Pakistan: more than 60 killed in fighting between military and Taliban

Fighting between soldiers and Taliban militants over a strategic mountaintop in north-western Pakistan has killed more than 60 people, according to a government official.
The battle started a week ago, when government troops seized the top of Jogi mountain in the Kurram tribal area from militants, sparking clashes that killed six soldiers and 20 insurgents, Wajid Khan, a local government administrator, said on Tuesday.
The militants retaliated by attacking the soldiers who were trying to hold the location, touching off another round of fighting that killed 10 troops and more than 30 insurgents, said Khan. The area is home to militants loyal to Pakistani Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud.
The military launched an offensive in Kurram in July 2011 and declared victory about a month later, but violence has continued.
A similar process has taken place throughout Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region along the Afghan border. The military has launched a series of operations against the Pakistani Taliban in the past few years, and has often declared victory only to see fighting flare up again.
The Pakistani Taliban have killed thousands of people throughout the country in suicide bombings and other attacks. The group aims to topple the Pakistani government, partly because of its alliance with the United States.
The militants are allied with the Afghan Taliban, but the latter group has focused its attacks on Nato and Afghan forces inside Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, at least 10 people have been gunned down in the past 24 hours in the southern city of Karachi, said Sharfuddin Memon, a security adviser for the government of Sindh province, where Karachi is the capital.
Karachi is Pakistan's largest city and has a long history of political, ethnic and sectarian violence.
The most recent deaths included two granddaughters of Akbar Bugti, a nationalist leader in southwestern Baluchistan province, who was killed during a military operation in 2006 ordered by former president Pervez Musharraf. His death has helped fuel a violent insurgency in Baluchistan against the government.

U.N. nuclear team arrives in Iran

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – A U.N. nuclear team arrived in Tehran early Sunday for a mission expected to focus on Iran's alleged attempt to develop nuclear weapons.

The U.N. nuclear agency delegation includes two senior weapons experts — Jacques Baute of France and Neville Whiting of South Africa — suggesting that Iran may be prepared to address some issues related to the allegations.

The delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency is led by Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, who is in charge of the Iran nuclear file. Also on the team is Rafael Grossi, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano's right-hand man.

In unusually blunt comments ahead of his arrival in Tehran, Nackaerts urged Iran to work with his mission on probing the allegations about Iran's alleged attempts to develop nuclear weapons, reflecting the importance the IAEA is attaching to the issue.

Tehran has refused to discuss the alleged weapons experiments for three years, saying they are based on "fabricated documents" provided by a "few arrogant countries" — a phrase authorities in Iran often use to refer to the United States and its allies.

Ahead of his departure, Nackaerts told reporters at Vienna airport he hopes Iran "will engage with us on all concerns."

"So we're looking forward to the start of a dialogue," he said: "A dialogue that is overdue since very long."

In a sign of the difficulties the team faces and the tensions that surround Iran's disputed nuclear program, a dozen Iranian hard-liners carrying photos of slain nuclear expert Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan were waiting at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport early Sunday to challenge the team upon arrival.

That prompted security officials to whisk the IAEA team away from the tarmac to avoid any confrontation with the hard-liners.

Iran's official IRNA news agency confirmed the team's arrival and said the IAEA experts are likely to visit the underground Fordo uranium enrichment site near the holy city of Qom, 80 miles south of the capital, Tehran.

During their three-day visit, the IAEA team will be looking for permission to talk to key Iranian scientists suspected of working on a weapons program, inspect documents related to such suspected work and secure commitments from Iranian authorities to allow future visits to sites linked to such allegations. But even a decision to enter a discussion over the allegations would be a major departure from Iran's frequent simple refusal to talk about them.

The United States and its allies want Iran to halt its enrichment of uranium, which they worry could eventually lead to weapons-grade material and the production of nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes, such as generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.

Iran has accused the IAEA in the past of security leaks that expose its scientists and their families to the threat of assassination by the U.S. and Israel.

Iranian state media say Roshan, a chemistry expert and director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, was interviewed by IAEA inspectors before being killed in a brazen bomb attack in Tehran earlier this month.

Iranian media have urged the government to be vigil, saying some IAEA inspectors are "spies," reflecting the deep suspicion many in Iran have for the U.N. experts sent to inspect Iran's nuclear sites.

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Pakistan knew bin Laden hideout: Panetta

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has once again blamed that someone in authority in Pakistan knew Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts before US forces went in to find him. In an interview on Saturday, he said Intelligence reports found Pakistani military helicopters had passed over the compound in Abbottabad. “I personally have always felt that somebody must have had some sense of what was happening at this compound. Don’t forget, this compound had 18-foot walls… It was the largest compound in the area,” he was quoted as saying by news agencies.

Pak SC issues notice to ISI and Military Intelligence chiefs

Islamabad, Jan 26: Pakistan's Supreme Court has issued notices to the heads of the ISI and the Military Intelligence besides other senior officials to explain the circumstances that led to the death of four men while allegedly in the custody of security agencies.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry issued the notices on Wednesday after admitting a petition filed by a woman whose three sons were picked up by intelligence operatives for their alleged role in attacks on the army's General Headquarters and the ISI's Hamza Camp base in Rawalpindi.

The woman's sons were detained along with eight other men, and four of the suspects have died in mysterious circumstances over the past six months.

The suspects were being tried under the Army Act.

The bench also issued notices to the Attorney General, the Advocate General of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the army's Judge Advocate General and the army commanding officer involved in the detentions.

The bench directed the respondents to file their replies by January 30.

The bench took up the constitutional petition filed by the woman, identified only as Ruhaifa, after removing objections raised by the Supreme Court Registrar's office.

Ruhaifa petitioned the court for the provision of "due process of law" to her sons Syed Abdul Saboor, Syed Abdul Basit and Syed Abdul Majid saying "The matter is of public importance and there is apprehension of deaths of the
remaining detainees."

After the apex court's Registrar raised objections to the petition, Saboor was killed by intelligence agencies, his brother Mufti Shakoor told The Express Tribune newspaper.
During Wednesday's hearing, the bench observed that media reports suggested that the bodies of the suspects were being left by the roadside for their families to collect.

Ruhaifa's counsel told the judges that three of the detained men died because of torture and slow poisoning, and asked the court to direct authorities to submit comprehensive reports on the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

Ruhaifa's sons published scripture and religious literature in Lahore's Urdu Bazaar.
They went missing in November 2007 after they were taken to a police station.

When Ruhaifa approached the Lahore High Court for the release of her sons, she learnt they had been booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

They were acquitted by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi in April 2010. However, before they could be released, the Punjab Home Department extended their detention in May 2010 for 90 days under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance.

These detention orders were set aside by the Lahore High Court the same month.

On May 29, 2010, authorities at the Rawalpindi jail handed over Ruhaifa's sons and eight others to intelligence agencies instead of releasing them.

When the matter came up for hearing in the Supreme Court, the heads of the ISI and MI conceded that the men were in the custody of their agencies.

The Advocate General too acknowledged that the men were formally arrested in the first week of April 2011 and a case had been registered against them under the Pakistan Army Act.

Ruhaifa has asked the apex court to determine whether the deceased and surviving detainees, including her sons, were subject to the Army Act.

She asked the court to declare that the detained men were in illegal confinement and had been tortured.

Omissions and Commissions

The truth, the whole truth and anything but the truth
We all want to see Mansoor Ejaz ride into the American sunset.

But not yet.

Reason: Wittingly or otherwise, he has unleashed a storm in the country of his origin. He's tried doing so many times before too, but this time he succeeded. So be it. Now that the storm has raged through the Pakistani countryside leaving in its wake scattered debris of wrecked reputations and institutional mayhem, he might as well help us clean it up. Clean up, that is, from our perspective and not his. Since the genie cannot be put back in the bottle, the only sensible thing to do is to take the issue to its logical conclusion. Anything else would be a travesty of justice – from our perspective.

So while Mansoor Ijaz hops, skips and jumps into Dubai and then traipses back to London to party hearty at groovy nightclubs, we have got a situation on our hands. And it ain't pretty. Three judges of the high court – including a chief justice – have been holed up in Islamabad trying to clean up Mansoor Ijaz's mess while he boogies the night away in glitzy environs. The judges have put in hundreds of man-hours trying to get to the bottom of the memo affair, while fending off a sniping government, a hyper media and now, it seems, a grudging establishment which cannot decide whether it has had enough muck dredged up already or still has appetite for more.

And the Pakistani nation? Well, let's just say the voter/viewer/reader has been taken on a roller coaster ride without seat belts. Having experienced that 'wretching' feeling, the least they deserve is to know the truth.

Is the 'truth' dancing away in a London nightclub? Sadly it seems so, because we are now being told that if Mansoor Ijaz doesn’t appear in person before the commission, the commission may be out of commission. Really? Is the commission so fragile that it can't handle a rejection, and that too from someone as slippery as Mansoor Ijaz? Strange, because the Supreme Court order of December 30, 2011 clearly ordered the formation of a pumped up commission. A commission on steroids. Why else would the court empower the commission with the following:

1) Power to travel abroad to gather evidence; 2) Utilise the expertise of cyber crime and forensics experts; 3) All senior officials plus Pakistani ambassadors to USA and UK to cooperate with the commission and 4) All federal secretaries plus DG FIA, IGs of all provinces and Secretary Cabinet Division to mandated to assist the commission.

This power could create a hulking monster, not a 98 pound weakling who can't take rejection. So either the commission is not fully flexing its muscles, or it doesn’t want to. Is Memogate then about to fizzle out?

That would be the worst outcome possible because it would confirm our worst fears. That the whole affair was a set up. By whom? I guess our conspiracy theorists can say all conspiracies are not theories. So let's throw in the CIA, ISI, Mossad, RAW, and perhaps MI5 for good measure. Husain Haqqani was set up by Mansoor Ijaz who was set up by James Jones who was set up by Mike Mullen who was set up by Leon Panetta who was set up by… well you get the drift. Meanwhile, Shuja Pasha figured somewhere in the equation to complete the theory. And Nawaz Sharif and Iftikhar Chaudhry just got used by the global power players for their nefarious designs on Pakistan.

There is however a cure for conspiracy theories: the truth. And the truth is what the commission was mandated to find out. If it is unable to successfully fulfil this mandate, the commission will stand guilty of an unwilful breach of public trust. Here's why: for the last few years we are all celebrating the rise and rise of an independent judiciary and a powerful media as a counter-check to the powers of status-quo. Public empowerment is the buzzword that's getting everybody excited. Fair enough. There is sufficient evidence to back up these claims. But this change, this empowerment, this openness and transparency has perhaps not reached a stage where it can be institutionalised.

Case in point: three judicial commissions have been formed in the past year or so. This is in line with a new political trend where every crisis elicits yelps for the formation of commissions. The Saleem Shehzad commission was formed with great fanfare, and after much deliberation and investigation came up with – nothing. The Abbottabad commission was formed in the toxic wake of the OBL raid. It has been slogging away for months now and the report is expected shortly. If you're expecting startling revelations, don’t hold your breath. The memo commission too is clearly coming to an ignominious end.

So much for commissions commissioned to investigate the acts of omissions and commissions.

So truth remains an elusive commodity, crushed under the weight of official skullduggery. Skeletons may rattle in cupboards, but that's pretty much all they will do. Dead men tell no tales, but apparently neither do alive ones. The Americans have seen a glowering Pakistani establishment reduced to a nervous wreck. The weak government is bleeding from a thousand insults, the media is gloating over sensational ratings and the opposition have had their pound of governmental flesh.

If Memogate ends up in the dustbin, you may hear a collective sigh of relief from all those who always knew deep in their hearts they couldn't handle the truth.

But the truth is still out there somewhere.

The writer hosts a primetime talk show on ARY News. He has worked as Director News of Express News and Dunya News and Editor The News, Islamabad. He can be reached at fahd.husain1@gmail.com or on Twitter @fahdhusain

NATO relying on smugglers along Pakistan's border, Pakistan official say

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — With few other options available to it since Pakistan closed its border crossings almost two months ago, NATO has at times resorted to paying local smugglers to get much-needed supplies to its troops fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials say.

The Pakistani and Afghan smugglers, who must pay bribes to militants to travel safely through some areas, navigate treacherous routes over the 1,800-mile mountainous divide that separates the two countries to bring containers of oil, food and other essential items — all at a price — to soldiers on the other side.

“Borders mean nothing to us. We have been crossing in and out for centuries,” Sahib Khan, a smuggler who said NATO had hired him, told GlobalPost.

The hiring of illegal smugglers came after a failed attempt by NATO to pay private companies, which truck goods across the border under the Pakistan-Afghanistan Free Trade Agreement (PATA). These private companies, Pakistani officials said, were secretly swapping out their normal cargo for NATO supplies until Pakistani security forces caught wind of the scam.

More from GlobalPost: Pakistan closes supply routes, threatening war effort

A senior officer for the Frontier Corps, an elite military unit that is responsible for security along the border, told GlobalPost that a total ban on the movement of containers under PATA, which was signed in 2010 to promote bilateral trade, eventually foiled the strategy.

“We had concrete evidence that some of the containers being imported by private companies, under PATA, were being used to smuggle supplies for NATO troops under cover of commercial imports,” the official said.

The official said that 12 containers loaded with oil were intercepted on Jan. 19. Several more containers were stopped at the Torkhum border two weeks ago, he said.

A NATO official said he could not comment on the seized containers and denied that it is using any unconventional means to ship supplies to its troops.

“In fact, we are not facing any problems vis-à-vis logistics at the moment,” said Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for coalition forces based in Kabul. “However we would welcome the reopening of the two supply routes in order to normalize ties with Pakistan.”

Pakistan shut the two main border crossings into Afghanistan, which have long been the most important routes relied upon by US and NATO troops, in November after US helicopters attacked a Pakistani military outpost, killing 24 soldiers.

Memo case: Ijaz won't visit Pak despite govt assuring security

From Rezaul H Laskar Islamabad, Jan 24 (PTI) Mansoor Ijaz, a star witness in the memo issue, today informed a judicial panel probing the scandal that he would not come to Pakistan to depose before it despite assurance by Interior Minister Rehman Malik that full security would be provided to the controversial businessman. After Malik gave the assurance, the three-judge commission appointed by the Supreme Court gave Ijaz's lawyer Akram Sheikh 30 minutes to consult the Pakistani-American businessman and ascertain whether he would come to Pakistan. Sheikh subsequently informed the panel that Ijaz had said he would not come to the country due to security concerns. Ijaz, the central figure in the memo scandal, has failed to make two scheduled appearances before the commission. He was initially asked to appear before the panel on January 16. After he failed to come to Pakistan, the commission acceded to his request to be given more time and asked him to depose on January 24. Earlier in the day, the commission summoned the Interior Minister after Sheikh alleged that Ijaz was receiving threats from government officials and he was not satisfied with the security to be provided by the Interior Ministry. Sheikh insisted that the army should be the focal organisation for Ijaz's security. Malik appeared before the commission in the afternoon and assured it that he would provide complete security to Ijaz. Malik told the panel he would not include Ijaz in the Exit Control List, an Interior Ministry document with names of all persons barred from travelling out of Pakistan. The minister said the media had misquoted his remarks. Though adequate arrangements had been made for Ijaz's security, he had complicated matters by demanding that an army battalion should be deployed to guard him, Malik said.

Full transcript: Mansoor Ijaz speaks to NDTV on Pak Memogate controversy

New Delhi:  NDTV speaks to Ijaz amidst questions by the global media on why the latter missed his date with the court on Jan 16.

Here's the full transcript of the interview:

Barkha Dutt: Good evening and welcome to our special coverage of a developing story in Pakistan. It's been dubbed the Memogate controversy by the global media and in Pakistan it has triggered a storm, a public battle between the Pakistani military on one hand and the civilian government on the other. The civilian government, that is President Asif Ali Zardari's government, is already beleaguered as the Supreme Court asks it to reopen an old corruption case against the President, asking it to write a letter to Swiss authorities to reopen and re-investigate the case. The civilian government had the Prime Minister appearing in person in Court. It's got a two week reprieve. But in the meantime Mansoor Ijaz, an American based businessman who first went public with the memo, allegations which suggest that the civilian government, right after Osama bin Laden was killed, tried to reach out, covertly, to the administration in America to avert a military coup. The moment he went public with this, that's what started the entire crisis that led to a public battle between the army in Pakistan and the civilian government. Now questions are being asked by the global media, will Mansoor Ijaz testify at all? Why did he not keep his date with the Court on the 16th of this month and what will he say in his testimony? Well, joining us now, exclusively, from London, is Mansoor Ijaz himself. Mr Ijaz, thanks for speaking to us on this special programme on NDTV. I must first start by asking you what many Pakistanis have been asking in the media there. I have just come back from a week in Islamabad and much of the media said that you failed to keep your date with the Court. Why was that?

Mansoor Ijaz: Well, between the time that they set the first date and the time that they set the second date, there were a number of events that took place. What I would call the threat process became quite intense against me, against members of my family, and things like that. If it was only me making the decision I wouldn't care one damn. To be very frank with you, I am not afraid of any of these guys. They can make all the threats that they want to and it won't deter me from coming over there. But, unfortunately for this process, I run businesses, I have partners, I have shareholders. But most importantly I've got my family to consider, and I had to make sure that there was at least the level of comfort, that would ensure that my family felt secure, about the fact that I was taking what I would call a measured risk, a calculated risk, getting on the airplane and going over there to see the people of the Commission. So, it was just a matter of getting certain logistics issues sorted out that had to be done. And then some of my business partners and shareholders insisted on making sure that we have authorities in place that would trigger in case, God forbid, something did happen to me while I was there.

Barkha Dutt: Could you specify who you have received these threats from and who you believe is behind them? Because you have said consistently that you are being threatened. By whom?

Mansoor Ijaz: Well, they are random. The email addresses and so forth, I sort of stopped wasting time trying to track them down. We did give, just about every single one of them, we gave to both, the Pakistani authorities and certain authorities here in Europe, to make sure that they knew, because the Internet addresses could be tracked down and so forth. Several of them were very specific. One or two of them were more blunt and broad based. But the reality is that for me it just doesn't matter who's behind them. Who cares? They are not going to stop me from coming. They can do what they want. And I say very clearly to the government, to those in the government, to the Interior Minister, who has made a lot of different statements and, sort of, veiled threats, and things of that nature against me, against members of my family; trying to drag members of my family into this whole process and so forth. All this stuff is just hullabaloo, blah-blah. I wish I could use the words I want to on nice TV, but I can't. But none of that is going to deter me. I am coming. I am going to tell the truth. I am going to put the truth on the record forcefully, and I am going to make sure that the people of Pakistan, finally, are able to hold their government accountable for the actions that they take in their name.

Barkha Dutt: Now, the Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, said in an interview to me in Islamabad that there is every chance that you could be charged with treason; because he says that you have gone on record to say that you were instrumental in toppling former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's government at one point in history. He said, and he said this in Pakistan's Senate and National Assembly as well, that how can one man be so powerful that he can topple a government?

Mansoor Ijaz: Well, first of all, Rehman Malik is someone I believe, who is prone to make statements of such exaggeration, that he doesn't even understand what the facts are. The facts are the following. In 1995, me, along with a large number of Pakistani Americans, helped Benazir Bhutto's government come close to the Clinton Administration and resurrect the relationship between the US and Pakistan. At the end of that year we, I,  got certain reports in my hands, that demonstrated that there was the possibility that she and other members of her family were, shall we say, not acting in the best interests of the nation when it came to the way in which the national treasury resources were being spent. And so I wrote two op-ed pieces, one in The Wall Street Journal in June of 1996 in which I challenged the IMF's prescription for how they were giving money to Pakistan and not keeping track of how that money was being spent. And in the second one, that was written in October of 1996, I outlined and detailed what everybody now knows are these corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, against the former slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and other members of the large clan, if you will, that were part of their group. These are facts that are on the record. So he can say that I am responsible for that, all of that, all he wants to. But the reality is that I drew my conclusions as an op-ed writer directly from facts that were available to me at the time. And therefore these threats are just, it's a paper tiger that is trying to huff and puff and trying to blow the house down before I get there, because they think that they can intimidate me into not coming. And I can tell them straight to their face right now that I am coming. There is nothing you can do to stop me from coming to Pakistan.

Barkha Dutt: But here's the problem for you Mansoor Ijaz, do you not accept that since you came out with this alleged memo, there has been a credibility crisis for you as well? And I say that, because when we last interviewed you, you spoke about an intermediary who had ferried the memo for you. That intermediary was then named as the former National Security Advisor James Jones. But James Jones says Husain Haqqani, that's Pakistan's former Ambassador to America, had nothing to do with the memo and that you wrote this memo. So, doesn't this make your narrative less authentic and less credible?

Mansoor Ijaz: Yes, I mean, it's unfortunate that Jim dragged himself into all of this in that way. The reality is that on the first point, where he says that I contacted him a few days before, it's just a false statement. Now, Jim is an old friend of mine and I think he's a good guy and I think probably he felt that there were forces at work here that he needed to counter. I don't know. I don't know why he did what he did. But the records will show, very clearly, that there was no contact between me and General Jones until that morning. Look, let me give you guys a little assessment here so that you understand what I am talking about. Why, on the morning of May 9th, would I call the former National Security Advisor of the United States at his home telephone number, which was the only telephone number I had for him at that time? Why would I call him? And his wife picked up, it was 6:58 AM when I made that telephone call. Why would I do that if it wasn't concurrent with the BlackBerry message that I got from Ambassador Haqqani? If it wasn't exactly after the telephone call, which nobody can doubt. The telephone records are clear about all of that. So the reality is that all of this will now come out in the Court. I am going to put the record straight and then it will be up to the Courts to decide. Ultimately, it is up to the Commission to make its recommendations to the Supreme Court. It is for the Supreme Court to make the decision about whether or not there is a case here to try, or not, and what are the charges, and under which parts of the law does that work. And ultimately the results of that will be adjudicated by none other than the people of Pakistan. And that's exactly how democracy is supposed to work. So, for me, everything that is happening here is exactly within the democratic framework and the Constitution of Pakistan.

Barkha Dutt: So are you saying, Mansoor Ijaz, that James Jones is lying? Is that effectively what you are saying?

Mansoor Ijaz: On the first point, no, ands, ifs or buts about the fact that he perjured himself. But the question is whether he remembered correctly, because he says "He recalls". If you read the language carefully there is a lot of loosey-goosey language in all of that. And that loosey-goosey language is what allows him to then one day, when all the facts are on the table, to say "Oh yeah, well, I didn't quite remember that". We pointed out in some piece that was written right after he made the affidavit, that his memory had been demonstrated as being somewhat faulty on some of these facts. And the fact is that these are busy men. They have a lot going on in their lives and, for me, I am never going to press that issue. I'm just going to prove that the facts are what they are. And if Jim decides that he wants to stick to his facts then he has got to prove his side. He can't prove anything on the telephone call. That, I can tell you for sure. On the other stuff, it's all supposition on his part and it's his recollection versus my recollection. So, we will see then how the Commission comes out and how the people of Pakistan and the Supreme Court judge it. I am willing to put my credibility up against anybody in the world. All these gimmicks and nonsense that they have been doing for the better part of the last two and a half months, none of it has stuck. None of it has had any real impact on the course of the process. The only thing we had to do was to make sure that I got my security arrangements in proper form, so that my family and my business partners and shareholders would be satisfied, and that we made the security arrangements in such a way that it wasn't the whole world knowing where the target was. So that if there were some people out there who wanted to take a pot-shot at me, that they wouldn't get to do it for free.

Barkha Dutt: A lot of your substantiating, what you are saying, essentially boils down to a series of BlackBerry Messenger exchanges between you and Pakistan's former Ambassador Husain Haqqani. Now, BlackBerry itself has refused to provide this data in Court. Husain Haqqani has claimed the right to privacy. Without this data in Court how are you going to prove that what you are saying is true?

Mansoor Ijaz: Well, I am not going to get into all the details of that, because I don't want to pre-preview what we are going to do next week. But I can tell you that my records are absolutely clear. There has not been any alteration. There has not been any change. There has not been anything that has happened there that anybody can complain about. And those records will be put on the table in a factual form. The reality is that what we found out from BlackBerry was not that; literally the data didn't exist that we thought existed. Meaning, the chat, the actual lines of the chat exchanges is not stored by BlackBerry on their servers. What they store to some extent is, like a telephone log, here is the PIN number that communicated with another PIN number and here is the date and time at which they did that. Now, some of this data is probably going to be made available. I certainly waive; here's a very simple point. Let's look at the bookends of this thing. I waived my privacy rights. I gave every possibility for them to be able to collect the data and submit the data to the Supreme Court. And I am going to bring my BlackBerry devices and make them available to the Commission. And I've done all of that on my side. On the other side, Mr. Haqqani has not waived his privacy rights. He has ensured that obfuscation and misdirection and everything else is on the record about where his BlackBerry devices are. First he tells the President of Pakistan, "I can give them to you right here" when he arrives in Pakistan. I don't remember the exact phraseology, you guys can go and look all of that up, and then he tells everybody that, "Sorry, on second look and second thought, they're actually lost". Oh, isn't that convenient that they are lost. Now, the fact is that he is forgetting what the rules of evidence are in the Pakistani Constitution and under the judicial rules how the rules of evidence work. Unfortunately, they just have nowhere to run on this. They can just keep on trying, but the facts are the facts, are the facts. And I've always said that the facts are on my side. They can say what they like but the facts, in fact, are going to prove what it is that I said was correct.

Barkha Dutt: But Mansoor Ijaz, there are a number of commentators who have done their research, gone into history, looked at some of your previous commentaries on the ISI, for example, or the Pakistani military, and they are turning around and making the reasonable allegation, and the reasonable criticism, that you have not been consistent on the ISI and in your own views. Let me read out to you, something that you said in May 2011, wherein, and I am going to quote this, you described the ISI to be "Osama bin Laden's seditious babysitters" You then go on to say, Mansoor Ijaz, that every time the ISI has actually tried to prove that they are protecting their country's interest, they've just been caught with their pants down. This is May 2011. Fast forward to October and you are meeting with the DG ISI Shuja Pasha and many people think that you are in cahoots with the ISI. How do you explain your inconsistency?

Mansoor Ijaz: There is no inconsistency, at all. The fact that I met with General Shuja Pasha is because they made a request of me, to see whether it would be possible to come in and have a look at the data that I had, to determine whether or not there was really anything to; at that time, between October 10 and October 22, the rumour mills started, as they always do, in these Pakistani newspapers. And that rumour mill essentially suggested that there was a memorandum, that what was contained in the memorandum was quite, in the eyes of some in Pakistan, seditious, or treasonous or whatever word you want to put on it. And he simply wanted to see what was in the memo, because none of the memo contents at that point had been made public. So there is no inconsistency. I have not changed my position on the ISI, or its behaviour, or what it 's been doing in past years, or currently. I don't know what they're doing currently, of course, because I haven't written anything more about it. But the reality is that I have been pretty consistent about my views on the Army and the ISI's shenanigans and brinkmanship, I may put it that way, in, particularly, US-Pakistan relations, and how it relates to our efforts to try and wind up the war in Afghanistan. Now, the meeting with Pasha was designed to do only one thing. And that was to make sure that he had the opportunity to review the facts. When I agreed to take the meeting it was because I had the impression, from the briefing, the first call that was made by one of his assistants, I don't remember the name of the guy, that there was a deep concern that maybe laws had been violated here. And I didn't want to be a part of anything where those laws might have been violated. When I agreed to help Haqqani do all of this in May, I simply went to the very heart of our friendship and said here is a guy who is calling me. His voice is stressed. His demeanour is different than it has ever been before with me, and it sounds like he has got a real problem and let's see what we can do to help him. That's all we did. So, my responsibility as a citizen of the United States was to make sure that no laws had been violated on either the Pakistan side or the US side, based on what he was telling me. And that's why I agreed to sit down and talk to them at that time.

Barkha Dutt: But, if you stand by what you say are your consistent views on the shenanigans of the ISI and the military in Pakistan, then why are you provoking, as it were, a kind of civil war between Pakistan's military and its democratically elected civilian government? Many people feel that what is happening right now in Pakistan is a test case for democracy.

Mansoor Ijaz: I think that is a salacious charge that you've made. I reject the allegation that you are making. I am not the one that did any of that. The reality is that the civilian government, since the very initiation of its term in office, has had a strategy and a desire to try and create civilian supremacy over the Armed Forces and the ISI. Rather than doing that by honest governance, by having good governance, by demonstrating to the people that they were, in fact, capable of governing properly, and clearly the Zardari record does not show that; instead of doing that, what they did was resort to every dirty trick, game in the book. Now, this is not for me to decide. I simply passed a memorandum on what was dictated, conceived, edited, everything, by Haqqani, to my friend Jim Jones, to pass it on to Admiral Mullen. That's all we did. And those are the facts that I am going to bring to the table. What that means in the Pakistani system? That's for the Pakistani people, the Supreme Court, and the Commission to decide. In reverse order, I am sorry, I gave that in the wrong order. But the reality is that, that is for them to decide. That's not for me to decide. My job is to just simply come there, put the facts on the record, give them the evidence, and say "What else would you like me to, cross examine me all you want to. Ask me whatever questions you've got". And I'll give them answers to everything. They can bring any charge they want to on the table and I am ready for everything. Believe me, when I come, I am coming with sufficient data that they will understand that they cannot escape what they did in this case.

Barkha Dutt: Now, you have been saying that you will not give out the dates of your arrival in Pakistan for security reasons. But is it fair to assume that you will respond to the notice that has been issued to you by the Parliamentary Panel that's also looking into the Memogate, and that means that you will be in Pakistan before the 26th of this month?

Mansoor Ijaz: Yes. It's fair to assume that.

Barkha Dutt: Can I ask you, are you ready to face the possibility that there could be a treason case filed against you by the civilian government? That you could possibly even be arrested at a later stage?

Mansoor Ijaz: If the Pakistani Government is that, how shall I say it, ignorant about how they are going to look if they try to do something like that, or if they're going to do that so that they can provoke the clash of institutions; what would you like me to say? Do it? I welcome you to try and do it. Because the reality is that you have no case to do that on. You have no justification. I never claimed that I brought Benazir's government down in 1996. I never said that. What I said was that many people have blamed me for having a role in all of that. And that is very different than saying "I did it", because I did not. I wrote two op-ed pieces in The Wall Street Journal. Two op-ed pieces in The Wall Street Journal do not make the undoing of a government. Someone at the IMF decided to stop funding Benazir's government. All right? That's the bottom line. Someone in the Armed Forces decided that stopping of the funding was a very critical event in the history of Pakistan's governance at that time. That's a fact. Those are things that are material. I didn't do any of those things.

Barkha Dutt: Let me ask you a last question. To your critics in Pakistan who say that you are essentially acting at the behest of the ISI and the Pakistani military today; that you have been in regular contact with them since this scandal erupted, what would you say?

Mansoor Ijaz: All nonsense. I am not going to say anything more than that. It's just all nonsense. The trouble is that finally somebody comes to Pakistan and tells the truth about what people did. Finally somebody is willing to stand up to these gangsters and tell them that "You better behave because the people of Pakistan are the ones who elected you. The people of Pakistan are the ones who are responsible for making sure that your governance is for their benefit." And they just don't want to seem to get that message. So, the people of Pakistan are the ones who have to decide. A real democracy means that you have balance of power. You have a balance of power between the Judiciary, the Executive, and the Parliament.

Barkha Dutt: When we last interviewed you, you said you did not know whether President Zardari was in on this plan or not. And then you changed your statement on that very quickly. Are you saying that the Presidency knew or are you saying that the former Ambassador was acting on his own?

Mansoor Ijaz: No, there was no inconsistency. What I said was, these are the facts of what happened in May, and this is what I believe to be the case as I've now seen everything after it's all unfolded today. Those are two different answers and I will make all of that clear when I go to Pakistan next week.

Barkha Dutt: All right Mansoor Ijaz, we'll watch that space. You have told us you are definitely going and you will meet that date set for you by the Parliamentary Panel, as well as the Judicial Commission. Thank you for joining us from London.
 

Assurance sought against removal of Kayani, Pasha

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court asked the government on Friday to submit a written assurance on a petition filed in anticipation of a perceived move to sack Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and ISI Director General Lt-Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha against the backdrop of the ‘memogate’ fiasco.
The order was issued by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry when Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq rubbished the claim and said the government had no plans to remove the two top military officers.
The bench adjourned for two weeks the hearing on the petition filed by Advocate F.K. Butt.
The petitioner requested the court to issue a restraining order and stop the government from taking any step to remove or retire the two officers till the pendency of the case. The army chief will retire on Nov 29, 2013, while the ISI chief will complete his extended term on March 19 this year.
The petition was filed after the sudden removal of defence secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Naeem Khalid Lodhi on Jan 11 on allegations of gross misconduct and illegal action and for creating misunderstanding between state institutions.
During the proceedings, the attorney general drew the court’s attention to a recent statement of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani rejecting a perception that the government was planning to remove the two military officers and expressed surprise that the petitioner was unaware of the statement.
He said the court should not rely on media reports, adding that the petition was based on speculations and not on facts.
The court asked the AG to seek instructions from the authorities concerned and said it would be better if such a statement was submitted in writing.
It reminded observers of a similar case when the Supreme Court had on Oct 15, 2010, issued a blunt restraining order after a midnight dramatic and feverish event on the basis of a media claim that the government might reverse the March 16, 2009, notification of reinstating superior court judges.
At that time too the government was asked to submit written assurances and was warned that any attempt to remove judges would mean committing treason under Article 6 of the Constitution. But the government did not submit any written statement.
F.K. Butt has named President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and secretaries of the cabinet, establishment and defence as respondents.
“Being apprehensive of an ultimate verdict against them likely to arise from the ongoing investigation into the memo scandal, the respondents have allegedly launched a campaign to blackmail and harass the army chief and ISI DG through their public statements continuously appearing in print and electronic media,” the petitioner said.
He said the respondents could not be allowed to implement their political ambitious plan through premature removal or retirement of the army officers who had a lawful right to complete their extended tenure in the interest of national security and sovereignty of the country.

‘US military trainers allowed, but not drones’: Report

“They will never be allowed back, at Shamsi or anywhere else,” the official told Fox News on condition of anonymity. However, he added, that the US military trainers will be invited back into the country “as early as April or May” to assist the Pakistani forces in fighting against the militants.
The report also said that Pakistan will reopen Torkham and Chaman border crossings into Afghanistan to resume the Nato supplies that were earlier stopped after the November 26 Nato strike on the Salala checkpost.
“After this is presented to the Americans, a lot could happen very quickly,” the official told Fox News.
The Pak-US relationship suffered massive lows during the past year after several incidents, including the May 2 Abbottabad raid and the Raymond Davis saga, took place. Pakistan responded aggressively to the US by closing down supply routes to Nato troops in Afghanistan and closing down the Shamsi airbase that was being used for the drone attacks.
Earlier this week, Pakistan refused US special envoy Marc Grossman’s visit to the country saying that it was not prepared yet and is still reviewing its policy regarding its relationship with the US.
Pentagon spokesman Capt John Kirby told Fox News, “We understand the government of Pakistan is still working on its review of US-Pakistan relations, and we have not yet received a formal report from the government… Decisions about the level of Pakistani commitment to our military relationship are obviously theirs to make, and we respect that.”
Spokesperson US State Department Victoria Nuland, in a press briefing on Friday, also expressed that the US was not hurt by Pakistan not letting Grossman visit, rather it is willing to give space to the country’s parliament to review the relationship.

'US, Israel share challenge of Iranian threat'

US military chief meets President Peres, Gantz; Dempsey: We respect you as our partner in the fight for freedom.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff described the Iranian threat as a "challenge shared by Jerusalem and Washington," in a meeting Friday with President Shimon Peres and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

"The deep trust between the two countries will help protect our shared value of freedom," said Dempsey. Emphasizing the friendship between the two countries he continued: "We respect you as our partner in the fight for freedom, not only in this region, but in the entire world."

Addressing the Iranian threat, Peres said, "I'm sure we will win this battle too, in the struggle for a free and safe world for all nations. Israel and the United States stand on the same front."

The president also thanked Dempsey for coming to Israel saying, "your visit is important, in order to show our shared world view in relation to in issue that endangers the whole world." 

The US army chief began his round of meetings with Israel’s top military and political leadership on Friday with a clear message – coordination and dialogue is the key to improving Israel’s security standing in the region.

“We have many interests in common in the region in this very dynamic time and the more we can continue to engage each other, the better off we'll all be,” Dempsey told Gantz and Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the beginning of their meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. Barak responded saying, "There is never a dull moment. That I can promise you".

Dempsey also assured Gantz of US commitment to Israel: "The simplest message of all, my presence here, I hope reflects the commitment we have with each other and I'm here to assure you that's the case."

"I do know that both our countries share the same interests and values, and I'm sure that we can somehow work it out together," Gantz said to his US counterpart earlier in the conversation, seemingly referring to the issue of the Iranian nuclear threat.

Dempsey, the US’s most senior military officer, arrived in Israel late Thursday night for talks that are aimed at getting the IDF and the government to put the brakes on plans to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. The US is hoping that Israel will move attack plans to the back burner and give diplomacy and sanctions more time to have an effect on the Iranian regime.

After arriving in Israel, Dempsey and his wife Deanie met Gantz and his wife Revital for dinner near Tel Aviv. Before the dinner, Gantz surprised Dempsey with a performance by the IDF orchestra which played Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York”. Dempsey is a known Sinatra fan and often sings at various military ceremonies.

Dempsey will also meet with head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, OC IDF Planning Directorate Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel, President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He will later visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum before leaving Israel Friday evening.

The US army chief's visit comes amid rising tension between Jerusalem and Washington over Israeli frustration with the US and Europe’s reluctance to impose tougher economic sanctions on Iran.

He is expected to try and reassure Israel that the Obama administration is committed to stopping Iran’s nuclear program, even if it ultimately comes down to using military force. Top US officials have recently said that the US will not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

While there are differences between the countries as to the type of steps that need to be taken to stop Iran, both Israel and the US share the same intelligence assessments regarding the status of Iran’s nuclear program.

As reported last month in The Jerusalem Post, Israeli and American intelligence believe that while Iran has mastered all of the technology it requires to build a nuclear weapon, the regime has yet to make the decision to do so.

Ahead of Dempsey’s visit, Barak tried to ease tensions with Washington, saying that an Israeli military strike against Iran is still “very far off.” Barak said that Israel was coordinating with the US on how to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"We haven't made any decision to do this," Barak told Army Radio on Wednesday, adding: "This entire thing is very far off. I don’t want to provide estimates [but] it’s certainly not urgent."

Jpost.com staff contributed to this report

Dictatorship will not come back in Pakistan: Gilani

Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said dictatorship will never come back in Pakistan.

He insisted that dictators could not end corruption despite holding power for years, The News reports.


“The opposition is doing its own work and the government would run as per the mandate accorded to them by the people,” Gilani said.

Insisting that every institution must work within the ambit of the Constitution, Gilani said: “We have to strengthen the state organs by restoring the Constitution and my appearance before the court reflects that we respect judiciary.”

The joint session of Parliament would decide about the resumption of NATO supplies, while the gas crisis would be resolved within six months, he added.

Official: Pakistan rejects US envoy visit

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has rejected US special envoy Marc Grossman's request to visit the country, a senior official said on Wednesday, highlighting the increased tensions between the uneasy allies.

He did not elaborate on the reasons.

"Ambassador Grossman asked to visit Pakistan but we conveyed to him that it was not possible at the moment," a senior government official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

Relations between Islamabad and Washington are at the lowest point in years, dragged down by a NATO cross-border air attack which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on Nov. 26.

Chandio quits amid rumours of Awan’s return as law minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Law Minister Maula Bux Chandio has resigned from his post soon after reports surfaced that his predecessor Babar Awan could be reappointed as law minister.
Senior Pakistan Peoples Party leader Khurshid Shah, speaking to reporters at an event in Islamabad on Tuesday, hinted that Awan might be returning to the post that he had relinquished to represent the federation in the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto reference case in the Supreme Court.
If Awan is reappointed, analysts say, it could be another move of defiance on part of the government that is already embroiled in a tussle with the judiciary over the National Reconciliation Ordinance case.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court had suspended Awan’s license temporarily for contempt of court and asked the federation to find a new lawyer. Soon afterwards, reports started circulating that Awan may be brought back as law minister.
Awan is scheduled to meet President Asif Ali Zardari later today.

More embarrassment for Gilani, Pak SC unwilling to back off

ISLAMABAD: In yet another embarrassment for the beleaguered Pakistan government, the Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended the licence of a lawyer close to President Asif Ali Zardari, as Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani faced the possibility of a case being filed against him for alleged misuse of authority. The Supreme Court temporarily suspended the lawyer's licence of Babar Awan, a former law minister and the president's close aide, who is acting as the government's lawyer in several high-profile cases for failing to respond to a contempt notice.

An 11-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry suspended Awan's licence when he appeared in court to represent the government in a case for reviewing the death sentence awarded to former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

The bench said the action was being taken as Awan had failed to respond to a contempt notice.

It further said Awan's behaviour towards the apex court had been "inappropriate". Pakistan's main anti-corruption watchdog is considering a proposal for filing a case of misuse of authority against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani under which he could face a prison term of 14 years if convicted.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is contemplating filing a case against Gilani in connection with the appointment of Adnan Khwaja as chairman of the state-run Oil and Gas Development Company even though Khwaja had already been convicted by court.

"The Supreme Court and the government are in an open clash now, and it seems fairly obvious the court is unwilling to back off," said Cyril Almeida, a lawyer and columnist for Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, Associated Press reported.

Even before the latest clash with the court, the government was locked in a bitter conflict with the army over a secret memo sent to Washington last year aimed at stopping a supposed military coup.

The Supreme Court ruling boosted the sense that the administration could fall, squeezed between the court and Pakistan's powerful generals. Some observers have speculated the army is working behind the scenes with the court to oust the government by constitutional means.

"Once the Supreme Court, the army and the political opposition agree the government needs to go sooner rather than later, it seems very difficult for the government to stay on," Almeida said.

Still the court could have its own reasons for stepping up pressure on the government. Supreme Court Justice Mohammad Iftikhar Chaudhry has clashed with Zardari in the past, and the judges could be fed up with the government defying its order to reopen the corruption case against the president.

Gilani promised to appear before the Supreme Court on Thursday but warned both the judges and the army that they must protect democracy.

"It cannot happen that they derail system," said Gilani after a majority in parliament - mostly the ruling party and its allies - passed a resolution supporting the government.

The resolution said the balance of powers "must be fully respected and adhered to and all state institutions must strictly function within the limits imposed on them by the constitution."

Critics have predicted the civilian government's demise many times since it was elected in 2008 after 10 years of military rule, and it has always defied the forecasts. But this time around, the crisis has drawn the army in more directly, and the court seems to be in no mood to compromise

Since Pakistan was founded in 1947, no civilian government has ever completed a full five-year term before being toppled by a military coup or forced to call early elections. There have been three coups over that period, and while a fourth is considered unlikely, early polls look increasingly possible because of the rising tension.

The Supreme Court has ordered the government to ask Swiss authorities to reopen a corruption case against the president that dates back to the 1990s. The case centers on $60 million in kickbacks that Zardari and his late wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, allegedly received from Swiss cargo companies.

The government has refused to reopen the case, saying Zardari has immunity, and supporters say the court is pursuing a vendetta against the civilian leadership.

Zardari has been vulnerable to prosecution since 2009 when the Supreme Court struck down an amnesty granting him and other leading political figures immunity from past graft cases. The court deemed the amnesty, which was granted in 2008, as unconstitutional.

The court initiated contempt proceedings against the prime minister on Monday after the government failed to respond to an order outlining a series of punitive options the judges could take if the government did not reopen the case against Zardari. Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq told the court he had not received instructions from the country's leaders on how to respond to the order - a response that clearly angered the judges.

Faced with going to jail, Gilani may tell the court during his appearance Thursday that he intends to write the letter to Swiss authorities authorizing them to reopen the case against Zardari, but that could come with a serious political cost.

Zardari stated in an interview last week that he would never send the letter, saying it would dishonor his late wife. Last year, Swiss prosecutors told reporters they couldn't reopen the case because Zardari had immunity.

The prime minister has also clashed with army - the strongest institution in the country - over the memo scandal.

The army was outraged by the memo, which was allegedly sent by the government and offered the U.S. a raft of favorable security policies in exchange for reining in the military.

The army pushed the Supreme Court to open an inquiry into the scandal last month against the wishes of the government, which has denied any connection to the memo and argued the matter was already being probed by parliament.

Gilani criticized the army last week for cooperating with the Supreme Court probe, saying the standoff was nothing less than a choice between "democracy and dictatorship." The prime minister's comments followed a warning from the generals of possible "grievous consequences" ahead if the government did not stop its criticism of the army.

Gilani warned members of parliament Thursday, especially in the opposition, of serious consequences if they didn't stand by the government in supporting democracy.

"If there is no democracy, everything will be finished," said Gilani. "If there is no democracy, we will all go together."

Gilani gets SC notice, Pak crisis worsens

Islamabad: The political crisis in Pakistan intensified on Monday after the Supreme Court issued a contempt notice to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for not re-opening graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
The Prime Minister will now have to personally appear before the apex court on January 19.
The day began with speculation over whether the Prime Minister would survive the day as the deadline set by the Supreme Court was expiring and the government was meant to explain why it had not sought revival of criminal proceedings against Zardari in Switzerland.

However, instead of replying to the court notice, Gilani's government chose a clumsy defiance, complete silence.
Facing the real possibility of the Prime Minister losing his job, the ruling party PPP went in to a huddle with its coalition allies.
“All the leadership of the country are standing on one page,” said Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
The opposition, meanwhile, stepped up the offensive, with both Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan using the government's defiance of the Supreme Court to seek an early election.
In the end, advice from coalition allies to scale back the confrontation appeared to work.
Gilani is now expected to apologise in person before the court and the move suggests he will seek re-opening of the old corruption case against Zardari.
The noose appears to be tightening on Zardari in another case – memogate. Key witness Mansoor Ijaz will by January 24 try and nail him as a conspirator against the army.
There's early election in the air and the army in the shadows, both driving the government to seek political support from Parliament via a pro-government resolution, which projects the battle as one between dictatorship and democracy.

Government lacks shame: Imran Khan

QUETTA - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said on Sunday that if the government was truly democratic, it would have held elections by now.
During an address in Quetta, Imran Khan said that if the current government had came into power through the people and not the NRO, then it would have held elections by now. Quoting the Supreme Court’s earlier statement about Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was a “dishonest person”, the PTI chief said Gilani is “shameless”. “If Gilani had some shame, then he would have held elections. There is a lack of shame,” Imran Khan said.
Imran added that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) should resign from the National Assembly and Punjab Assembly seats if it thinks that the government is destroying the country.
Imran Khan said that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and PML-N were not “ideological parties” but the majority of their members were “opportunists”. “I predict that they will not resign from the Punjab Assembly, even if they resign from the National Assembly,” he said.
Separately, addressing a public meeting at Kahuta, Imran Khan said the incumbent government could not resolve any issue because it itself was a problem for the country. He said the PTI’s tsunami will wash away all plunderers from the country.
Criticising PML-N’s role as opposition, he said that “every other day PML-N calls a drama All Parties Conference and if it really want to oust the government it should resign from the National Assembly.
Earlier, former Tehsil nazim Tariq Murtaza and 40 other former nazims and naib nazims announced they will join PTI.

18 killed in blast during Chehlum procession

At least 18 people were killed and over two dozens were injured when a blast rocked Khanpur Tehsil of the Rahim Yar Khan district of Bahawalpur division on Sunday, rescue sources said. Police sources said that the bomb was planted in electrical transformer. “The investigator have also found ball-bearings from the place. The sources said that the blast occurred near the Imam Bargah near Darkhwasti Chowk of the tehsil. However, RPO Bahawalpur Abid Qadri has claimed that it was an explosion in electrical transformer.

Pak prognosis: Early polls or judicial coup?

A judicial coup, not a military takeover - that's what might happen in Pakistan if civilian rulers keep up their defiance of the Supreme Court without addressing problems with the Army.

The government's vulnerable because it's unpopular. The scenario's a throwback on the 1997
polls when people saw the hand of Asif Zardari, then derided as Mr 10 per cent, in all that went wrong - be it natural disasters or highway holdups, including the one that left matinee idol Sultan Rahi dead on GT road. The result: The PPP's electoral decimation; Nawaz Sharif's return to power. If the ruling combine's stock is low, the army isn't any more a blue-chip entity. Myriad factors have contributed to the khakis' dwindling credibility: The US raid that took out Osama bin Laden; Gen. Ashfaq Kayani's  three-year extension causing heartburn among his peers; the US drone attacks the army permitted in the first place and the NATO air-strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
More shocking among such lows were terrorist strikes at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi and the Mehran naval base in Karachi. What followed were disconcerting reports of an Al Qaeda-Taliban infiltration in the armed forces.
The perception of an 'army in a shambles' constituted the genesis - or so it's claimed - for the memo the civilian leadership sent to the Americans to contain the military's influence in the country's affairs. A coup will help the PPP and weaken the army's perceived allies - most notably the top judiciary alienated and antagonised by President Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.
That makes a judicial coup more plausible than a military takeover. For the PM's disqualification in the NRO case will also render      Zardari's Presidency untenable.
At the root of the ruling combine's face-off with the Supreme Court is its refusal to reopen the Swiss bank account case against Zardari and his deceased wife. The plea: the probe's revival isn't acceptable to the PPP as it'll amount to putting Benazir Bhutto on trial posthumously.
The SC has since found the President and the PM in violation of the Constitution - to which they have sworn allegiance - for placing the party above the judiciary. The 18th amendment to the Constitution vests in the PM the powers earlier enjoyed by the President, including appointment and removal of defence chiefs. That makes inviolable his accountability to courts.
For these reasons, the SC's full bench hearing on Monday will determine the government's fate.
A six-point order last week by a smaller bench held out the threat of the PM's disqualification while affording the regime the escape of an early election. An adverse ruling against Gilani will inevitably lead to a full-blown crisis, denying him the Parliamentary protection he invoked against any extra-constitutional intervention.
"You alone have the right. If you want a no-confidence vote, it can be debated," Gilani told the Opposition in the National Assembly, warning the House against forces outside attempting to derail democracy.
But his defence sounded hollow for his refusal to recognise the court's primacy in the interpretation and enforcement of the Constitution.
Regardless of his pathological dislike of Zardari, chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary is against a military takeover. That's also the stated position of PML(N)'s  Nawaz  Sharif  and Tehreek-e-Insaaf's Imran Khan. The government, therefore, might itself pave the road for army's intervention if it continues locking horns with the SC.
Only snap polls or a leadership change can provide the beleaguered PPP an honourable exit. The antidote was tried in 1993 when Sharif's run-ins with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan precipitated a constitutional breakdown. It's called the "Kakar Formula" as the referee then was Army chief Abdul Waheed Kakar.

Iran has 'proof' US killed scientist

Iranian state television said today Tehran had evidence Washington was behind the latest assassination of one of its nuclear scientists.
In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan's car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.
The United States has denied involvement in the killing and condemned it. Israel has declined to comment.
"We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA," the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported.
"The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents."
The Swiss Embassy has represented US interests in Iran since Tehran and Washington cut diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
State TV said a "letter of condemnation" had also been sent to the British government, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists had "started exactly after the British official John Sawers declared the beginning of intelligence operations against Iran".
In 2010, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sawers said one of the agency's roles was to investigate efforts by states to build nuclear weapons in violation of their international legal obligations and identify ways to slow down their access to vital materials and technology.
Tehran has urged the UN Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the latest killing, which Tehran says is aimed at undermining its nuclear work, which the West and Israel say is aimed at building bombs. Tehran says its nuclear programme is purely civilian.
Tension has mounted between Iran and the West as the United States and European Union prepare measures aimed at imposing sanctions on the Iran's oil exports, its economic lifeblood.
The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute.
Reuters

Pak crisis: Gilani, Kayani meet starts

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani and Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani have come face-to-face for the first time since they crossed swords over the memo gate issue.
 On Monday, Prime Minister Gilani said during an interview that the Army and Inter-Services Intelligence chief had acted in an "unconstitutional and illegal" manner while submitting affidavits to the Supreme Court on the alleged memo that had sought US help to stave off a possible coup in Pakistan, after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May last year.

The military reacted to Gilani's remarks by saying that they could have "grievous consequences".

Kayani met with the Army's Corps Commanders and his Principal Staff Officers on Thursday to assess options for dealing with the political crisis.

Though the meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet has been convened to discuss the Parliamentary Committee on National Security's recommendations for resetting ties with the US and NATO, sources said that it could give the government and the military an opportunity to address their differences on the memo issue.

There are no indications so far that the Army will engineer another coup to remove the Pakistan People's Party or PPP-led government but analysts said the military may not be averse to any move by the Supreme Court to topple the government for either the memo issue or its failure to reopen high-profile graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

"There will be no martial law and all players will continue to function within their constitutional limits," an insider was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper about yesterday's deliberations between Kayani and his top commanders.