 Monday, April 27, 2009, Jamadi-ul-Awwal 01, 1430 A.H
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KURRAM AGENCY: At least 3 people were killed while 7 other sustained serious injuries in armed clashes between rival groups in the lower Kurram.
According the sources, the clash between two rival groups erupted on Thursday while the real reason behind it can not be ascertained so far.
Source said, 3 tribesmen were killed while 7 other sustained injuries when their opponents opened indiscriminate fire on them in area of lower Kurram.
Both were using heavy arms against each other. It may be recalled here hundreds people have lost their lives during 8 months long clashes between two groups in Tira valley of Kurram agency some months ago.
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| 3 more kids die as shortage of medicines persists |
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| Wednesday, April 22, 2009 By Our correspondent |
| PARACHINAR: The shortage of life-saving medicines in the markets and hospitals has further aggravated in Kurram Agency as three more kids died here Tuesday taking the number of expired children to 14. Sources reported that the main road linking Parachinar with Peshawar was in the firm grip of militants and kidnappers. One could not risk breaking the siege of the road beyond the area of Tall, as the militants either kidnap or kill those travelling on the route, residents said. Because of the forced closure of the road, besides other essentials the life-saving drugs were non-existent in the hospitals and markets alike. The expired kids were identified as Shahzia, resident of Jalandhar, two-year-old Zainul Abideen of Mihora and a toddler, Habib Ali, belonging to the Bughdai area. Habib Ali died in the way while he was being shifted to Peshawar through the long and rough route via Afghanistan after five hours of arduous journey. |
| SOURCE: http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=173677 |
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PARACHINAR,Apr20: The shortage of medicines in hospitals and markets has so far claimed lives of 11 children in the Kurram Agency.
Talking to the reporters here Monday, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leaders, including Rana Wiladat, Councillor Syed Sadique Hussain, Councillor Gul Ali and Major (R) Gul Hussain said that 11 children died of pneumonia and diarrhoea in Zerhan and Shalozan areas of the agency because of scarcity of medicines. They said that because of the blockade of roads in Kurram Agency, the residents were facing shortage of foodstuff and medicines in the local market.
Some of the children, who died recently, were identified as Yasir (5), Najiba (3) belonging to Mulabagh area of Zerhan, Didar Ali (3) and Muhammad Ali (six months) hailing from Shalozan area.
The MQM office-bearers said in the far-flung areas of the agency, the patients were dying because of the lack of medicines in the hospitals. They warned that the situation could worsen if steps were not taken to solve the problem forthwith.
The tribesmen urged the government to take stern action against the anti-social elements involved in disturbing the peace in the area and provide medicines for treatment of children on an emergency basis.
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| Updated : Monday April 20 , 2009 3:33:59 PM | ||
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| Food shortage hits Kurram Agency |
Updated at: 2002 PST, Monday, April 20, 2009 PESHAWAR: The markets are out of food items and medicines due to blockage of roads for the past several months in Kurram Agency.Local leaders Rana Wiladat, Syed Sadiq Hussain and othters told that the remaining stock of food and medicines has almost ended due to an unending blockade of roads in the agency. They said patients and children are among the most affected people due to lack of medicines and food items. They warned that the health-related problems could escalate if urgent measures were not taken by the government in this regard. They also demanded the government of taking actions against the elements responsible for creating such situation in Kurram Agency. |
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Eighteen members of the security forces and two civilians were killed in a suicide bombing on Saturday at a joint military and police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan, security officials said.
The police in Doaba, in the Hangu district of North-West Frontier Province, said that three of their men had been wounded in the attack, which hit around the time when the guard was changing at the checkpoint.. Eight soldiers were also wounded and were later shifted to a military hospital for treatment.
The police blamed the Pakistani Taliban for the bombing, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility by the militants.
The military had carried out a major cleanup operation in Doaba in August to flush out Taliban militants who wereinfiltrating from the nearby Kurram and Orakzai tribal regions.
Army helicopter gunships have been attacking suspected militant hide-outs in Orakzai in the last couple of weeks. That region is under the sway of Hakimullah Mehsud, a senior Taliban commander. He warned this month that the Pakistani Taliban would carry out two bombings a week in what he called revenge for missile strikes by American drone aircraft.
One of those missile strikes, on April 2, was apparently aimed at Mr. Mehsud. The strike killed 10 militants at one of his training camps in the Orakzai region, officials said. Mr. Mehsud was reported to have escaped..
He claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing attack two weeks ago against a checkpoint in an upper-class neighborhood of Islamabad. Eight paramilitary soldiers were killed in that attack.
The checkpoint attacked on Saturday sits on the Hangu-Parachinar road, which has been closed to general traffic for over a year because of a Taliban roadblock intended to stop food and fuel supplies to the mainly Shiite population in Kurram's regional headquarters of Parachinar.
The Hangu district has been a frequent flashpoint for violence between Sunnis and Shiites. Forty-eight people were killed during sectarian attacks during the Shiite holy month of Muharram last year.
Also on Saturday, Asfandyar Wali, the leader of the Awami National Party, which negotiated a peace deal with the Taliban in the district of Swat, defended the party's decision to agree to the introduction of Islamic law in that region. The party is a member of the coalition government led by President Asif Ali Zardari, and has been at the forefront of the decisions to concede authority to the Taliban in Swat.
"We preferred diplomacy over war," Mr. Wali told a news conference in Karachi. "I don't say this is the best solution," he said of the setting up of Islamic courts in Swat.
SOURSE: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?ref=world
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Parachinar: The Valley of Death
By Ali Jawad
15 April, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Tucked away between soaring snowy-peaks and deep gorges in the fragile north-western region of Pakistan is the tiny town of Parachinar.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, one of the more charismatic leaders in the history of this troubled nation, is said to have called it Pakistan's own "Switzerland". Humbled by towering snow-tipped mountains and covered by endless fruit orchards, Parachinar's natural charm is breathtaking. Its narrative for the last two years however, has been anything but reflective of the serene beauty of its surroundings.
Strangled by recurring sieges laid on the town, and a plight concealed from the consciences of the outside world by a silent media, the lives of Parachinaris have been a tale of untold suffering. Since early 2007, violence has gripped the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which holds Parachinar, and the surrounding North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) leading to the deaths of hundreds. Even more have been left homeless and without means of sustenance with homes and local businesses regularly torched down just because their owners happen to fall under the wrong "sect". Despite the periodical nature of sectarian violence in these regions, the unrelenting wave of the recent outbreak has been by far the bloodiest in recent memory.
Tensions began in April 2007 when a procession of Shias came under fire from fanatical Wahhabis who view Shia Muslims as heretics. What followed on from that initial attack however, has been a systematic attempt to wipe out Parachinar of its' Shia presence. Shias represent a majority of the population in Parachinar constituting over fifty-percent (50%) of the population. They also have a considerable presence in neighbouring towns in the north-west of the country with a strong and historic Hazara presence further north of the FATA.
During the rule of General Zia-ul-Haq, the Kurram Agency (which hosts the town of Parachinar) came under increased focus for its strategic location as it provided the shortest route from within Pakistan to the Afghan capital, Kabul. Jutting out into Afghanistan almost like an island peninsula, it was famously nicknamed the "Parrot's Beak" by US forces during the Soviet-Afghan War and was regularly used as a launching-pad by American-backed "jihadists" to strike out at the Soviets.. As a result of this strategic importance, towns in the FATA region were flooded by inflows of Wahhabist and Salafist anti-Soviet "jihadists" well-known for their hatred towards Shias.
Following on from the early and comparably minimal killings unleashed in April, armed Wahhabi groups have since caved in on the local Shias of Parachinar from all sides. The Shia residents of Parachinar have repeatedly claimed that Wahhabi elements from Afghanistan have joined in the attacks against the town's Shias, but these cries have been met by deaf ears in Islamabad's Pakistani central government.
An all-out attack against the Shias of Parachinar has been underway for a long time now; even Sunni locals seen to be "friendly" towards Shias have not been spared in this maelstrom of killing. Gruesome images of beheaded and mutilated bodies, with arms and legs chopped off from corpses, have surfaced on the Internet since the outbreak of violence. Such showings of utter barbarity are not altogether unique. The collective massacres of Hazara Shias in next door Afghanistan - more notably in Mazari Sharif in 1998 where during a 48-hour period over 8,000 Hazaras were mercilessly slaughtered - evoke similar images of ruthlessness. By the end of the killing spree then, corpses littered the streets of the city after express orders were given out by the Taliban government for the dead to be left unburied.
Eerily reminiscent of massacres conducted against Afghan Shias in the recent past, Riaz Ali Toori, a villager from Parachinar, protested in a letter to a Pakistani daily:
"Today Parachinar is burning: daily bodies of more than five beheaded persons reach Parachinar. The situation of Parachinar is getting worse day by day and so is the life of all people living there. It's a matter of great sorrow and shock that Pakistan, in spite of bringing Fata into the mainstream of the country, has been pushed into fighting a continuous war and facing terror." (Letters to the Editor, The Dawn, April 08 2008)
Surprisingly, at a time when the "civilized" world is on a so-called offensive against "terror", coverage of the sorrow-filled plight of Parachinaris within western media has been periodical at best. The reasons for this are unclear. May be it is because Parachinar, fatefully, does not sit over barrels of oil; or perhaps our probing of the historical context behind these massacres will lead us to discover that Parachinar is yet another piece of anecdotal evidence of the much disregarded "blowback" stemming from the Soviet era.
In July of 2008, the New York Times ran a piece highlighting the rise of "sectarian conflict" in Parachinar. By then, the town had already been subject to a siege that had spanned for months; food and medical supplies had been in severe shortage after the main Thal-Peshawar highway leading to the town was blocked off by armed groups. The New York Times article carried the story of Asif Hussain, a Sunni driver, in a relief convoy headed for Parachinar; the convoy was ambushed, and its drivers taken captive. Asif Hussain was let off after convincing his captors that he was Sunni, the other eight drivers were not as lucky. (Power Rising Taliban Besiege Pakistani Shiites, New York Times, July 26 2008)
Today, the violence has spread out over a larger radius extending all the way through to the southern tips of the NWFP. Attacks on Shias in Hangu, Chakwal and as far south as Deira Ismail Khan have become a thing of the norm. Late in August of last year, a suicide bomber detonated himself inside the DI Khan hospital killing thirty-two Shia followers who had come to claim the remains of one of their leaders slain earlier in the day.
As recently as last week, another suicide bomber struck a Shia mosque in Chakwal instantly killing thirty and leaving hundreds more injured. The systematic targeting of followers of the Shia sect in various regions of Pakistan, more specifically in the north-west of the country, amounts to nothing other than a project of ethnic cleansing. According to a reputed scholar of the phenomenon of ethnic cleansing, Drazen Petrovic, he defines it as such:
"ethnic cleansing is a well-defined policy of a particular group of persons to systematically eliminate another group from a given territory on the basis of religious, ethnic or national origin. Such a policy involves violence and is very often connected with military operations. It is to be achieved by all means, from discrimination to extermination …"
The above definition provides an almost perfect fit to the present situation on the ground in Parachinar. If international silence continues as it has over the last two years, the same story will have repeated across many towns in the FATA and NWFP.
That the Pakistani government holds principal blame for its failure to restrain the killings is indisputable and goes without mention. Wider global apathy to an ongoing project of ethnic cleansing however, is certainly not comprehensible and deserves a great deal of mention.
Parachinar deserves better. And the people of Parachinar certainly deserve better. The least we can do is speak out and urge our leaders to press the Pakistani government to bring an immediate end to these massacres. Then, and only then perhaps, can it be said that we have extended a hand to the forgotten victims of Parachinar.
Ali Jawad is a political activist and a member of the AhlulBayt Islamic Mission (AIM); http://www.aimislam.com/.
Presently Pakistan is passing through a series of chronic and painful problems include political, socioeconomic, energy crises, security, uncertainty in Balochistan, day to day suicide bombing, foreign Drones attacks and worst situation of law and order in FATA and NWFP. These all are brain blasting and heart pinching for all true Pakistanis.
Thanks to President Asif Ali Zardari who with great wisdom solved the issue of judiciary without harming and insulting sitting Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar; a good sign for Pakistan that tragedies of insulting judiciary were not repeated in the history of Pakistan.
However existence of extremists and terrorists at the Pakistani soils is not only dangerous for Pakistan but also posing threat for global peace. Not only Pakistani government but also people at large living in conflicted areas are passing through great trouble. The ongoing sectarian clashes and blood bath in around the country are adding problems to Pakistan. So far innocent people in thousands are being killed and kidnapped in D.I Khan and there is a silent war against a particular sect. In most areas of NWFP the writ of the government is in the hands of local militants. Situation in Kurram Agency because of so called sectarian clashes is getting worst day by day. The area recently had great disaster of sectarian clashes in which thousands of innocent lives have been lost and a great destruction to infrastructure.
President is keen to the rehabilitation of people of FATA but the situation in Parachinar is as it was. Here the families who had received casualties are neither financed nor asked about their loss even. Pakistan Peoples Party nominee for National Assembly from Kurram Agency Parachinar Dr. Riaz Hussein Shah tells that he is facing great embarrassment before the families of all those victims who had been killed with him in PPP's election campaign rally on Feb 17, 2008 when a suicide bomb exploded and more than 70 innocent people killed and near 200 got serious injuries. The responsibility lay on the shoulders of Chairman and General Secretary of PPP that they should ask their party martyrs, their orphans in order to heal their wounds.
They all were together there for the cause of democracy and for the victory of their party and gave their lives. President is appealed that he should ask the families of Parachinar's PPP martyrs and sanction funds for their rehabilitation. People of Parachinar either students in different universities and colleges or employees in different governmental and non governmental departments throughout the country; unfortunately have not seen their families from last two years due to the blockade of main Peshawar to Parachinar road by inhuman Tlibans. The road is blockade for the people of Parachinar from last two years and the people in emergency are reaching Parachinar through very dangerous route from Afghanistan.
The people in Parachinar are totally disconnected from rest of the country both through media and roads. Hospitals are lacking medicine and daily using food stuff is touching sky in prices. People there are passing through the bitter days of starvation and fasting.. I am hurt while listening that number of children die there due to lack of primarily used medicine.
Opening of road on urgent bases is impossible due to security problems but the government must sanction the PIA trips on weekly bases to Parachinar as had done by Muhtarma Benazir Bhutto when she was the prime minister of Parachinar. Not sanctioning PIA flights to Parachinar is not only the insult of Benazir Bhuto's wish for the people of Parachinar as well insult of there people whose patient children and women are traveling through dangerous way of Afghanistan.
Today Pakistan is surrounded by a number of socio-economic political and security problems which have engendered into a great national disaster. Presently as the Government is responsible to exert all efforts in positive directions for the survival of country the same responsibility comes to opposition. Opposition instead of to play their politics on the issues should look into the security and multi problems of the country.
Government did well by applying Justice System conditionally in Swat on the desire of masses living there. It will help bringing peace there but government must not ignore the reality how can all those elements work for justice who have tortured, killed, kidnapped and displaced the people of Swat.
We must not provide safe heavens to all those who are militants of warfare and involved in inhuman activities. Guilty must be punished according the true teachings of Islam and Pakistani law. Those who are involved in the weakening of country and are contributing to terrorism must not be dealt with soft hands. Islam does not forbid anyone for bloodbath.
In Islam the killing of one human equals the killing of whole humanity. Peace is highly valued by Allah and His Prophet (p.b.u.h). Government must keep in view the consequences; country will receive after years because of this ongoing unrest going around the country. ANP's deviation from its motive as the people of NWFP are observing can take it away from political harmony which they had been received in election both at national as well as provincial.
Without long and strategic of political, economical, traditional, social bases bringing peace to FATA and Swat is impossible. Mr. President Asif Ali Zardari has said well that there are great faults with our system at grass root level without their eruption from roots peace, economical and political stability in Pakistan is a dream. In his first speech as Chairman PPP he has claimed this system responsible for the assassination of his party leader and promised that he would avenge the death of his leader by brining changes to the system.
I would like to say that it is very high time for president brought all those changes for which he has desired. Why all political parties of Pakistan especially PML-N can't come at one table both in centre and in Punjab for the well being of country and people? Government has to take some serious decision for the elimination of terrorism and extremism and without national integrity these everything is impossible.
Today the most of the areas of NWFP and FATA as a whole are out of the writ of the government which is alarming. Control over own people by force is not a control in real senses. One can't rule over an area through force unless we accept their will and respect their wishes in the circle of humanity and country's laws. Ad hoc approaches toward the solutions of problems spoil the issues even more.
Toward FATA and NWFP's solution we need a compact set of applications and it is need of hour to apply over there all possible solutions. People living there are fed up of ongoing clashes, killing, kidnapping, devastation and bombardments. They are going toward a great tribal war which will push the country great troubles and can hence become cause of disintegration (God forbid). Alone Zardari and ruling government can't enable Pakistan to get rid of all these problems till all political parties do not help the government above vested and political interests.
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| Monday, April 13, 2009 |
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| Monday, April 13, 2009 |
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Friday, April 10, 2009
Kurram PA hurt by suspected Taliban
HANGU: The Kurram Agency political agent (PA), along with six security guards, sustained injuries after suspected Taliban opened fire on their convoy in Tull area of Hangu district on Thursday. Sources told Daily Times that Kurram PA Arshad Majeed was travelling to Parachinar when suspected Taliban opened fire on his convoy. As a result, Majeed and six of his guards sustained serious injuries and were rushed to Tull CMH. Following the incident, Tull bazaar was shut down and security was tightened. Also on Thursday, two people were injured when unidentified people opened fire on a vehicle in Darsmand area of Hangu. saboor khan
Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C04%5C10%5Cstory_10-4-2009_pg7_45
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Riaz Ali Toori
Mon, Apr 13, 2009