghulam Mohammad, then governor general, dismissed Prime Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin and promptly appointed Mohammad Ali Bogra as the new prime minister.

    Mohammad Ali Bogra at that time was serving as Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington. Nazimuddin’s ouster was planned by the establishment of the time and Bogra’s greatest political asset was his pro-American stance. One can infer that the Pakistani establishment of the 1950s, mainly comprising the civil and military bureaucracies, had no qualms in having Americans on board when it came to Pakistan’s national affairs.

    In 1958 Iskander Mirza, according to the US embassy in Karachi’s reports, was thinking of imposing dictatorship. The State Department instructed the American ambassador to caution Mirza about taking such a step and he deferred it for a while. The less one says about taking vital decisions without heeding the Americans’ advice the better.

    But in October of the same year when Mirza and Ayub Khan, the then army commander, decided to impose martial law, the American ambassador was told a week in advance of the impending decision. This should tell the reader that Pakistani leaders have a long tradition of consulting and soliciting American approval in their national affairs. More importantly, the Pakistani leadership has seldom shared the details of the nature of their ties with the Pakistani public.

    Ayub Khan allowed the Americans to use Pakistani territory to fly U2 spy planes over the Soviet Union. Pakistanis came to know about these covert operations when the Soviets downed an American plane and captured its pilot and put him on television screens for the world to see. Pakistanis, all along, were told that the Americans were using the base outside Peshawar for weather-monitoring purposes.

    http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/27/memogate-and-history.html

  • US, India on ‘Worst Scenarios in Pakistan’-Report.

    In the absence  of a viable and Democratic alternative in Pakistan, the fact that the military is losing control and the terrorist forces/hard liners  are  gaining ground, it is reasonable that Pakistan’s and India‘s Military talk to each other  as to how to handle a situation in the event of the Nuclear Weapons falling into the hands of Terrorists, though it is a tough call for India ,considering the fact that the Military Establishment in Pakistan has been nurtured with Anti Indian attitude and that it has been one of the key instigators of Wars against India.

    However, this path seems to be the lesser evil, for you at least know who you are talking to!

    The United States and India should begin classified exchanges on multiple Pakistan contingencies, including the collapse of the Pakistan state and the spectre of the Pakistani military losing
    control of its nuclear arsenal, says a joint US-India study.

    The 53-page report, co-sponsored by the US Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Institute India, urges New Delhi to open channels of communication with the Pakistan military while advising the United States to do everything possible to assist Pakistan in protecting its nuclear arsenal….

    “We developed … possible contingencies regarding developments in Pakistan,” the group’s co-chair, Ambassador Blackwill told the Foreign Policy magazine. “The report says the US strategy (of) using military and civilian assistance to try to persuade the Pakistan military to cease its support for terrorist groups that kill Indians and kill Americans in Afghanistan has failed.”

    The report recommends that the United States “heavily condition, from now forward, military aid to Pakistan on the basis of Pakistan moving against these terrorist groups that target Americans and Indians.”

    The study claims that Pakistan faces a systemic decline and that makes it very hard for either the United States or India to have an effective policy.

    The report says that while the Pakistani military assures the world that its nuclear weapons are in safe hand, there are concerns that cannot be ignored.

    “If the society at large becomes more chaotic, more violent, if Islamic extremists have more influence inside the country, then one has to worry whether at some point in which the Pakistan nuclear complex has been penetrated by terrorists or Islamic extremists of other persuasion,” says Mr Blackwill.”

    http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/19/india-us-urged-to-prepare-for-worst-case-pakistan-scenarios.html