Who is Afraid of Al Qaeda?

TAhmed: Your father was definitely an exceptional man. No doubt about that.

Ahmadzai:

I had read that. My response to you was based on the assumption (which I believe is fact) that he is. My belief stems not only from Indian reports but also Pakistani. Specifically, reports in TFT and National Herald a few years back and recently in Dawn with regards to blasts in Karachi`s Kawish Plaza and interview of Pakistani Police chap who talked about ``certain underworls figures `` from Iindia.

The fact remains we know that Dawood is there. We know and your government knows that the bomb blasts were engineered by help of ISI and that Dawood was in Pakistan. While ideally one would like to take revenge against the ISI officers who did this, India accepts that is not possible.

As far as Dawood is concerned, Advani had brought it up with Musharaff as well. If you people think that Dawood knows too much, you can kill him and give India the body. Advani has also said that the 20 individuals can be handed over dead or alive. Oout of 20, u wanna keep the Pakistanis, fine. Give us the Indians. But, do not expect Iindia to take Pakistani protestations about wanting peace at face value otherwise.

Ahmedzai #55 I dont disagree with your point that the Indian government will cast any return of fugitives from Pakistan in a negative light. However, the point I had made was that:

(a) in returning the fugitives the Pakistan government would have done the right thing, and

(b) doing the right thing is more important than anything else, including bad mouthing from the Indian government.

On point 2, I agree that slow and easy wins the race. My concern with musharaff is that he may be going unduly slow and too easy. Here is one piece of evidence I have:

My father, after rejecting job offers from zia and later from the musharaff government (he didnt believe in military takeovers although he was a retired military officer himself), finally agreed at age 85 to work as consultant to the musharaff government and was tasked with modernizing madrassah syllabus. Despite his old age, he went to the ministry every day where he worked several hours every day without pay for several months, since he considered this important for Pakistan and for the madrassah students. In March 2003, after drafting the syllabus, he resigned when he realized that the government was not prepared to implement the changes. I will always remember his words: ``inhowN naiN maulvioN kay samnaiN ghootnay taek deeya haiN.`` (They - the musharaff government - are on their knees before the maulvis.``. He told me that he had told the government that when they were ready to implement the syllabus, he would again become available to support the effort. (He died last september incidentally).

Now one may argue that the musharaff government needed time to implement madrassah reforms, but my father`s experience does indicate that the reform effort is going slower than needed. But let us hope you are right and ultimately the reform will take place.

On the third point, like I said I am not in a position to judge how far he needs to go to appease the mullahs. All I can say is that as military strong man, he should be focussing on building up the democratic SYSTEM, including dismantling the dysfunctional pseudo-islamic institutions created by zia and bhutto in THEIR efforts to cling to power. He should be above making deals with interest groups like mullahs.

Finally, we dont have much of a choice, so let us hope that musharaff and jamali do a good job at economic development. The economy does seem to have picked up (5.3 percent growth projected this year, which is better than nothing), and Pakistan did get a Moody`s rating upgrade yesterday. But what pakistan needs most importantly is to be seen as a safe and stable place for global investors. That is possible only if musharaff does the right thing (the point made above).

Anyway, you and I are rooting for the same team (Pakistan). Thats for sure.

Tauheed`s various posts:

In response to my argument that if we admit that the Indian criminals are on Pakistani soil (although I believe that there is no such thing) then the extremist Indian Government would capitalize on it to score points rather than be genuinely thankful, you already have an evidence in Stuka`s post. And do consider that Stuka is a surprisingly moderate to the point of rebelliousness some times kind of Indian on this site.

Second, I hope you agree that slow and easy wins the race will hold out for present day Pakistan. Any harsh steps would be resisted. Resistance to change is a universally known phenomenon. As long as you agree with me that President Musharraf and PM Jamali provide a more viable alternate to extremist Islam, its OK by me.

Third, why the degrees of the Mullas were accepted is again to pacify the feelings of the Pakhtoon belt. Remember that MMA is the most organized of Pakistani institutions. The 6 parties together could have made our lives difficult all over Pakistan (not only NWFP)because of this organization. This was the findings of the survey before elections. Islamists were already sending rebellious messages.

The only weapon we have to weed out Mullas` induced extremism is economic development. President Musharraf / PM Jamali are the best bet for this.

Ahmadzai #54,

Dawood`s Pakistani passport numbers (for all his aliases) and his various addresses in
Karachi have been publicised and should not be difficult to find with a modest google
search.

Stuka:

Kindly read my long post to Tauheed saheb again. I assumed that the Indian accused are living in Pakistan for the sake of argument. Honestly speaking, I believe that they are not. That I had clearly mentioned at the outset.

I didn`t know Adnan Sami was acting. He could be the male version of TunTun.

Infact Adnan Sami Kham is another example of Pakistani terrorism. They send fatso like him but keep his gorgeous ex-wife Zeba Bakhtiar. :)

Waisey, I tht Adnan Sami`s father was a diplomat, not in PAF?

Romair,

Adnan Sami`s father Arshad Sami was a Sargodhian , a colleague no doubt of NHK and a great fighter pilot ... he won the sitara jurat or tamgha-e-jurat or something..

-YLH

Romair:
Has Adnan Sami turned into a full fledged actor or just made a cameo appearance? Re. his change of nationality, I dont think one can get Indian citizenship without completing a minimum number of years of residency, so he wouldn`t be eligible for it at the present time. I think that this change of residence may have something to do with an obscure clause of the Indian Tax laws, which gives a very favourable tax treatment for nine years after gaining Indian residence. In true Indian bureaucratic style, this category is called `resident but not ordinarily resident`. Amitabh Bachan is hanging on to this status even now.

Question..??


Why Do such tape suddenly appear out ot thin Air That too on Al-Jazera Only....

especially whenever Bush .Jr FEELs he is loosing out....

tahmad #48: Actually, I have only seen a few bits and pieces of his acting.

His videos are pretty good. I heard he tried hard to get Indian nationality, but they did not give it to him. His father received some pretty high gallantry medal in the war as a fighter pilot. He may have been a colleague of NazarHayatKhan.

Romair #46 That was funny. I saw this turncoat (just kidding) on Indian TV once and he wasnt a bad singer. The only thing he seems to terrorize is food. But if you say his acting amounts to terrorism then that must be so too.

Stuka #45,

``Ahmadzai: Do you think Indians are idiots?`` Of course he does. In anycase, I think Dawood is a Pakistani citizen now and extraditing him would involve all kinds of shady
third party deals through Dubai or some such place ( didn`t they do that for one of
Dawood`s henchmen ?).

stuka: ``I challenge you to name some Pakistani terrorists who have been given refuge in India.``

Adnan Sami Khan.

Have you seen his performance in the movie Sargam. It is nothing short of terrorism.

Ahmadzai:

Do you think Indians are idiots? It is because Pakistan has people like Dawood that we call Ppakistan the epicentre of terrorism. Iif Dawood was in Nepal, or Sri Lanka, would Pakistan`s name come up.

You say that you have given refuge to Dawood Ibrahim? Then how are you NOT the epicentre of terrorism if you give refuge to foreign nationals who have commited crimes in the country of origin.

You say..

``All we need to do is to blame some of ``our`` people living in exile in India, indict them and ask for extradition. Top on this list, would be Advani.

Iis Advani a Pakistani citizen? Are we asking you for Pakistanis or Indians? Dawood Ibrahim is an Indian, indicted for multiple explosions in a city killing hundreds of people. The fact is Pakistan does not have a list of Pakistani terrorists in India. Most Pakistani terrorists are actually home bred, and go to Afghanistan where even a friendly regime like Taliban would not hand them over. Remember Riaz Basra? He moved to Pakistan only after Northern Alliance took power.


``Would India agree to a situation like that? ``


I challenge you to name some Pakistani terrorists who have been given refuge in India.

ahmedzai: On your point 3 (implementing reform in madrassahs): i am not sure how deep these reforms go. computer literacy is certainly a good forward step. certainly i am in no position to say one way or another since i have not visited these madrassahs in pakistan, and there is precious little newspaper coverage on the subject.

On your point 4: isnt it true that the BA requirement was effectively lifted on mullahs by accepting madrassah ``degrees`` as being equivalent? this allowed a number of these individuals to qualify for elections while their opponents from secular parties were disqualified. clearly, this acceptance of the madrassah degree is at odds with point 3 above where everyone (musharaff down) agrees tht madrassah syllabus needs to be changed.

Also, even accepting your point that the MMA victory in NWFP resulted from anger at the US for giving the mullahs what they said they wanted (to take on the US), i dont think it provides the complete answer. A part of it had to do with the absence of leadership in the secular parties - while one can accept (and indeed applaud) musharaff`s reasons for keeping NS and BB out of the picture (those people have had their day and disappointed their countrymen), couldnt he have done more to build up replacements for them? there are surely a good number of potential secular party leaders among the district nazims. clearly musharaff can do much to pull up district nazims who do a good job in their districts (e.g. giving them national recognition by publicly congratulating them), using his influence to ensure inner party democracy in secular parties (thus killing once and for all that bane of pakistan politics whereby the political personalities dominate the party system and not vice versa)