Not too long ago, the Tehrik-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that claimed the lives of at least 80 paramilitary cadets at a military training center in Charsadda, in Northern Pakistan. The Taliban announced the bombing was an act of revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden. It had taken out elements of […]
Has U.S. military aid to Pakistan over the past 50 years helped that country in any desirable way? Or is U.S. aid partly the cause of Pakistan’s dire security and development situation? Has aid to the military, and the ill-advised redistribution of that aid to other, less savory agents, fundamentally crippled governance and social and […]
I urge all our readers who live on the East Coast of the United States to tune into PBS stations at 10pm for “Bhutto”, a two hour investigative documentary on Benazir Bhutto, the assassinated former Prime Minister and PPP leader. An examination of the life and politics of Benazir Bhutto -once popular leader, assassinated in […]
Decades have passed since Pakistan’s elected government, the opposition, the military and the media spoke the same language on one issue. The last time when one saw overwhelming consensus among all these segments of society was perhaps the war with India in 1965. The killing of Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in a […]
By Malik Siraj Akbar Foreigners who have never heard of Pakistan’s Balochistan crisis are often comforted by the fact that they are not the only ones who do not know much about the raging conflict. Even most Pakistanis are equally ignorant about the gruesome developments taking place inside Balochistan because of a nearly complete blackout […]
The narrative of the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan is still in flux, nearly seven days out. The nucleus of that narrative however remains static : what did the Pakistani military and intelligence services know about bin Laden’s whereabouts, when did it know it and what did it do about that knowledge or […]
With the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in what appears to be a covert American operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistanis are in a state of deja vu. While the international community is caught in a state of disbelief that the world’s most wanted terrorist was hiding inside Pakistan, a country […]
Yesterday, May 3rd, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani went on Charlie Rose to defend his government’s inaction on the set of circumstances and events surrounding the near capture and, ultimately, targeted killing of Osama bin Laden. It was a revelatory chat. For, during that time in one move Ambassador Haqqani tried to quelch […]
Bin Ladin is dead. Again. In the last ten years he has been reported “killed” at least four times. The only difference this time was that the President of the United States announced the death of the number one terrorist in the world. Above all, this time he was killed not in Tora Bora, not […]
Zainab Jeewanjee comments on America’s killing of Osama bin Laden. She describes a resilient, rejuvenated United States that has an opportunity to foster new relationships with our allies, namely Pakistan.
President Obama is about to address the nation and declare that U.S troops have killed Osama Bin Laden, and that the U.S military is in possession of his body. The most wanted man in the world, responsible for the attacks on American soil on September 11, 2001 is now dead. The man whose actions led […]
General David Petraeus’ appointment at the new Director of Central Intelligence has been a well-regarded move within Washington D.C.’s political establishment. Islamabad, however has shrunk away from President Obama’s national security reshuffle that has now churned up the highest ranks of the Pentagon’s civilian and military leadership, as well as that of the nation’s top […]
It is abundantly clear that the Pakistani military intends to use the recent Raymond Davis affair as a bargaining chip that it hopes will keep rolling back to the negotiating table. Raymond Davis, a 36 year old man revealed to be a CIA contractor fatally shot two Pakistani men on the streets of Lahore earlier […]
The somewhat plodding resolution of the Raymond Davis affair last week was good news. Strategic and coordinative relations between the U.S and Pakistan were on the mend. But the recent drone attack that killed nearly 40 people has cut short that much needed re-engagement and amity. Relations have deteriorated so much so that Islamabad […]
In a statement released this morning, on the terrible occasion of at least 34 dead, 45 and more wounded at a funeral for the wife of a leading anti-Taliban leader, Kala Khan, in Peshawar, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani “reiterated the government’s resolve to root out the cancer of terrorism from every nook and corner […]