The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat There are reports that two men have been detained in a plane bound for Dubai. These men made verbal threats and were reported by fellow passengers to the staff. Armed Police than entered the plane with dogs and removed the men in question. It is not yet clear what was said and the number of people involved in the security incident. I hope it was nothing serious, otherwise there will be further media witch hunt against the innocent and law abiding Muslim citizens of Europe. Right wing publications like daily mail will have a hay day of spreading further hate.

By Sikander Hayat Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Yemen are under effective American occupation. Latin America was pacified during the reign of Ronald Reagan and “evil empire” of Soviet Union is long gone. Times are tough both for US and the Muslims around the world. Especially Muslims living as minorities in Western countries. With each passing day their future is becoming more and more bleak. The Al-Qaeda Terrorists are doing their best to isolate Muslims living in Europe & America from the mainstream societies and having a considerable success in doing so. With each and every attack or attempted attack on western interests, press coverage is painting all Muslims with the same brush. America is a juggernaut which will only change course when its time as an empire runs out like it did for Romans and Greeks before them. America will keep interfering in unstable parts of the world because when it does not, it gets blamed for not doing so. America will remain pro Israel as no one

By Sikander Hayat Lakki Marwat has been targeted in a suicide bomb blast in which 40 people have died and at least 100 have been injured. This is part of the growing campaign of terror perpetrated by the Pakistani Taliban with the help of foreign elements including some quite nasty neighbours. Pakistan is still talking and not taking any action against infiltration from Afghanistan especially in the knowledge that American have removed many of their security check points along the border with Pakistan. This American act is allowing many fighters from Afghanistan to enter Pakistan and do their evil deeds. Pakistan must talk to US and tell them that the one way traffic of do more demands will not do any more and Americans will have to do more as well. Americans will have to fulfil their part of the deal and seal the Afghanistan Pakistan border from their side as well. Everyday many Pakistanis are dying because of the scourge of terrorism and due to active Indian support for their acts. A

By Sikander Hayat It has been reported that in the Khost province of Afghanistan a suicide bomber has killed 8 CIA officers. The bomber was an Afghan Army officer and was well known to his victims. In a separate incident in Kandahar, four soldiers and a journalist were killed Wednesday by a powerful improvised explosive device in the worst loss of Canadian life in Afghanistan in two-and-a-half years. The five deaths occurred as the soldiers in armoured vehicles patrolled in what was considered to be a safe part of southern Kandahar city. The military did not immediately release any names because of problems notifying family. However, journalists on the base identified the reporter killed as Michelle Lang, 34, a reporter with the Calgary Herald. She was in the back of an armoured vehicle at the time. In one day coalition forces have lost 13 personnel signalling an increase in Taliban increasing their activity in the southern and eastern provinces of Afghanistan. This is also significant

By Sikander Hayat Peshawar has been targeted again by the terrorists killing five innocent people and injuring many others. Twenty seven people are injured. The blast occurred in busy Mall Road, home to government offices, banks and private companies. According to the bomb disposal squad, about eight to 10kg of explosives were used in the attack. The attack came two days after a teenage suicide bomber attacked a Pakistan journalists' club in Peshawar, killing three people in an unprecedented assault on the media.

By Sikander Hayat According to the latest reports a suicide attacker has attacked DG Khan in which ten people have died. Zulfikar ali Khosa, a senior Muslim league ( Nawaz) leader, his house has also been damaged. More than 10 shops are completely destroyed in Khosa market.

By Sikander Hayat There has been a new development in war againjst terror as Abu Yahya Al Libi has been killed in a drone attack in the region of Spilgram near Miran Shah. There was a bounty of 10 million dollars on his head.

By Sikander Hayat These days Quetta is mostly notable because of Western & Indian propaganda about the presence of so called “Quetta Shura” but Quetta is a city with a different soul and is the most multiethnic city of the Balochistan province. Quetta has a rich history and is the holder of unmatched cultural beauty. These days USA is trying to find ways to attack Quetta but they are in for a surprise if they actually do this because straight away whatever goodwill is present in Pakistan for the America’s activities in this neighbourhood will quickly vanish and replaced by hostility. America thinks that Taliban have fled from Afghanistan and have settled in Quetta. Even if this statement is considered as true what is the guarantee that if Quetta is attacked then Taliban will not flee once again further into Pakistan. What will USA do then? Would they attack the rest of Pakistan in that case? This policy of furthering the war is not a wise one and is a mistake which America made in

By Sikander Hayat Finally President Obama has given the clearest signal yet that United States of America is losing its appetite for an unending conflict in Afghanistan. Obama has given a timeline for the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan and for that withdrawal to happen, he has increased the number of troops in Afghanistan by another 30,000 to finish the job. This is a kind of final push by the American president who is worried by the state of economy at home and who knows that if economy is not fixed by the time next presidential elections are around in 2012, he will have no chance of getting elected again. For that reason he wants to avoid a prolonged war and the best way to achieve the goal of a relatively short war is to put extra troops in the areas where Taliban are at their strongest. These are mostly southern & eastern provinces which include Helmand, Kandhar, Wardak, Paktia, Paktika, Farah etc. Fighting will be the fiercest in these areas, because Taliban had

By Sikander Hayat Mr Brown does not know how many soldiers Pakistan has lost to terrorists. You have been in Afghanistan for last eight years and you have not been able to break the back of Taliban & Al-Qaida. Why should not you be doing more to beat Taliban and Al-Qaida? Why with all your power, you were not able to stop Taliban from attacking the elections in Afghanistan? Why did you oversee the most corrupt elections in the history of the world? Pakistan is fighting your war and paying the price in the form of lost lives of innocent women, children and men. Don’t push Pakistan to the point where you have to hear “no more” from the people of this country. They are already paying the price of your sins as you attacked Afghanistan and then put it on the sidelines to attack Iraq. Why did you not care about Afghanistan when your eyes were all set on Iraq’s oil fields? Why did you not finish the job then when you had the chance? Why shift the blame now? In those years when you were

By Sikander Hayat What is the most pressing problem of Pakistan at the moment, terrorism you might say but I believe that there is an even bigger issue which is the underlying cause for terrorism as well. It is that of economy. It is rarely the case that chattering classes in Pakistan and the people who roam the corridors of power give economy a priority in their decision making. They are more concerned with trivialities of daily politics and the petty issues that have hampered Pakistan’s progress as a nation in last 60 years. As a people, Pakistanis like good gossip and that need is amply fulfilled by the politics. To them economy is boring and although it is the biggest problem Pakistan is facing right now, it is somewhere near the bottom on the list of priorities. After elections brought a civilian government back to power, Pakistan is reeling. It's not just the attacks by militants. The economy, which had been growing steadily, has been hit hard by spiking fuel and food costs.

By Sikander Hayat There has been a feeling of mistrust between the countries of Afghanistan & Pakistan from the day of Pakistani independence from British rule. Afghanistan tried to stop Pakistan from becoming the member of United Nations as a recognised state. For the record, Iran was the first country to recognise Pakistan as an independent state on the map of the world. Afghanistan is a country where Pakhtuns have always dominated the corridors of power and their percentage in the ethnic composition of the country is 40% with Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbek and other ethnic group making rest of the 60%. Although there is a large number of non Pakhtun nationals of Afghanistan but still the ruling class of this country look at it as a Pakhtun nation and thereby give itself a responsibility to save the Pakhtuns living in neighbouring Pakistan. Here I am looking at the issue through the Afghan perspective which has the mindset that somehow people living in the tribal agencies of Pakistan need

By Sikander Hayat Charsadda has been attacked today when a car bomb was detonated in the heart of a busy public area. 15 people died and this figure is expected to get worse. Nearly a hundred people are injured. “Brave” Pakistani Taliban are butchering civilians everyday to teach Pakistani government a lesson and to retaliate against the army action in the tribal areas of the country. But killing of civilians will only bring their defeat closer.

By Sikander Hayat Today in Peshawar the brave warriors of Allah again killed innocent children of Pakistan in a crowded market leaving lives unfulfilled, the sorrow of losing loved ones and deep deep hatred in the wake of the bomb blast. These people who have killed and maimed hundreds of innocent woman and children in the name of Allah are the real enemies of Allah. They pretend to fight for Allah’s cause but really they are the killers who get paid by the enemies of Pakistan to do their evil deeds. Pakistanis have had enough of this barbarism and there is a strong undercurrent against these so called warriors of Allah. Time is not far when anyone with a beard will refrain from going on the streets of Pakistan because people of Pakistan have seen the real face of these barbarians. Allah says in Quaran “If you kill one man, you have killed the whole mankind”. These so called Pakistani Taliban are puppets in the hands of Indian RAW and other foreign agencies and those who say that thes

Interior Minister Rehman Malik has come down hard on India. ‘We have solid evidence that not only in Balochistan but India is involved in almost every terrorist activity in Pakistan,’ Mr Malik said on Wednesday. On Balochistan, it is understood that, despite denials by both sides, Pakistan handed over a dossier on Indian activities there at the meeting between the Pakistani and Indian prime ministers in Sharm el Sheikh in July, capping a long series of complaints on the issue by Pakistan. What is notable about the claims of Indian involvement in Balochistan is that the international powers have not downplayed them. On the issue of Indian involvement in ‘almost every terrorist’ act in Pakistan, however, Mr Malik’s claim would appear to be an exaggeration, for it is well known that there are non-state actors inside Pakistan whose goal is to destabilise the state for ideological reasons that have nothing to do with India; indeed, many of those non-state actors regard ‘Hindu’ India as an e

THE government is trying to create an alternative intelligence and military system in the country in trying to bypass the army and the ISI. The same was experimented during their rule in 1970s and they are repeating it now. A new intelligence agency is also being planned along with the Federal Security Force. According to a report, the federal government is likely to reintroduce the Federal Security Force (FSF), formerly launched by ZAB in the early 70s but dismantled by the martial law regime of Gen Ziaul Haq. Sources close to the government, Minister of State for Interior Tasneem Qureshi, on special instructions of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, has been working on different ideas and plans to create a combat outfit to fight terrorism without engaging the country’s regular army in such unconventional fights within the borders. After working on different plans, the state minister for interior has come up with the final plan of relaunching of the

Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said that there is clear evidence of Indian involvement in Balochistan and that New Delhi should not be pointing fingers at Islamabad. The interior minister said that India must be prepared to come to the table and discuss their concerns. He added that Pakistan is well aware of the Indian involvement in Balochistan and if given the opportunity, they will present officials in New Delhi with concrete evidence. He was responding to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statements, when the federal minister warned that India should not hurl accusations at Pakistan as it is fighting a war on terror and is also holding trials of the Mumbai attack suspects. He said that India should respect Pakistan’s judicial system. Condemning the twin bombings at the International Islamic University in Islamabad yesterday, the federal interior minister stressed that militants are now aiming to create panic in the country and that innocent civilians are being targeted. Pa

A senior government official said that the government and party leaders gave the military full backing on Friday, vowing to weed out militants and restore the writ of the state. "The ground operation has begun," said Tariq Hayat Khan, the secretary of Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal regions. The army has said about 28,000 soldiers are in place to take on an estimated 10,000 hard-core Taliban. About 500 commandos arrived in the region on Friday, security officials said. The army has stepped up its air and artillery attacks in recent days to soften up the militants' defences while civilians have been fleeing. The militants have launched a series of brazen attacks in the past 12 days, striking at the United Nations, the army headquarters, police and the general public, killing more than 150 people and apparently trying to stave off the army assault. The head of the army, General Ashfaq Kayani briefed government and party leaders on Friday and they all agreed that the mi