The massacre the world ignored: Parachinar

by 'Ya Baqiyatullah'

Very few open crimes against humanity are as disregarded as the assault against Shia Muslims in Parachinar, an area west of Islamabad. Many European and American media outlets have completely ignored the onslaught against Shia civilians at the hands of the Taliban and Sunni extremist militants. Parachinar is a town of 20,000 individuals, with almost all being exclusively Shiites and belonging to the Turi and Bangash tribes.

Extremist Sunni tribesmen from the North Waziristan agency along with militants from the Arab countries and the Caucasus have been attacking the Shia civilians for he past two years. Hundreds if not thousands of Shias have already been killed, and the important supply routes are also controlled by the militants. The supply of food and medical equipment has been badly affected, consequently doctors have had to operate without anesthesia. Power and water supplies are sparse and subject to sabotage and lack of functionality.

Interview of a native of Parachinar by 'Ya Baqiyatullah'

YB: To begin with, can you please give a brief introduction about yourself?

SZ: My name is Sayed Zeeshan, I am currently residing in Islamabad but occasionally visit my village in the North West Province of Pakistan, where the conflict is going on. I have a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and am currently working as a Research Engineer in a research organization in Islamabad.

YB: To understand the situation at hand in Parachinar one needs to look at the historical aspect of the situation to see the current situation, can you summarize for how this struggle began and what have been the major events of this struggle?

SZ: Indeed, the historical perspective to every conflict is very important. Instead of focusing on the conflict in Parachinar, I must deal with it as a problem which affects the whole area of North West Frontier Province including Parachinar, Hangu, Kohat, Orakzai and Dera Ismail Khan. Except for Dera Ismail Khan the other regions are loosely interconnected geographically. Prior to 1980s the Shia-Sunni conflict was muted if even existent. Orakzai was the only area where there are known instances of hostilities before 1980. In 1977, Army Chief Zia-ul-Haq overthrew democratically elected President, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in a coup d’état and later hanged him in 1979. USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and the Afghan war started which lasted ten long years from 1979-1989. Being a Military dictator, Zia, sidelined the popular parties and backed Islamist Parties, which were rather unknown till then, prime among them were Jamat Islami (JI) and Jamiat Ulama Islam (JUI). These parties were used to prepare militias for the Afghan war which primarily consisted of Islamist Jihadists. This war was funded by Arab oil money and the US. It was a part of the ongoing cold war between USSR and the US which US has vowed to win no matter what forces they had to support. With the coming of Saudi and Arab money a mushroom growth of Doebandi madrasas (religious seminaries) was witnessed in the North West and Baluchistan provinces in the areas adjoining Afghanistan.

At around the same time another group called Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) was emerging in South Punjab lead by Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, the ex- provincial vice chief of JUI. Their sole agenda was to declare the Shia population of Pakistan as non Muslim as was done to Ahmedis in 1974. With the emergence of SSP and LJ (Lashkar Jhangvi, a splinter group of SSP) a wave of Shia target killings began. Most of the operatives of these terrorist groups had directly/indirectly taken part in Afghan War and had very good working relations with other jihadist organizations that were active in Kashmir and Afghanistan. This all was ignored by the government and the security agencies (primarily ISI) because of the strategic partnership with the Jihadist Organization for their agendas in Kashmir and Afghanistan to gain “strategic depth”. These organizations were sectarian up to the hilt. Although only a few of them saw Shias as their prime enemies they all thought of Shias as antagonists up to a certain degree. In Hangu and Parachinar the war affected Afghans settled their throughout 80s and 90s. SSP and LJ started recruiting them and then used them to attack Shia targets. This is the backdrop in which this conflict started.

The important incidents were the attacks on Shia Turi tribesmen of Parachinar by the Afghans in 1986. Another significant incident was the tribal war that started in Hangu and Orakzai in 1998 after a clash over flag rising on the event of Nauroz (Spring Solstice celebrations). Taliban from Orakzai attacked Shia village of Shahu Khel and razed it to ground; killing scores of Shia men, women and children. Hundreds of families were dislocated and took refuge in neighboring Shia villages. Army intervened afterwards to calm the situation. Since 2005, when a suicide bomber attacked Ashura Procession in Hangu and managed to kill 40 people, every year the local Shia and Sunni tribes clash with each other using heavy weapons to target each others’ positions and at times civilian population. Usually it’s because of the intransigence of the radical local Sunni groups, inspired by SSP, that the Ashura processions are not allowed to be taken out.

External forces, like Taliban from the nearby areas like Douaba and Orakzai and some tribesmen from Parachinar also took part in this conflict. In fact, in 2008, the ceasefire was only enforced when the Army provided a safe passage to the external Taliban forces that were adamant to continue hostilities. In Kurram, the capital of which is Parachinar, gunmen attacked a Shia procession and killed several people. This kick started a series of events that gave rise to a full blown tribal war between Turi (Shia) tribesmen on one side and Bangash (Sunni) tribesmen on the other side, whom were also helped by the Taliban from Waziristan and Orakzai. The road links were closed for all kinds of traffic and a severe shortage of food and medicine started. This conflict was escalated by a particular gory incident. Army wanted to transport some foodstuff in trucks to Parachinar, which was blockaded for months, but Taliban attacked the convoy, the Army marooned the convoy and absconded; the truck drivers were taken by the Taliban. They executed them in a very brutal fashion, reminiscent of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, severing the heads and limbs of the victims in an animalistic fashion.

This exacerbated the situation still further and the Turi tribesmen went on offensive taking several of Bangash villages. It ensued in a deadlock situation and after several rounds of talks between the tribal elders of both sides in Islamabad a ceasefire agreement was reached in October, 2008. This fragile agreement is holding on by thin strings. There have been several killings and kidnappings after the agreement. The roads are open but people travel on these roads with throbbing hearts, waiting for something gory to happen. Shias from Parachinar and Hangu areas have also been killed in Dara Adam Khel, a lawless town connecting Kohat to Peshawar. People were stopped and based on the ID card information (name, residence etc.) decapitated. The situation is particularly difficult for Shias who are killed indiscriminately for the only reason of being Shia.

YB: Do you have an estimate for the population within the affected region?

SZ:The figures I am providing are rather crude and are used here to give an idea of the population. The population of Kohat is roughly about a million people. That of Orakzai and Parachinar will add another million to this figure.

YB: What is the demographic makeup in the North-West region of Pakistan, with particular emphasis on the sectarian composition of the population?

SZ: Quite a few villages in Kohat consist of a majority Shia population; they are mainly located between the districts of Kohat and Hangu and a few in Orakzai. Upper Kurram also consists of mainly Shia villages and the town of Parachinar is primarily Shia. There is a zone separating Kurram from Hangu populated by primarily Sunni population. Towards the south of Parachinar is the restive North Waziristan which is the stronghold of Taliban.

YB: How would you describe the nature of sectarian relations over the years?

SZ: There wasn’t any big conflict going on in this region prior to the Zia’s Jihad campaign. This question has been dealt with in detail in the answer to the second question.

YB: Militant terror groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba are said to operate in the region, and are blamed for the ongoing violence. Did these groups receive any support from regional and international players; would you care to kindly elaborate on the local and regional context of the developments within the region?

SZ: This question is a bit tricky and the information regarding the financial aspect of these organizations is a bit hazy. Although it is well known that the Arab oil money and the CIA money played a big role in arming and maintaining the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan but the sectarian phenomenon, which although intertwined with the global Jihad, is relatively recent. It is concurrent with the advent of Taliban in Afghanistan, which drew its force from Pakistani madrasas. Taliban were helped financially by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as asserted in the famous book Taliban by Ahmed Rashid. They were also helped by the drug money that came to Afghanistan through the poppy and heroin trade. Some of the groups like SPP and LJ were helped by local and Middle Eastern traders. After 9-11, Pakistan joined the war against terror but didn’t stop supporting the jihadist groups completely. Now this strategy has backfired and TTP, which consists of a plethora of Jihadist groups, sectarian or otherwise, has gained significant clout in regions bordering Afghanistan and several settled areas like Swat Valley. These groups operate by looting weapons from security forces and NATO convoys, getting money from local population and Middle Eastern traders under charity organizations and kidnapping wealthy people, especially Shia. Some of the money comes from Arab countries which they give to madrasas to export Salafism. It is asserted by some political analysts that some rouge elements of the ISI are still backing these groups but the validity of this claim is still unverified.

YB: Do they still receive support from these quarters? And what is the nature of this support?

SZ: They still receive support from these quarters. They mainly receive money from wealthy businessmen in Arab countries. Some of the money comes from drug trade and some from Arab countries that use this money to gain support for Salafism.

YB: Are there any Shia groups operating in the area to ensure safety of the Shia residents there and around that area?

SZ: There are several groups operating in the area but they usually have local roles. These groups aren’t very organized and lack command and control structure and therefore aren’t too much effective. Although, they successfully defend their areas in time of conflict and provide a buffer between the attackers and the civilian population, they still lack leadership. They consist of local people who have some knowhow of the warfare and are supported by small donations from the locals in form of defense funds.

YB: According to experts, the central policy of the former government in Pakistan was said to have unleashed a "violence-accommodation cycle". What is your assessment and do you think the present administration will treat these militant groups any differently?

SZ: This is a very old policy of cozying up to jihadists to achieve the ends in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Although a certain level of reversal of this policy has been witnessed in recent days but it’s too little too late. For instance, the radical madrasas which spread sectarian hatred are thriving with impunity. Maulvis have been given free hand to preach sectarianism from mosque pulpits. The target killings of Shias have risen exponentially since the arrival of the democratic government. All these factors indicate that there is no serious effort going on to eradicate these ills from the society.

YB: As we speak today, many towns in the Kurram Agency have been under virtual siege from early 2007 - a period of two years. Can you describe the humanitarian situation on the ground? Additionally, have humanitarian aid organizations, particularly international ones, played any significant role in dealing with the humanitarian situation?

SZ: Things are a bit better now since the ceasefire that came in effect in October, 2008. But this agreement is very fragile. It’s waiting like a time bomb to blast any day. It is because the root problem has not been addressed. The monster has been put under the carpet for now but it will raise its head again with much ferocity than previously witnessed. As for the international aid agencies, there has been no significant help. One reason is the closure of the transportation routes heading towards Parachinar from Pakistan but the routes from Afghanistan were open. International aid agencies were in a better position to help because of their presence in Afghanistan, but they chose to ignore this problem or weren’t well informed.

YB: What is the reason for the muted coverage of the crisis in the region by Western media outlets? Can anything be done to place the spotlight on the grave human costs and tales of sorrow from the region?

SZ: The local media covered this event somewhat, although insignificantly, without divulging any details about the sectarian aspect of this problem and made it look like a tribal war between warring factions. In fact this is the case with any sectarian event. The logic they give is that this issue is too sensitive to be discussed publicly. It would flare conflict in other parts of the country. This is the kind of apathy we are dealing with in Pakistan. As for the international media, the tribal areas are too remote and restive for the international journalists to operate. But that is not a good reason for them to ignore such significant events. There are other ways in which these events could be covered. BBC Urdu did cover the event in somewhat detail but it doesn’t have an international outreach.

YB: Any final words, particularly to the Shias situated in the West?

SZ: I would say that the apathy has gone for too long and if something significant is not done a massacre is in waiting. It has happened before in Mazar Sharif (Afghanistan) in 1998, it could happen in any of these areas again. Hundreds of people have been killed; scores of children died of lack of medicines and this conflict is far from over. The Western Shias should put pressure on the Government of Pakistan through demonstrations and lobbying and by writing to different news agencies, informing them of the scale of the atrocities. This is the least that anyone can do. They could also help by donating for the orphans of the conflict which number in hundreds if not thousands.
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Commentary: I am deeply grateful to 'Ya Baqiyatullah' for offering this amazingly interesting and important information on my blog. Many topics touched upon here (the role of Pakistan, Sunni extremism, ISI, the Taliban, etc.) are, I believe of immense importance not only to the region, but to the entire world. As my readers already know, I strongly believe that the kind of extreme Sunni Islamism (Wahabism, Salafism, Deobandism, Qutbism, etc. - they all have a common root) which is now growing in influence in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and much of the Sunni Muslim world is a major threat to, literally, the entire planet. Likewise, I believe that the opposition that many feel to the 'imperial' policies of the elites which have now taken control of the USA should not obscure the fact that there are other, equally dangerous, foes out there, some even possibly harder to defeat than the "last superpower" (since the latter is well on its way to deafeat itself having become a de-facto Israeli colony and client state).

'Ya Baqiyatullah's' interview clearly shows that Sunni extremists make absolutely no difference between the infidel kafirs and their fellow Muslims if the latter dare to confess a different type of Islam. Nor will they make any distinction along ethnic lines: they will murder anyone, including their fellow Pakistanis, just like they murdered Daniel Perl or Russian conscripts in Chechnia: by slitting their throats and cutting off their heads. In their mind, just like in Dubya's, you are "either with us or against us" and if you choose the latter, well, then murdering you is a pious act.

From the many comments to my recent piece on Afghanistan (I thank you all for sharing them with us!!) I get a strong sense that many are still dubious about the reality of the threat presented by this type of Sunni Islamism. I will therefore try to regularly post articles here which describe some important feature of this phenomenon.

The Saker

Are the Taliban "The Enemy" or Not?

By Jeffrey Imm

Once again, another national leader of an American "ally" in the "war on terror" has offered to help the Taliban regain political power. AP has reported that Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai offered "to meet personally with Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace talks and give the militants a high position in a government ministry as a way to end the rising insurgency in Afghanistan." AP reports that Karzai stated: "If a group of Taliban or a number of Taliban come to me and say, 'President, we want a department in this or in that ministry or we want a position as deputy minister ... and we don't want to fight anymore ... If there will be a demand and a request like that to me, I will accept it because I want conflicts and fighting to end in Afghanistan." This echoes comments this week by the UK Defense Minister that "the Taliban will need to be involved in the peace process".

In February 2007, the Afghanistan parliament granted immunity to the Taliban's Mullah Omar and other Mujahideen for 25 years worth of activities. Now Afghan President Karzai wants to meet personally with Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace talks to allow the Taliban to join the Afghanistan government. (There is no word if the U.S. State Department would continue to offer $10 million for the whereabouts of Mullah Omar, although he is no longer on their main page of wanted terrorists.) Taliban leader Mullah Omar was reputed to have signed last year's Taliban peace truce with Pakistan.

But isn't the Taliban "the enemy" of the United States of America?

If not, what exactly does the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) call for? The AUMF called for war against "those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations", which surely included the Taliban. Furthermore, there are 171 clustered references to the Taliban in the Final Report of the 9/11 Commission. What more exactly does the United States need to view the Taliban as "the enemy"? Based on the AUMF, how can the Taliban be any less of an enemy to the United States, than Al Qaeda itself?

And if the Taliban are "the enemy", how can Americans accept the Taliban or the Taliban ideology in any political organization of an "ally" nation, let alone ones that American taxpayers provide millions of dollars to? Where is the outrage from American political leadership on this? Why is there no outrage among American political leaders at offers to "legitimize" the same Taliban that helped Al Qaeda in its Jihadist camps to kill 3,000 Americans? As previously discussed, the lack of clarity in identifying the enemy in this war is precisely what allows such disturbing realpolitik considerations.

What do such "peace at any cost" negotiations with an enemy of the United States mean to Jihadists in justifying the use of political terrorism? If the Taliban regain political power in Afghanistan, does American leadership agree that we should lose the Afghanistan war to end the fighting? Isn't that what, in other words, we call "surrender"? Or has our ambiguity about the identity of the enemy gotten so dense that American leadership can now rationalize the Taliban itself?

Earlier this month, Karzai called for peace talks with the Taliban, but the Taliban rejected such talks until "foreign troops" leave Afghanistan. This is a demand that Karzai has rejected on the basis: "[i]t should be very clear until all our roads are paved, until we have good electricity and good water, and also until we have a better Afghan national army and national police, I don't want any foreigners to leave Afghanistan". Is Karzai saying that he just doesn't want western aid to stop, as it did for Hamas?

Karzai's offer for political empowerment to the Taliban in Afghanistan comes as UPI and the Daily Telegraph report that the Taliban has publicly released its "Constitution of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan", which provides insight into what the Taliban would do if indeed such political empowerment was realized. The Daily Telegraph reports that the "23-page document envisages a country where women would remain veiled and uneducated, 'un-Islamic thought' would be banned and human rights would be ignored if 'contrary with the teachings of Islam' ", where "violators will be punished according to sharia", and that stipulates that all other constitutions are void. Furthermore, the Taliban constitution has called for "good relations" with those countries supporting Afghanistan "during jihad". I think we can make an educated guess that the Taliban would not consider such countries to include the United States.

Is this the legal system with "its roots in Islamic law" that the UK Defense Minister was stating this week would be a solution to fighting in Afghanistan?

This follows the August offer by Pakistan President Musharraf to help the Taliban become a mainstream political organization. At the August 12 jirga meeting, President Musharraf reflected that as "Taliban are a part of Afghan society", and "all of them are not diehard militants and fanatics", that reaching the Taliban and pro-Taliban population required "a more comprehensive political and development approach". President Bush was reported to have congratulated Pakistan President Musharraf on his efforts at the jirga.

Realpolitik negotiators may believe that there is a "bad Taliban" and a "good Taliban". In Presidents Karzai and Musharraf's views, the "bad Taliban" is violent, and the "good Taliban" is well, just simply "fundamentalist" in their Islamist view of the world. Does America agree with that assessment? Because that is the direction that war in Afghanistan is going based on these outreach efforts to bring the Taliban into the political mainstream. Realpolitik negotiators may believe that bringing the Taliban into a "democratic" political process will end the conflict and fighting in Afghanistan.

Did bringing Hezbollah into the Lebanon government end fighting in Lebanon?
Did Hamas' election to the Palestinian government bring peace to the Palestinian territories?
Did the Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic government in Iran bring peace to Iran and its relations with the world?
Has the growing influence of Islamist political and other groups in Pakistan brought stability and peace to Pakistan?

Yet NATO, UN, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the US are all tolerating the idea of peace talks with the Taliban to bring them back into political power in the Afghanistan government. Americans don't even have to compare this to Islamist Iran as an analogy. We have already seen what the Taliban did when they held political power in Afghanistan. Our national homeland was physically attacked and thousands of Americans died as a result. On this near anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, how could we forget that? What next - will we be negotiating a political "mainstream" party for Al Qaeda?

Moreover, with their latest constitution, the Taliban has told us specifically what they plan to do, if they do get back into power. We know who and what the Taliban are and what they plan to do if they regain power. Yet still, American leadership is not denouncing talks to allow the Taliban to return to Afghanistan government power.

If so, this begs the obvious question, what are we fighting for?

Afghan president counters US rhetoric on Iranian role

AFP - WASHINGTON: Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a key US ally, contradicted US assessments of the threat posed by Iran and insisted in an interview aired Sunday that Tehran played a beneficial role in his region. "So far, Iran has been a helper and a solution," Karzai told CNN on the eve of a visit here Sunday to meet with President George W. Bush for talks on the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

"Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror, and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan," said Karzai, who became president with US backing in 2002.

His remarks differed markedly from the US stance, which sees Iran as a major menace that bankrolls terrorists, supplies arms to insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, and seeks to develop nuclear weapons.

The position was reiterated on Sunday by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as she defended the decision to sell tens of billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to thwart Iran.

"I don't think anybody doubts that Iran constitutes a major challenge, security challenge, to our friends, our allies, and therefore to our interests in the Gulf region," Rice said.

But asked about US suggestions that Iranian weaponry was being funneled into Afghanistan, where Taliban fundamentalists were mounting a reinvigorated insurgency six years after their ouster, Karzai was noncommittal.

"We have had reports of the kind you just mentioned. We are looking into these reports," he said in the interview conducted Saturday.

He added that Afghanistan and Iran had "very, very good, very, very close relations, thanks in part also to an understanding of the US in this regard."

"We will continue to have good relations with Iran. We will continue to resolve issues, if there are any, to arise," Karzai said.

Also interviewed on CNN, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates responded to Karzai's comments by offering that Iran was "playing both sides of the street in Afghanistan."

"I think they're doing some things to help the Afghan government," said Gates, who just returned from a Mideast tour, adding: "I think they're also doing things to help the Taliban, including providing weapons."

Karzai also said that he would do everything to help free 21 South Korean missionaries short of actions that would encourage more hostage-taking.

Asked whether he would negotiate with the Taliban kidnappers to secure the release of the Koreans, Karzai said: "We will try everything to have them released safely and in security.

"We will do everything other than encouraging hostage-taking and terrorism to have them released," he added.

Karzai said the kidnappers, who seized the 23 South Korean church aid workers on July 19 and have killed two of them to try to force the government to release Taliban prisoners, mainly foreigners.

Amy Goodman interviews Ahmed Rashid from Lahore

Ahmed Rashid was interviewed by phone from Lahore, Pakistan, by Amy Goodman for DemocracyNow!. Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore. He is author of three books including “Taliban” and most recently “Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia.” He has covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia for the past 25 years and writes for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Daily Telegraph, and The Wall Street Journal.

AMY GOODMAN: In Pakistan the standoff at Islamabad’s Red Mosque appears to be nearing a close following a deadly raid by Pakistani troops that killed at least fifty people. The numbers could be far higher. The rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi was among the dead. Fighting continued earlier today but Pakistani troops are said to be in control of most of the compound. The Pakistan government says it stormed the mosque after talks to end the week-long crisis broke down. Critics say the bloodshed could have been avoided with more time.

The Bush administration has come out in support of the raid. The US State Department praised Pakistan’s "responsible" decision to storm the mosque, saying the militants had ample time to surrender, while President George W. Bush hailed Musharraf as a strong ally.

The Pakistani army says it now controls 95% of the complex. Security forces began a full-scale siege of the mosque last Tuesday, not long after mosque students abducted seven Chinese workers they accused of running a brothel. The Pakistani government had said it wanted to detain a number of people on a wanted list, also a number of foreigners whom it said were inside. Talks reportedly broke down over rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi"s demands for an amnesty for all in the mosque.

Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore. He is author of three books, including Taliban and most recently Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. He has covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia for the past quarter-century, writes for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Daily Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal. He joins us on the phone from Lahore, Pakistan. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Ahmed Rashid.

AHMED RASHID: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Can you explain what you understand happened at the mosque?

AHMED RASHID: Well, the real questions that are being asked now is simply -- first of all, this crisis erupted in January when these two mullahs, religious leaders of the mosque, two brothers, defied the central government and said they would take action to impose Sharia, Islamic law, in Islamabad. And it has been escalating ever since. And worst of all, over the last few months, in the mosque they have been accumulating huge amounts of arms, ammunition, money, mobile phones, etc. They set up a network in which they were trying to mobilize madrassas, religious schools and mosques all over the country. And this was happening literally within half a mile of the headquarters of the ISI, that is the Inter-Services Intelligence, the premier intelligence agency, which is cooperating with the CIA in the war on terror, and about a mile from the house -- from the official residence of the president and right next to the diplomatic community, the US ambassador, etc. So the fact that this was happening right in the middle of Islamabad, next to all these things, raises the question of, why were these people being allowed to do all this, and what was Musharraf's aim in allowing, you know all this to escalate until you had the need to actually go in and kill perhaps 150-200 people?

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about now the president, General Musharraf’s position? What is the response of the people of Pakistan to this raid -- the casualties are still yet unknown, estimates fifty or more -- and then the US support, continued support for Musharraf?

AHMED RASHID: Well, I think the people are reading the US support, if I could deal with that first, very cynically. I mean, the statement that Musharraf has acted very responsibly is a bit of a joke, frankly. I mean, you know, this has been going on for six months, as I said earlier. But apart from that, I think, what has happened has left people very shocked and very polarized. I don't think so much that there’s sympathy for the extremists. I think one thing these extremists have done by their stupidity and their stubbornness has been to actually turn many people off extremism and to actually get people to denounce it. But people are also appalled at the way the government has acted and at the huge loss of life that has taken place, and, you know, nobody's coming forward to answer any of these questions as to how, you know, the arms and ammunition were able to go in.

So you have had a reaction in the last forty-eight hours from the Northwest Frontier province. That’s the province adjacent to Afghanistan, where there is a large presence of Pakistani Taliban, that is, militant Pashtun tribesmen on the Pakistan side of the border, who’ve been trying to put the same agenda of Islamic law in the region. And they have been demonstrating against Musharraf. They’ve been burning his effigy. There have been bomb blasts against soldiers, against policemen. At least ten soldiers have died in the last two or three days and perhaps as many as thirty policemen. And the army has moved into many of these -- many of the most volatile valleys where there could be very serious unrest. So we still have to see whether this province is going to react.

But as far as the rest of the country is concerned, where 80% of the population live, it’s been relatively quiet. The other madrassas, many of the leading radical madrassas in Karachi, in Lahore, in other cities, have been surrounded by police to make sure that none of the students come out. So far, at least, there’s relative quiet, apart from what has been happening in the Northwest Frontier.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist based in Lahore. I wanted to ask you about something else you have written about, Ahmed. New evidence has emerged suggesting that Pakistan is planning to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal. A leading Washington think tank says satellite photos show Pakistan is close to completing a third previously unknown plutonium production reactor. David Albright, I believe, the former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, said the plant would give Pakistan the ability to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. Your response?

AHMED RASHID: Well, I think it's very clear that, you know, there is very little information about this, and, of course, when this report was released in the American papers, Pakistan properly denied that it was anything new and said it was just part of an old reactor that had been built. The fact is that there is an arms race going on with India, and there’s no doubt that India is making its nuclear weapons arsenal far more sophisticated now, being able to put it on submarines and aircraft carriers and land and sea capability and second-strike capability. And the Pakistanis are trying to match them, if not in numbers, but certainly in terms of quality, as it were. I think most Americans experts agree now that a missile-mounted nuclear warhead has been perfected by Pakistan, whereas India is still a bit behind on that. So I think, you know, what -- we are seeing an arms race. I mean, there's no doubt in the subcontinent.

There's a huge arms race in conventional weapons. Pakistan has received something like $10 billion in aid from the Americans since 9/11, and about half of that, more than half of that, has gone to the military. A good 70% to 80% of that has just been used to buy American weapons systems. And so, you know, there’s a lot of criticism of that, both here and in the United States, not surprisingly, because a lot of this money should have been earmarked for social programs, economic development, etc., but this being a military regime, naturally they have spent the money the way they wanted.

AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed Rashid, do you see the general, President Musharraf, falling? And who are the major forces arrayed against him?

AHMED RASHID: Well, what -- I think, you know, Musharraf really has a choice now: is he going to now go after these fundamentalists and extremists and at the same time gather political support around him, in other words, put out the wide indication that he wants to have a free and fair election and get political support with him for those elections, in which case, there would be political support from moderate secular parties for actions he would have to take against the extremists, or is he going to go down the same road that he has pursued since 9/11, which is this double-dealing road of satisfying the Americans with a bit al-Qaeda, a bit of Taliban here and there, but essentially allowing the Taliban and these extremists who exist in Pakistan and to be able to launch attacks inside Afghanistan? So I think, you know, he's faced with a critical fork in the road. Which way he goes, we still have to see.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Afghanistan, the reports coming out now that US/NATO forces have killed more Afghan civilians since the beginning of the year than Taliban attacks have, and villagers in a remote western area of Afghanistan now claiming at least a hundred civilians were killed in US-led NATO air strikes in the last week.

AHMED RASHID: Well, yes, I mean, you know, this has become a really very serious issue, despite the fact that, you know, the Taliban are also using civilians in a horrendous way. We’ve just had this bomb blast in southern Afghanistan yesterday in which twelve school children were killed. It was a suicide bomber aiming to kill Dutch soldiers. He injured seven Dutch soldiers, killed himself and killed twelve schoolchildren. So, you know, the Taliban are doing the same thing.

But clearly, the tragedy in Afghanistan is that the NATO and American forces, there are too few troops on the ground. They don't have enough equipment. There are not enough helicopters, etc. Sometimes there are up to ten to twelve Taliban attacks across the country. NATO troops can't get there all the time, so the simplest answer is that, you know, you send an aircraft and bomb the place.

Now, clearly this has led to enormous civilian deaths and real anger by Afghans against the Americans, because, you know, the majority of Afghans don't understand the difference between NATO and America, and everything is America, so the Americans have come into enormous flak from the population, from President Hamid Karzai himself. And this is really -- unfortunately, I would go as strongly as to say that this is really helping lose the war, this loss of civilian life, because it becomes a tool for Taliban propaganda, it angers the farmers and peasants who are suffering at the raw end of this. And it really doesn't help NATO very much, because NATO and American forces really need boots on the ground, and clearly, you know, they don't have enough troops.

AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed Rashid, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Pakistani journalist -- his latest book is called Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia -- speaking to us from Lahore, Pakistan.

Taleban spokesman Zabiyullah Mujahed was speaks to BBC: Kabul is next

Transcript: the Taleban in Afghanistan have told the BBC that the group is changing its tactics by targeting the capital Kabul. Taleban spokesman Zabiyullah Mujahed was speaking to BBC world affairs editor John Simpson:

JS: The Taleban led us to expect that there would be a big spring offensive, yet none has materialised.

ZM: I absolutely reject the suggestion that we have been defeated. Our operation continues, and gathers momentum day by day.

We know our power, and compared with last year, we have quadrupled our operations all over Afghanistan.

As for the spring offensive, our leadership had some problems and there was a lull, but then we were able to recover.

JS: What problems?

ZM: Some members of our leadership were killed.

JS: Nato forces say they have infiltrated the Taleban. Is this true?

ZM: The enemy has tried to infiltrate the Taleban ranks, and has targeted our leadership. Thank God, they haven't been too successful.

We are trying to catch their spies. Unfortunately, some have succeeded. But now we are using counter-intelligence to find these people.

JS: Does last Sunday's bomb in Kabul mean that you are shifting your campaign to Kabul?

ZM: With each passing day, taking into account the enemy's tactics, we are changing our own tactics. It is true we are increasing our pressure on Kabul, because Kabul is the capital city and the foreign troops are concentrated there. This is our next main target. God willing, we will be successful.

JS: How important to you is the struggle in Iraq?

ZM: Our enemy is the same, and we are repeating the tactics which they use in Iraq. They have proved effective in defeating the enemy. Our goal is the same - the independence and freedom of our country.

JS: Are you experiencing any problems in getting people to be suicide bombers?

ZM: We have a lot of people who are ready to carry out attacks. The numbers are growing. A lot of people are coming to our suicide bombing centre to volunteer. We have a problem with making sure they attack the right targets, avoiding killing civilians. It takes time to train them properly.

JS: Every suicide bombing kills innocent people. Don't you have a problem getting people to carry out the kind of mass murder we saw here last Sunday?

ZM: Using explosives in war always involves casualties. We do our best in our suicide attacks to avoid civilian casualties. These are our Muslim countrymen, and we are sacrificing our blood to gain their freedom. Their lives are important to us, of course.

But fighting with explosives is out of the control of human beings. As a result, there are casualties. But our opponents also kill ordinary people.

JS: Do you care about the lives of the people you kill?

ZM: Of course it's regrettable for us. But I can tell you, that no fighting is possible anywhere in the world without this. During the Soviet invasion we lost a million and a half people, all of them innocent.

But the important thing for us was to gain our freedom and independence.

JS: People in Nato say they will have a big presence here for 30 years.

ZM: When they came to Afghanistan, they had big objectives. They wanted to occupy the country and root out the Taleban and extend their control throughout our country in a short period of time.

But we are certain we will win, because for us independence is important. For the Nato forces, the lives of their soldiers are important.

There will be a big fuss in the Western parliaments, asking that their sons should not be killed in Afghanistan. This means we will defeat them.

Story from BBC NEWS