AAM DISPATCH

From Geo TV

More than 80 worshipers of a minority Muslim sect, the Ahmadis, were killed and more than 110 wounded Friday in a coordinated assault by seven well-trained attackers on two mosques in Lahore, Pakistan.

There is an estimated 2 million Ahmadis in Pakistan and are considered heretical by most Muslims who reject their interpretation of Islam. Although Ahmadis, who think that Mohammad was not the last prophet, are regularly the victims of intimidation and violence, bloodshed on this scale marks another grim milestone for Pakistan. From The Globe and Mail:

“There was continuous firing for four hours. When I came out and went to the main hall, there were dozens of bodies, maybe 50 or 60. The floor was flooded with blood. I also saw the bodies of two suicide attackers,” [said Munawar Ali Shahid, who was worshipping at the Garhi Shahu mosque at the time of the attack]. “We have written so many letters to the government of Punjab, to the IG [head of the Punjab police] about the threats we face, but they just ignored the situation,” said Mr. Shahid, who is a leading member of the Ahmadi community. “What can we do? Nothing.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom calls Pakistan a “country of particular concern” — a designation reserved for the worst violators of religious liberty. Religious minorities face growing persecution as religious extremism takes hold. Under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws Ahmadis can be jailed for three years for the mere act of calling themselves Muslim or openly professing their faith.

America Abroad’s Sean Carberry traveled to Pakistan for the radio program The First Freedom and discusses in a video interactive the state of religious freedom there and the plight of the Ahmadis among other issues. Watch >

Javier Barrera Pakistan

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton delivered the keynote address at USIP’s second annual Dean Acheson lecture this afternoon, laying out the Obama administration’s goals for international non proliferation and the United States’ responsibility to lead the way. But the focus of the lecture shifted during the Q&A session when a Pakistani citizen asked about proliferation of another sort – the violent anti Americanism that is spreading throughout Pakistan. He asked what the US government is doing to convince the Pakistani people of the US commitment in Pakistan and to increase the “counter propaganda” efforts.

Secretary Clinton admitted “I think we have, as a government, not done a very good job in responding to what you rightly call propaganda, misinformation, even in some instances disinformation, about our motivations and our actions in Pakistan.” She acknowledged the shortfall thus far of the administration in responding to the fears and doubts of US commitment expressed by the Pakistani people, especially considering the recent violent reaction to the passage of the Kerry-Lugar legislation in Pakistan.

The Kerry Lugar aid package (The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act) authorized $7.5 billion in non-military aid to Pakistan over the next five years. The legislation, intended to demonstrate a long term US commitment to Pakistan, was met by protests and criticism amongst Pakistanis, who fear that the conditions attached to the bill compromise their country’s sovereignty. Secretary Clinton expressed her surprise and concern at the Pakistani reaction, given that the Obama administration viewed the passage of Kerry-Lugar aid as a milestone in the US-Pakistan relationship. She went on to say that she was “frankly, quite surprised that we had not done much of this [counter-propoganda] in an effective matter,” and that the US government will from now in be “more in the mix to make people understand that the US is there for the government and the people of Pakistan.”

Clinton stressed that the State Department’s new approach, drawing from a recent analysis of US public diplomacy strategy by Under Secretary Judith McHale, will not leave any misstatement or inaccuracy unanswered. She promised that the administration will become “much more aggressive in interacting with the Pakistani media,” but that it will take time to win the trust of the Pakistanis. “This is not something you can fix in a news cycle or by just snapping your fingers and asking people to believe you,” she said.

To see Secretary Clinton’s full remarks, please visit USIP.

Ilana Weinberg Pakistan, State Department

Explosion was somewhere out there...

Once again, moments after I uploaded my last post about the mission being canceled yesterday, and having nothing to do, there was a slight boom/rumble. It felt like someone stomping on the roof, or jumping off a chair onto the floor. It didn’t seem like an explosion.

There were three soldiers in the room with me, and we all looked at each other and started speculating whether it had been an explosion. Then, the whining/siren sound came over the base PA system, and off to the bunkers we went.
Read more…

Sean Carberry Afghanistan, AfPak, Pakistan, Taliban

The irony never ends. Just as I was typing a blog post about how frustrating it is to be on an embed and not be able to get out on missions or have anything happening, something happened.

I was sitting in a corner of the base on the steps to a lookout post typing away, when a sergeant came around one of the buildings and yelled, “Hey reporter!” He told me that the Afghan Border Police had just arrived with a truck full of weaponry they had found.

I grabbed my gear and ran over to see a green ABP Ford Ranger pickup truck with a pile of rusty, dirt-covered mortars in the back. Soldiers were laying out a tarp, and began to place the mortars on the ground. They emptied the truck and counted 49 in total.

Soldiers were debriefing the ABP commander who explained that his men were in the process of digging a foundation for a new building at one of their border control bases, and they came across the mortars. It’s clear they were not from this campaign and that they’ve been in the ground a long time.

Read more…

Sean Carberry Afghanistan, Pakistan, Taliban

The perspectives of Pakistanis and Afghans have gotten lost in the typical Washington process-debate over whether or not President Obama has taken too long to decide on a course of action in Afghanistan.

A gathering at the United State Institute for Peace sought to correct this imbalance with a variety of perspectives from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Imran Khan, president and co-founder of the Transnational Crisis Project, told a group of journalists, policy-makers and Afghan and Pakistani Americans that he believes the problems we are seeing in Pakistan today are symptomatic of “a deep fundamental tear in the body politic.”

“Insurgents have been promised paradise and $300 a month. We have to give them jobs and hope.”

Khan breaks Pakistan’s insurgency into four main groups, most of them having very little to do with Islamic ideologies. According to Khan:

*In the North-West Frontier Province, the insurgency is really about class warfare, caused by a land-owning aristocracy blocks any hope of social mobility.

*In the Khyber Pass and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas, the fight he says “is basically Scarface and old-time Chicago,” gangsters and drug dealers hiding under the mantle of Islamist language while they fight for power.

*The middle belt of Pakistan sees virulent sectarian narratives while the South favors jihadi narratives.

Khan believes the most worrying parts of these narratives blend together, when “insurgents in the Punjab combine and exploit the narratives from the frontier.” The result is a potential tinder-box of resentments and back-stories just waiting to be lit up by poverty and unemployment.

Khan said:

“It’s a very complex picture. There is no simple answer as to why people are being recruited in Pakistan.”

From the other side of the Durand Line, Afghan Ambassador to the U.S. Said Jawad noted, “the number of troops in Afghanistan does not matter as much as the nature of their presence – are they improving life for Afghans?”

Jawad openly admitted the likeliehood of a runoff presidential election, saying that end of November was the absolute latest that a second round of voting could be held.

“If it’s delayed until spring it’s a absolute disaster.”

Ambassador Jawad described a run-off  as combining the security challenges of the first round of voting with the harsh weather of a looming Afghan winter.

Continuing with his remarkably open comments, Ambassador Jawad said wining hearts and minds “is the wrong terminology. It sounds like charity. It sounds like you hand out candy, hand out lollipops and win [Afghan] hearts and minds. “

The U.S.-Afghan relationship has to be “an equal partnership,” Jawad said. But even then attempts at partnerships can fail due to an overemphasis on process.

Ambassador Jawad noted that the much-praised trilateral meetings between the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan placed too much focus on appearance over content.

“It was like ‘Let’s just get President Karzai and we’ll invite the Afghans and Pakistnais over for tea and we’ll resolve all the issues’….’We’ll just have a trilateral from 2 to 4 [pm] and then everything will be OK.”

Katherine Gypson Afghanistan, Pakistan

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has downplayed reports that the civilian and military leadership in his country is unhappy with the recently passed Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act, noting that the bill “recognizes the immense contributions of Pakistan to the struggle of our generation.”

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC yesterday, Qureshi emphasized the need for continuous consultation and cooperation between the United States and Pakistan, as well as the impact significant aid could have on the Pakistani economy.

“Terrorists,” Qureshi said, “can only be denied in a thriving economy.”

But many within the Pakistani parliament and media find the conditions set on the aid “unacceptable” and argue that Pakistan has a right to control its own national security.

Qureshi responded:

That’s the beauty of democracy. Did everyone agree when you went into Iraq?……This is a signal of a strong long-term commitment with Pakistan and an engagement with Pakistan beyond terrorism.

And later he elaborated:

“Yes, we have issues with the language, yes we have issues with the drafting and some of the sensitivities should have been accounted for, but it is legislation, not literature.”

Qureshi reached back to the previous instance in which U.S. aid made a significant impact on the region – during the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan – and spoke of the madrasahs – which are considered by some to be a source of terrorist thought and training:

“Your money and your thoughts and your input went into the making of those madrasahs but you left – you left in a hurry. We can’t wish them away but we are trying to amalgamate them into the mainstream.”

Qureshi said he believes Pakistan’s contributions to Afghanistan and the fight against terrorism are often overlooked. He spoke of efforts to build a good relationship with the Karzai government and the Pakistani government’s continued support of the three million Afghan refugees still within its borders.

“We have institutions that are democratic. They are capable of ownership of this fight. Having taken these steps , what we need is a bit of coordination on the other side.”

When asked if the United States is doing its’ part to improve coordination, Qureshi responded “There is always room for improvement.”

Katherine Gypson Pakistan

While sitting in the waiting room of the orthopedic practice at Georgetown this week, I couldn’t help but think about my last visit to a doctor in July – in Pakistan.

Two days after I arrived in Islamabad to report a story for our current program on religious freedom. I came down with a nasty case of food poisoning. It was a variety that did not respond to the antibiotics I usually carry on trips to exotic locations. After a day confined to my hotel room, I realized I needed medical attention.

I was not exactly excited about the prospect of seeking out healthcare in Pakistan. I called my translator and he drove me to the main hospital in Islamabad. Without going into details about the facilities, let’s just say it was no Mayo clinic (although it was better than I expected).

Read more…

Sean Carberry Pakistan

The U.S. will know what success in Afghanistan looks like when it sees it, according to US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.

At what he termed the public unveiling of the U.S. government’s Afghanistan-Pakistan team, Holbrooke took an unusual approach to defining success in the region, including a recommendation to the assembled journalists and policymakers to view Stephen Colbert’s coverage of the upcoming Afghan presidential elections. Holbrooke called Colbert’s coverage “spot-on.”

Asked to define U.S. commitment in Afghanistan, Holbrooke said:

“We have to be realistic about Afghanistan…the military struggle with U.S. troops is not open-ended but we will continue with assistance.”

When asked to elaborate, Holbrooke responded:

“I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it’s like the Supreme Court test, we’ll know it when we see it.”

Holbrooke’s reference to the famous Supreme Court test for defining pornography, drew an uneasy silence from the packed room at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC.

Holbrooke’s problematic definition of success comes on the same day as a Washington Post report that US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry has requested $2.5 billion in non-military spending in Afghanistan for 2010.

The new administration’s focus on that money seems to be squarely aimed at developing local capacity as opposed to handing out money to contractors and sub-contractors:

“Rather than just pouring money into the [Afghan] government, we are focusing on rebuilding the relationships between sub national authorities and local communities.”

Alluding to past international failures to train the Afghan National Police, Holbrooke said “the biggest problem in Afghanistan is strengthening the police. In any analysis of guerilla wars and counterinsurgency, you have to have a strong police force.”

Holbrooke and other members of the team emphasized the difficulty of moving into any long-range planning for Afghanistan until after the August 20th presidential elections. The most recent positive developments center around game-changing death of militant Baitullah Mehsud.

Holbrooke noted:

“The events of the past week and a half have enormous importance. We just don’t know how yet.”

Katherine Gypson Afghanistan, Pakistan

We’ve been ramping up work on our September radio program on international religious freedom in the past week. One of my colleagues has just arrived in Pakistan and another has just returned from Vietnam, and those of us that have stayed on solid ground have been interviewing all sorts of people who have somehow worked on or been touched by this issue—from architects of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act to people who have fled religious persecution and resettled in the US.

One man we spoke with, a Muslim Uyghur from Xinjiang Province in western China talked about how he came to a small town in Tennessee to study journalism and began to write about his own experiences and the oppression of the Uyghurs—and more than 10 years later, he has yet to return home and says that he can never go back now that he is a recognized dissident.

I’ve been working on a video-web feature on the situation of the Baha’is in Iran, and in the last few days, I’ve met with several Iranian Baha’is who have had to leave home—one who paid smugglers to take him to Pakistan after his father was executed and another who was imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison as a young teen.

The common theme in these stories of religious persecution has been a loss of home—leaving, and never returning. There’s no question, if you ask these people, and anyone who enjoys practicing their religion openly and unfettered, why religious freedom is important, crucial, even, to living a healthy fulfilling life—and why it’s not something to be taken for granted. In fact, many Americans know religious freedom as the “first freedom,” the foundation for all other freedoms and a cornerstone of the campaign for human rights.

At the personal level, it’s not hard to understand why this issue is important, and why it touches a nerve with many, from government officials to churchgoers. The US has enshrined the promotion of religious freedom into law, and it’s been an official component of US foreign policy for more than a decade now. But how successful has America been in this goal? And how much can it hope to achieve given the trade-offs—pushing for religious freedom in China versus fostering economic ties and good relations with Beijing?

We’ll explore these and other questions in the show, coming out the first week of September.

Monica Villavicencio China, Pakistan, Religion, Vietnam

Two suspected drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan killed at least 45 people, including three top Taliban commanders according to Pakistani intelligence sources. The first missile attack hit what authorities said was a “Taliban training center.” The Pakistani government officially and publicly objects to strikes within its territory and have denied that drone attacks are taking place. The US denies involvement. From Al Jazeera:

Asked by Al Jazeera to comment on Tuesday’s reported attacks, the Pentagon denied any US involvement. “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan,” a statement said.

Watch an excerpt from Between Frontiers as Dan Markey, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations discusses why these drone attacks are necessary and why they must be done clandestinely.

Javier Barrera Pakistan, Tribal Areas