QUETTA: A suicide bomber killed 30 people including Deputy Inspector General Operations (DIG) Fayyaz Sumbal and Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP) Shamsur Rehman at the funeral of a policeman in Quetta on Thursday in the third deadly attack on government targets in two weeks.
The blast took place just before the funeral prayers of SHO City Mohib Ullah – killed during a firing incident in Alamu Chowk, Quetta - commenced at the Police Lines mosque.
Provincial chief secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad confirmed that at least 30 people were dead and 62 wounded. 21 of the dead are known to be police officers. Others are yet to be identified, though the victims are said to include children.
“They are not Muslims. They are not humans,” said Inspector
General Mushtaq Sukhera. ”We have no other option but to fight against terrorists. We have made sacrifices and we will continue to do so and we will not bow down.”
The funeral was attended by around 300 to 400 people, including the top police officials of the area. While DIG Operations and DSP died on the spot, IG Balochistan and CCPO survived the attack.
The police immediately cordoned off the area and rescue operation was started. Injured were shifted to the hospital.
A member of the bomb squad said that the suicide bomber was wearing a jacket packed with ball bearings and shrapnel. He tried to enter the mosque where senior officers lined up to offer prayers for their colleague.
On being stopped by police, the bomber detonated his explosives just outside the mosque, several witnesses said.
It was not yet clear how the bomber had passed through several other layers of tight security.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack and ordered instant aid for the victims. He also called the Balochistan chief minister and sought a report on the blast.
Meanwhile, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan have claimed responsibility for the attack.
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At least 9 people killed, several injured in multiple attacks.
By Web DeskPublished: August 9, 2013 Share this article
Print this page Email . Relatives and colleagues gather near the caskets of victims killed in a suicide bomb attack before funeral ceremony at a police headquarters in Quetta August 8, 2013. PHOTO: REUTERS
QUETTA: At least nine people were killed and several others injured in multiple attacks in Quetta on Friday, Express News reported.
One person was killed in a firing incident that took place early morning on Sariyab Road.
“Two people were targeted. One of them died. One was injured,” said an Express News correspondent.
In a separate incident, at least eight people were killed and many were injured during Eid prayers along the eastern bypass.
Commissioner Quetta while on his visit to review to security situation of the city today, said the city lacked personnel to secure every location.
Yesterday, a suicide bomber killed 30 people including Deputy Inspector General Operations (DIG) Fayyaz Sumbal and Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP) Shamsur Rehman at the funeral of a policeman in Quetta — the third deadly attack on government targets in two weeks.
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Hazara killers — supported from Punjab to the Middle EastZofeen Ebrahim | 6 months ago 37 Send to Kindle
The February 16 bombing that killed over 90 people and injured more than 160, many of them critically, was the second major attack on Pakistan’s minority Shia Hazaras this year. — AP/File Photo
In the aftermath of the Quetta massacre, the arrests of a few Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militants have been looked upon warily as nothing more than a ploy to placate an angry nation.
If there was sincerity and strategic considerations behind this move, however, the headquarters of the Sunni extremist group in Punjab would have been dismantled much earlier.
But with elections approaching, a full-fledged and whole-hearted operation against such militant groups seems highly unlikely, especially in the Punjab, the breeding ground of sectarian militants. This has much to do with the fact that in Punjab, extremist and militant groups have a strong electoral presence.
“I doubt that there will be a real crackdown,” says author and journalist, Zahid Hussain, talking to Dawn.com: “The Punjab government has been looking the other way for too long and pursues the policy of appeasement.” He added that it had even made a covert deal for the release of LeJ leader Malik Ishaq.
Hussain has serious reservations about Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority, for example. The authority was created in 2009 under an executive order. “It remains dormant and a toothless body because the bill has yet to be passed in the National Assembly. There is also the unresolved matter of whether it should fall under the umbrella of the interior ministry when in the original charter, it was to be under the prime minister,” he explains.
Seconding Hussain, defence analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi added: “The Punjab Government is known for patronising the LeJ and (its predecessor) Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).”
But it’s not only the Punjab government complicit in the inaction against extremist sectarian outfits. The centre hasn’t appeared earnest about the issue either.
And so the scourge of extremism will continue, as was seen last week when terror revisited the Shia Hazaras on Kirani Road in the south-western Pakistani city Quetta. The attack was also a grim reminder that without a national consensus in Pakistan on how to deal with domestic terrorism, the next attack is not far behind.
The bomb that killed over 90 people and injured more than 160, many of them critically, was the second major attack on Pakistan’s minority Shia Hazaras this year. A twin-suicide attack at a snooker club on January 10 had killed 92 and wounded 121. With the Hazara community living huddled together in certain localities, they have become an even easier prey and large numbers can be annihilated in minutes.
Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) Chairperson Abdul Khaliq Hazara told Dawn.com that the terror and fear had reached such a crescendo that the Hazaras had stopped venturing out of their locales. “There is no place left in Quetta that remains safe for Hazaras, be it an educational institution, school, bus stops, government offices or a marketplace. Public space is increasingly shrinking for us,” he said. Where the LeJ derives power from The LeJ, which claimed responsibility for these attacks, is born out of SSP. It also has ties with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In fact, some of the top TTP leaders, like the current spokesperson, Ehsanullah Ehsan, were all members of LeJ in Punjab, before they became part of the TTP. “These groups morph and gel and even support each other,” says Rizvi, who fears that “unless the government adopts a tough position and keeps up the pressure over an extended period of time” these attacks will continue. Equally, if the government decides to pull the rug from under them, and has some successes to show to the people, it will gain legitimacy. “Nothing succeeds like success, and we saw that in Swat once the government decided to go all out; their efforts were lauded not criticized,” he points out. The HDP chairperson agreed that “The state is more powerful than the militants. We believe the state knows who the culprits are and if it wants it can round up the militants, cleanse the city off them, even kill them, in just three days.” But, he adds, “They don’t want to.” According to Rizvi, “Organisations like the LeJ, the SSP and the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat (ASWJ) are politically convenient, especially for all the Punjab-based political parties and even the present Punjab government – and they will not go beyond a certain point to enrage them.” “So while they will condemn acts of sectarian attacks and militancy, they will never muster the courage to condemn a particular group,” he explains. In addition, says Rizvi, these groups have embedded themselves in society by setting up schools, hospitals, mosques and other welfare organisations and created a strong support base, including those in the lower ranks of the police and the intelligence agencies.” “There is no place left in Quetta that remains safe for Hazaras, be it an educational institution, school, bus stops, government offices or a marketplace. Public space is increasingly shrinking for us.”It is very easy for the LeJ, a predominantly Punjabi group to thrive in Balochistan, he further explains. “With a non-existent provincial government and the support of the Taliban, the place became a safe haven.” The LeJ made inroads in Balochistan and had steadily spread its wings (since 2004-05), where the ethnic Hazara community has been their main target. Talking to Dawn.com, senior journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai said: “Call it infiltration, or what you will, but the LeJ has succeeded in recruiting many Baloch, once considered quite secular.” According to Hussain, the Baloch have “been indoctrinated into hating the Hazara community.” Khaliq points out that the whereabouts of the militant camps was common knowledge. According to reliable sources, the training camps are run in Mastung and Khuzdar, from where earlier attacks on Shia pilgrims going to Iran have taken place. Those who are apprehended, meanwhile, are released for want of enough evidence – and if the evidence is there, it’s not produced in the courts. The desire to eliminate Shias altogether is also constantly fed from the outside. “A proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia is being waged in Balochistan.” says Khaliq. It is widely held that these anti-Shia militants receive funding from the Sunni-Wahabi sheikhdoms of the Arab world. The Shias, on the other hand are perceived to be supporting Iran. Hussain, meanwhile, expresses surprise over the mushrooming of madressas in Balochistan, which lacks “even the most basic facilities for locals”. The senior journalist adds that it’s common knowledge such ‘nurseries’ of extremism were being financed by Sunni-Wahabi leaning Middle Eastern countries. So where do the agencies come in? Some experts are also of the view that these assaults are carried out to deflect international attention from the ongoing separatist movement in Balochistan. The HDP spokesperson insists that such acts of terrorism are carried out in collusion with the security and intelligence agencies. Yusufzai, however, does not believe in this commonly held viewpoint. “These agencies would never allow their own country to get destabilised and they would never want to eliminate the Shia community. After all there are many Shias within these organisations too,” he points out. According to Yusufzai, the intelligence agencies’ ‘incompetence’ can be attributed to “overwork”. “Their hands are full with the ongoing separatist movement in one province, and the attacks by the TTP in others – and then these other militants fanning sectarianism. And if that were not all; these agencies are also being used for political purposes!” says Yusufzai. Hussain plays down the involvement of the agencies, but adds, “They have the knowledge of who the culprits are but they are not focused on fighting these groups. So while they may not be in direct collusion; by their inaction they are helping these extremists gets stronger.” ================= In Afghanistan, a small player brings big changes Source: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 02:46 PM Author: Marco Niada View full size slideshow For nine years I have been funding the construction of schools in Afghanistan, and I travel there every year to monitor their implementation. I operate in the province of Bamiyan, in the highlands of the Hindu Kush, the so-called Valley of the Buddha, named after those statues which were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001. The population, ethnic Hazara and Shi’ite, suffered the Taliban’s fanaticism more than any other group, seeing entire villages destroyed and suffering mass executions. Perhaps this is why the region has remained impervious to Taliban resurgence until today. This has enabled me to work quietly and steadily and be part of a process of development that is beginning to show visible results. Since 2004, when I came to Bamiyan for the first time, thanks to the opportunity presented to me and my wife Maria Rosario by Filippo Grandi, then director of the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) in Afghanistan, our small organization, Committee Arghosha Faraway Schools, has made great progress. Named in 2005 after the first school built in the remote valley of Arghosha, at a height of 3200 metres and 30 km north of the legendary lakes of Band e Amir, our association, in addition to myself and Filippo, includes my wife and her brother, Paolo Lazzati. In nine years, we have funded the construction of 8 schools, (with the ninth coming this autumn), three courses of professional training for 300 teachers, three courses of computer use and English for 30 neo-graduate girls, and built a library in the biggest of the schools, Chardeh, which houses over 700 girls. Our projects focus on the female population, as out of 3,500 students attending the schools, 2,500 are girls, 4 of the 9 schools that we built are for girls only (the others are mixed), while of the 120 teachers on the Afghan state payroll teaching in our schools, 30 are women, a very high level by the standards of Afghans. Shuhada, the Afghan NGO that plans and and builds the schools that we fund, was also founded by a woman, Sima Samar, now chairman of the National Commission of Human Rights in Afghanistan and, in the past, vice president of the first Karzai government. Our other tutelary female is Habiba Sarabi, Governor of Bamiyan, the only woman governor of an Afghan province. Sarabi is a big supporter: on April 13th, despite the commitments between Kabul and Bamiyan, she came to attend the inauguration of our eighth school in Dar and Ali, on a rainy but cheerful day for the more than 350 pupils who will go on to study in a stone structure replacing an old one made of mud. This year I decided to prolong my stay in Afghanistan in order to understand the impact of our commitment to education during all these years of operations in this wonderful country. In fact, I had second thoughts, since the media and experts continue to bombard us with negative messages about the future of the country, in view of the withdrawal of foreign troops. Did we throw our money into the furnace? I owed an answer to our donors, given that in all these years we have raised and spent $ 1.1 million. And I owed it to the Afghans: in fact we have involved about 20,000 people, mostly farmers and shepherds, sending their 3,500 children to school every day. Instead of spending the usual week in the country, coinciding with the opening of a new school, this time I took a month's vacation to travel to the four corners of Bamiyan province, visiting all the schools. I travelled over 1,600 km (1,000 miles) by car on rough roads, between 2500 and 3500 metres above sea level, I flew over the valleys of the Hindu Kush by plane and helicopter, looking over crops and recently built homes. I met the principal representatives of the province: Governor Sarabi, the mayor of Bamiyan, Khadim Hussain Fitrat, the dean of Bamiyan University, Sakhidad Saleem, local journalists and managers of various departments, from Economy, Labour and Tourism/Culture. I also met our Ambassador in Kabul, Luciano Pezzotti, since Italy has various cultural projects and cooperation in Bamiyan, from the restoration of the Buddha, to that of the ruins of the citadel of Gholghola, and including some road works. After much wandering I am convinced that despite the doubts and uncertainties, the province of Bamiyan is moving in the right direction and that the money we spent was the best investment of our lives. The welfare of the inhabitants of the valleys continues to improve, though slowly. Agriculture in the wealthiest areas begins to mechanize, replacing wooden ploughs with tractors. All around you can see new fruit trees and masonry structures to store potatoes, known throughout Afghanistan for their top quality. Over the last 5 years in Bamiyan 3 banks have established branches, and half a dozen hotels have been built, with the aim of attracting what is still a weak flow of tourists, mostly Afghans. The herds and flocks grow visibly. Many people have a Chinese or Iranian motorcycle. It is now rare to encounter barefoot children in the villages, while 10 years ago they were the majority. All adults have good quality shoes. In many schools girls in the higher grades, who once covered their eyes and lowered their gaze, now still keep their heads covered, but look you straight in the eye and ask questions directly. In one school they even complained about the poor quality of English teachers and asked me if I could find better ones, maybe a native speaker ...If you ask higher grade students what they want to do when they grow up, everyone is aiming for university. In one particular school, Zarin, the girls have made it clear that they have no problem with going away to study in large cities such as Kabul, Mazar, Herat or even Kandahar, which is ridden with Taliban infiltration. The majority of students want to become doctors or teachers and even much-needed engineers: you often hear children shouting in chorus "inginaar", a term which for them has to do with everything that is modern, from engines and bridges to canals in the fields. The girls have raised their head in recent years, and although soberly, they now take care of their appearance, sporting stylish shoes and handbags, even if they have to walk for more than an hour on rocky paths to reach a destination over 3,000 metres above sea level. Infant mortality has been reduced drastically by virtue of the construction of polyclinics. According to data from Mohammed Reza Ada, director of the provincial Department of Education, 85 schools were built in the last 7 years, also thanks to our small contribution. A total of 353 are now operational, with 142,000 students attending, compared with 82,000 in 2005. Moreover, girls rose from 39% to 46% of all pupils. Today, in many areas, the female component has reached a majority. As a sorcerer's apprentice who embarked on an experiment both for fun and out of curiosity, to discover the unexpected effect of his actions, I realized the powerful impact that education has on people's lives. First, there is a concrete and visible result: about a mile south of Arghosha, our first school, a dam has been built to manage the valley’s water supply, while a mile further north, a clinic has been built by the New Zealand military (PRT), drastically reducing mortality at childbirth. The same happened in Kamati, a school at the foot of the highest Hindu Kush mountain, the Koh e Baba, where a clinic was built a year ago by the Swiss NGO Help Schaffausen and a system of canals is now in place. In Chardeh, which is next to a school for 1800 boys, there is a large outpatient clinic built by US Aid and even a bazaar, which has flourished in recent years. In Sar and Qul, a bridge was built two years ago over a stream which the girls had had to wade through for the previous three years. A clinic was also built a couple of years ago. Zarin, Sar and Qul have also attracted large NGOs such as Save the Children: The Japanese division of the famous organization has in fact built the walls surrounding the buildings. We are a small organisation, but nonetheless we have moved in the right direction at the right time, especially with the right people operating in the field. In some instances, we were even able to lead the way for big charitable organizations. And our activity is proving successful. Just before leaving the country I was able to lay the foundation stone of our ninth school, Ghorab, in a moving ceremony for the students and residents of the valley. The school completes a structure built years ago by Care International that was no longer big enough to accommodate the growing number of students, who were forced to study in tents. Our small size has allowed us to be more flexible than others, maintaining at the same time a tight control over everything we do. We are also in continuous contact with our Afghan operators who are by now old friends. From them we demand absolute honesty and transparency. So far there has been no need from our side of any sort of guidance on that matter, judging from some anecdotes -- like that of a truck carrying bricks that 5 years ago shed its load on the way to the building site, which I only found out now, since they have never asked for a refund and were ashamed to talk about it. Or the rigour that Shuhada has shown, when some farmers in a valley wanted to sell the land where the school was to be built instead of donating it, as all villagers do. Our local correspondents suggested that we hold on, threatening to go to another valley to build the school. That was a very effective threat and finally we got what we wanted. My long journey into the centre of Afghanistan has convinced me that for us the crucial year 2014 will be a year like any other. The building of our tenth school will symbolically celebrate the tenth year of our presence in the country. We will continue to work as long as our Afghan friends ask us and our donors allow it. The best antidote to those who destroy is to build. Of stones in Afghanistan there are plenty, and we won’t leave any stone unturned. The author is Chairman of Arghosha Faraway Schools. To know more visit www.arghosha.org This article originally appeared on Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy's leading financial newspaper, on May 24, 2013. ========================= FEATURE-Uncertain future for Afghan businesswoman as West leavesSource: Reuters - Sat, 3 Aug 2013 10:00 PM Author: Reuters Liza Ghausi Nooristani, chief executive of Mutaharek Construction Company, works on her laptop at her office in Kabul July 28, 2013. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani * Woman's company built schools, roads, bridges in east * Projects ending as Western troops leave * USAID aims to help women set up small businesses By Jessica Donati KABUL, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The United States and its allies have put promoting women's rights at the core of their 12-year mission in Afghanistan and Liza Ghausi Nooristani has profited nicely from their intervention. Nooristani is one of the few women in conservative, male-dominated Afghanistan to set up and run a relatively big company. And she has done it in the mountainous eastern war zone. She has been undaunted by the danger and the death threats and her construction company has been building schools, roads and government offices, largely paid for by a flood of aid money that followed the arrival of U.S. troops. "In the eastern part of Afghanistan, which is dangerous for security, I was the first woman to have a construction company, and I travelled without a bodyguard or gun," said Nooristani, chief executive her firm, Mutaharek Construction Company. She won her first contract in 2007, to build a village school worth $10,000. Since then, her company has handled a host of projects, with the biggest worth as much as $800,000. But now Nooristani faces the prospect of the withdrawal of Western troops. For Afghan women in general, the exit of most foreign troops by the end of next year could mean a slip back in the rights they have managed to secure over the past decade. For Nooristani, a round-faced woman with sad eyes, the withdrawal of Western forces and the aid programmes they have promoted also means a sharp fall in business. "As soon as the provincial reconstruction team left they stopped the projects," Nooristani said in an interview, referring to joint military-civilian teams set up to consolidate military gains with development. Nooristani is not only going to miss the projects but also the Western way of doing business.
"I won't take a project from the government because the government's people are corrupt," she said. "The government does not think women have any worth, nobody has time for females ... they just say women are just for the home to wash their clothes."ENEMIES An official for the USAID development agency said Afghan businesswomen were still "outside the inner circle". While they had made progress, they faced difficulties in doing business in a very bureaucratic system largely run by men. "Licenses for exports and other permits are the main concerns of women," the official said. The agency has launched a $200 million programme to help women aged 18-30 build up their skills and create more than 3,500 small businesses. Nooristani has her enemies, some of whom object to her doing what she does because she's a woman. "First of all the Taliban, but also common people, because of the way they think," she said with a shrug. She has received death threats and escaped a bomb attack. Despite the danger, her husband and six children support her, while her sisters, all of them housewives, admire her, she said. But some relatives take a dim view of her work. Nooristani spent part of her childhood in Pakistan to escape Afghanistan's interminable conflict. She later studied at university in both Kabul and New Delhi. She is driven, she says, by her determination to help women in the countryside gain access to education. With the development projects drying up, Nooristani has set up a firm called New Lalazar Limited, which supplies and services office equipment, mainly to foreigners in Kabul. If the new business founders, she said she would return to her home province of Nuristan in the east to help the people, perhaps teaching in the schools she built. "The people there don't know a car, they don't know electricity because they don't have it, so I'm going to work for those people, I'm going to help out those people." (Editing by Robert Birsel) ===================
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