War Against Terror and We the People of Pakistan
By Brig. (r) Junaid Zaman • Apr 8th, 2009 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look • 19 CommentsThe scrooge of terrorism is now touching everyone’s life. The war which earlier seemed far away in the rugged mountains of FATA and Swat is now knocking strongly at the doors of people in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. The successive suicide attacks in the multiple cities in this short time has thrown the country into the pool of despair and misery.
Confronting these menacing assassins of the Pakistanis regardless of their faith, color, ethnicity and political affiliation is no small feat. In the world of increasing insecurity and confusion, there are but only a few ways to overpower such wicked beasts. The best and most preferable way is, of course, National Unity.
It’s no more the task of security forces and the intelligence agencies. The morale of paramilitary forces and the police has plummetted to a new low and they are intrinsically incapable of combating the terrorists, whether they are wearing suicide jackets or they are hurling grendaes in the forests during guerilla wars. Snap and sharp shooters are needed for the suicide bombers with proper planning to secure the camps, messes and stations of the security forces across the country.
Violence in Pakistan has spread well beyond the dangerous Afghan border region, and now it’s time that we should unite in true manner and make our homes, streets and neighborhood safe and secure from the suicide bombers. We also have to fight at another front. We need to understand that this war is now against us and it is aimed at destabilizng our country. Not only the neighboring countries are involved, many international players are fighting their proxy war here.
The main problem with the Pakistani counter terror activities that many of the own countrymen believe that this is not our war. We need to change that mindset and we need to condemn and abhor and fight the terrorism in its every form.
Trackback URL
|
|
|
Click For More Articles By Brig. (r) Junaid Zaman
Servicing the nation in new uniform.
All posts by Brig. (r) Junaid Zaman
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Berree dair ker dee ……….mehrbaa atay aatay
Thats the point.
“The main problem with the Pakistani counter terror activities that many of the own countrymen believe that this is not our war. We need to change that mindset and we need to condemn and abhor and fight the terrorism in its every form”
Totally agree with you Brig Saab and for your info…
Faisalabad could be next target of terrorism according to a private news channel.
May Allah be with us
You are right sir.
But it’s too late now.
But still it’s never late when one takes as task.
Brigadier sahib! Besides all ifs and buts and shall; one thing that must be kept in mind is that we as nation must choose and select one unanimous slogan as unity without being exploited through the regional slogans of ethnicity as separation.
Things seemingly would run more in direction of ethnic propensity so to create embezzlement among our unity hence to create rift between communities.
This is to achieve and derail hence distract attention from the culprit who may shape within different community as peasant thereby to achieve target as and when necessary.
Here and for this reason any grievance if at all becomes fate as accident of selective community; must not route in direction of selective target on the basis of ethnic despoil but we should try to curtail such behaviors from turning in to reservations.
Up till now no one but people from the same area as afghan and PATA has been picked and arrested as bombers and talibs and similar uzbiek and else.
This is good news as any one with similar getup in and around surrounding can be cordoned hence maneuvered for identity if at all suspicion creates anxiety.
But on the other hand these Afghans have great resemblance hence a blending tendency to shape themselves with in our own community as brothers which is a definite hazard.
This hazard need strict checks and balance hence a cooperative and caring attitude by our pathan as brother so to be alarmed and conscious hence vigilant .
This is because their role as brother now needs a real brotherly attitude since any breach as neglect would put this nation in to desperation and ultimate turmoil.
Other than this! What is now an essentiality is that; governance as military cum functionaries must take people under confidence.
True picture of the real drama must come before public now.
Real threat must be highlighted and people need to be prepared for upcoming threat by disclosing the real myth and constrained tendency of government and law enforcing agencies since such threat can not be ridiculed by slogan now but infact real mode of implementation with public government partnership like bondages.
This is very likely that up till now these enemies within could have very well settled within these areas of threat as ultimate target hence ready for their shameless activities in near future .
Under the suspected situation no one but people themselves can provide security.
This is time when we got to nurture our own children.
So assemble and guard your own children.
This will automatically boost your moral against the enemy since enemy is your mutual target and he is one targeting all of you and your children.
People must understand their safety lies in their own vigilance.
Be attentive and responsible hence aware ;any one who is inattentive.
RazaHaider,
Oh my God you can write common sense, or at least tried.
Honestly it did made SOME sense.
Practice makes you perfect.
Believe in yourself, think you are human.
haha
LOL
ROFL
LAMAO
ROFLAMAO
atleast he is making some effort to be Readable!
Brigadier Saheb,
Why many of your own countrymen believe that war on terror is not your war? You have not answered it at all.
It is because many of your countrymen believe that your Army and Lahore elite are killing Frontier constabulary and their Pakthun relatives who are hailed as FREEDOM FIGHTERS AND JIHADIES by CIA and your Army just some years back. They also believe because of indoctrination by SAUDI FUNDED maulvies that killing Shias,Ahmediyas is Allahs own duty.Destroying tombs is also duty as worshipping tombs is prohibited in Islam according to Talibs.
If zaman shaib believe it is our war then kindly request all generals and their sons who actually designed this war for us to go there and request their breeding specie to halt this deadly game for sake of our safety.
if he forget the names I will remind Him.
Zia and sons. Zia was self victimised for his crime against state and his duffer sons are enjoying business and political ventures.
Abdul rehman and sons.Abdul rehman is urely enjoying life in hell as his sons are enjoying his dollar funds by transforming into industries.Now running billion rupees ventures after mysterious death of their father.
Gen naseer ullah babar who were actual trainer of all these savages still giving suggestions to retired army people to throw them in russians states.
gen hamid gul a strong activist in such areas for promotion of this talibanic culture in our mountians.presently running varan transport that he got through loan exempted policy through askari bank.
Gen mehmmod did as per musharf ordered him collected these bombers and sent them for NATO shooting practice in Afghanistan.Now present in our 24/24 hr tablighee service as souls of poor guys are still haunting him when ever he come out of his monastery.
Gen faisal alvi late, faced the target shooting that was written for him when he leaked some information in drunk state regarding musharf activities in our mountains.
gen ihtasham zameer ,brother in law of fasial alvi is trying to protect his life and worthy assets that he received from a dictator in return of services he provided to political characters for increasing militancy in the area.
gen tariq majeed totally following the saudis orders for supporting some typical groups of fanatics in ur mountains.
These are few on top and there are list of army officers who were and still involved in such activities.
Writer if belongs to army must target these people to face these consequences,Why he is accepting from people of Pakistan to absorb this burden of curses of others on their shoulders.This is not fair.These mentioned officers’sons are also in army but most are bestowed by lucrative deputations or posting in GHQ.and young officers of weak backgrounds are sent to war areas .So one can say that influentials are earning by all possible opportunities in this war game and commoners are loosing it from all side.
War against terrorism is our war. We own this war.
Our democratic government and President Asif Ali Zardari has himself stated that we proudly own this war against terrorism and extremism. It is our war, more than any one else’s.
Our great national leader, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was assasinated by the same evil Alqaeda/Taliban terrorists! This war against terrorism a war for the survival of Pakistan.
Dear Hassan Amin
People like YOU give me great HOPE for the future.
The first step in solving a problem is understanding it.
You have understood the problem perfectly.
Regards
ii
oye oye
wa wa
Kuch bhi na kaha aur keh bhi gaye
Incredible,
Ek desh bana hai, aur sub ko basana hai
Dear Brg. Sb.
we people of pakistan are still confuse that what to do and most of us even dont care about what is happening or what is being initiated?. and most of comments were explaining that its not too late i think its the begening……
Miss Nazia in future when you refrer to People get your facts straight . My father was assassainated for conducting operations against militants in Waziristan . That has been proven now since the culprits have been caught . Gen ehtisham is no relative of ours . He is a distant third or fourth cousin , and we havent had any contact with them for more than 15 years now . The whole stpry of him being drunk and leaking info is crap . Please get facts straight before throwing dirt on dead people .
mehvish
you are wrongly reading my points.H e was gen faisal alvi who was fired from musharf’s group on same charges that I had mentioned in my comments.He since his youth time had a colourful and drunk repute and in our army circle these things are not considered as dirt or Sin and this concept has gained lot of popularity during musharf regime.When people are dead, Allah starts His accountability but these are remembered in the world by their lifestyles which they spent with other human beings and I am sure of what I am writing here.You need to probe further for exactly knowing your distant relatives.Gen alvi’s sister is married to gen Ihtisham zameer.
Hello Miss Nazia ,
I am Gen faisal Alavi’s daughter Mehvish Zahra Alavi . Don’t ever teach me about my father and dont ever dare speak a word against him . We aren’t realted to Gen ihtesham they are distant cousins and our family has severed ties with them . You have no knowledge what so ever of anything . Keep your thoughts to yourself . My father is dead I am not . I ownt let anyone throw dirt on my fathers name . By the way Madam MY dad is still remembered as a hero in the army . Be worried about your akhirat stop caring about my Fathers and mine . I can see how well versed you are coming here throwing mud on people no longer here .
And by the way he was’nt fired on your stupid dumb charges he has professional grudges with 2 senior he took a stand by his conviction about SSG ,thats it . My father was assassainted by Illyas Kashimiri for conducting Wana op himself. The culprits have been caught if you would bother to read current events . and i would nuke taliban tomorrow . You sure seem to be in link with Taliban . Have a good one
Ok good to see the real daughter of gen alvi here
Young girl reply me these questions if you are real daughter of your father.
-Why you father was granted special permission from higher authority of joining army even he had dual nationality.
-If your father had no grudge with musharf and just a confrontation with army then he could have been retired from army as normal way to hide this embarrassing scene or seeing his extra ordinary services in northern areas attacks.Why he was directly fired from his service.?
Why your father was gifted a luxurious villas by malik riaz in bharia town in throw away prices along with your uncle ithishan bazmeer?Why your family not opted to live in defence areas if you had security threats from talibans?
If you said that your father was killed by talibans then tell me who had taken your father’s driver away from your house for probing him about your father activities while he was In UK Trip to meet some important people.
If you are true daughter of your father then just investigate that you father killed on swan road in front of supermarket was not like taliban style or with their arms.he was hit and target with pistols at early hours and culprits in daylight fled towards Islamabad highway in front of hundreds of people without any check and hindrance.
if you are real daughter of your father then how senselessly you ignored his letter that was given to your journalist uncle in UK in which he revealed secret of army management with taliban leaders.
Iif you have time to go and meet the women of missing people they are more courageous than you who are standing alone in the streets for their love ones and accepting all kinds of truth that its our agencies that are hiding their people without any procedures
.Might is right and whoever tries to challenges the rights of army as your father or missing people did,they might be killed or removed form the scene as they did to your father.
dear mehvish or who ever you are I am giving the detail of gen alvi’s death probe that was tried by her only sister.
From The Sunday Times
December 14, 2008
UK may help find Pakistani general’s killers
The brother-in-law of VS Naipaul, the British novelist and Nobel laureate, was murdered last month after threatening to expose Pakistani army generals who had made deals with Taliban militants.
Major-General Faisal Alavi, a former head of Pakistan’s special forces, whose sister Nadira is Lady Naipaul, named two generals in a letter to the head of the army. He warned that he would “furnish all relevant proof”.
Aware that he was risking his life, he gave a copy to me and asked me to publish it if he was killed. Soon afterwards he told me that he had received no reply.
“It hasn’t worked,” he said. “They’ll shoot me.”
Four days later, he was driving through Islamabad when his car was halted by another vehicle. At least two gunmen opened fire from either side, shooting him eight times. His driver was also killed.
This weekend, as demands grew for a full investigation into Alavi’s murder on November 18, Lady Naipaul described her brother as “a soldier to his toes”. She said: “He was an honourable man and the world was a better place when he was in it.”
It was in Talkingfish, his favourite Islamabad restaurant, that the general handed me his letter two months ago. “Read this,” he said.
Alavi had been his usual flamboyant self until that moment, smoking half a dozen cigarettes as he rattled off jokes and gossip and fielded calls on two mobile phones.
Three years earlier this feted general, who was highly regarded by the SAS, had been mysteriously sacked as head of its Pakistani equivalent, the Special Services Group, for “conduct unbecoming”. The letter, addressed to General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of army staff, was a final attempt to have his honour restored.
Alavi believed he had been forced out because he was openly critical of deals that senior generals had done with the Taliban. He disparaged them for their failure to fight the war on terror wholeheartedly and for allowing Taliban forces based in Pakistan to operate with impunity against British and other Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan.
Alavi, who had dual British and Pakistani nationality, named the generals he accused. He told Kayani that the men had cooked up a “mischievous and deceitful plot” to have him sacked because they knew he would expose them.
“The entire purpose of this plot by these general officers was to hide their own involvement in a matter they knew I was privy to,” he wrote. He wanted an inquiry, at which “I will furnish all relevant proof/ information, which is readily available with me”.
I folded up the letter and handed it back to him. “Don’t send it,” I said. He replied that he had known I would talk him out of it so he had sent it already. “But”, he added, “I want you to keep this and publish it if anything happens to me.”
I told him he was a fool to have sent the letter: it would force his enemies into a corner. He said he had to act and could not leave it any longer: “I want justice. And I want my honour restored. And you know what? I [don’t] give a damn what they do to me now. They did their worst three years ago.”
We agreed soon afterwards that it would be prudent for him to avoid mountain roads and driving late at night. He knew the letter might prove to be his death warrant.
Four days after I last saw him, I was in South Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan, to see a unit from the Punjab Regiment. It was early evening when I returned to divisional headquarters and switched on the television. It took me a moment to absorb the horror of the breaking news running across the screen: “Retired Major General Faisal Alavi and driver shot dead on way to work.”
The reports blamed militants, although the gunmen used 9mm pistols, a standard army issue, and the killings were far more clinical than a normal militant attack.
The scene at the army graveyard in Rawalpindi a few days after that was grim. Soldiers had come from all over the country to bury the general with military honours. Their grief was palpable. Wreaths were laid on behalf of Kayani and most of the country’s military leadership.
Friends and family members were taken aback to be told by serving and retired officers alike that “this was not the militants; this was the army”. A great many people believed the general had been murdered to shut him up.
I first met Alavi in April 2005 at the Pakistan special forces’ mountain home at Cherat, in the North West Frontier Province, while working on a book about the Pakistani army.
He told me he had been born British in Kenya, and that his older brother had fought against the Mau Mau. His affection for Britain was touching and his patriotism striking.
In August 2005 he was visiting Hereford, the home of the SAS, keen to revive the SSG’s relationship with British special forces and deeply unhappy about the way some elements of Pakistan’s army were behaving.
He told me how one general had done an astonishing deal with Baitullah Mehsud, the 35-year-old Taliban leader, now seen by many analysts as an even greater terrorist threat than Osama Bin Laden.
Mehsud, the main suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto late last year, is also believed to have been behind a plot to bomb transport networks in several European countries including Britain, which came to light earlier this year when 14 alleged conspirators were arrested in Barcelona.
Yet, according to Alavi, a senior Pakistani general came to an arrangement with Mehsud “whereby – in return for a large sum of money – Mehsud’s 3,000 armed fighters would not attack the army”.
The two senior generals named in Alavi’s letter to Kayani were in effect complicit in giving the militants free rein in return for refraining from attacks on the Pakistani army, he said. At Hereford, Alavi was brutally frank about the situation, said the commanding officer of the SAS at that time.
“Alavi was a straight-talking soldier and some pretty robust conversations took place in the mess,” he said. “He wanted kit, skills and training from the UK. But he was asked, pretty bluntly, why the Pakistani army should be given all this help if nothing came of it in terms of getting the Al-Qaeda leadership.”
Alavi’s response was typically candid, the SAS commander said: “He knew that Pakistan was not pulling its weight in the war on terror.”
It seemed to Alavi that, with the SAS on his side, he might win the battle, but he was about to lose everything. His enemies were weaving a Byzantine plot, using an affair with a divorced Pakistani woman to discredit him.
Challenged on the issue, Alavi made a remark considered disrespectful to General Pervez Musharraf, then the president. His enemies playeda recording of it to Musharraf and Alavi was instantly sacked.
His efforts to clear his name began with a request that he be awarded the Crescent of Excellence, a medal he would have been given had he not been dismissed. Only after this was denied did he write the letter that appears to many to have sealed his fate.
It was an action that the SAS chief understands: “Every soldier, in the moment before death, craves to be recognised. It seems reasonable to me that he staked everything on his honour. The idea that it is better to be dead than dishonoured does run deep in soldiers.”
Alavi’s loyalty to Musharraf never faltered. Until his dying day he wanted his old boss to understand that. He also trusted Kayani implicitly, believing him to be a straight and honourable officer.
If investigations eventually prove that Alavi was murdered at the behest of those he feared within the military, it may prove a fatal blow to the integrity of the army he loved.
Britain and the United States need to know where Pakistan stands. Will its army and intelligence agencies ever be dependable partners in the war against men such as Mehsud?