The Drone Story and Google Earth

 According to a story in this newspaper, images from Google Earth dating to 2006 show unmanned aerial vehicles, the kind used for attacks in tribal areas, stationed on the ground at an airfield in Balochistan – possibly near Kharan. These pictures may not on their own prove that the drone attacks on FATA originate from within Pakistan, but they go a long way towards adding weight to the mounting body of evidence that this may well be the case. Indeed, even before US Senator Dianne Feinstein – the head of the Senate's intelligence committee – made her comments about bases within Pakistan, suspicion as to their presence existed in many places. In 2008 and now, just the other day, two major US newspapers published stories quoting unnamed US officials as saying that such bases do exist in Pakistan.

Surely the government must realize it is time to come clean. It cannot continue to fool people. Most citizens are intelligent enough to see the truth. Further deception will do more harm than good. The real question is what is to be done for the future. The presence of bases used by the US within the country is simply unacceptable. Opinion about this is unanimous. The suggestion coming in from the US that the raids be re-cast as 'joint operations' needs to considered carefully by our decision-makers. This may, for the present, seem to be the only way out. But a crucial prong in this approach must be to persuade people that the war against terrorists is one led and planned by Islamabad; that it is being fought for the sake of the people of Pakistan. This conviction has still to be created and in its absence the US involvement is, naturally, one that arouses a great deal of anger even though the drone attacks have removed a number of high-level targets.

Kyrgyiztans' parliament closes US base when you in Pakistan?

 kyrgyzstanís parliament voted on Thursday to close the only US air base in Central Asia, removing one of the US militaryís supply routes into Afghanistan as it prepares to send more troops.
 The United States also faced reluctance from its NATO allies to provide more soldiers to complement the extra 17,000 troops it is sending to Afghanistan to tackle the Taliban insurgency. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, attending a NATO meeting in Poland, said Washington wanted its allies to send more troops to provide security for a presidential election in Afghanistan in August but acknowledged big increases were unlikely. Kyrgyzstanís decision to close the US air base undermined its plans to diversify supply routes into Afghanistan after supply convoys were attacked by militants in Pakistan. Kyrgyzstanís parliament backed a decision by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, announced in Moscow after he secured a $2 billion package of aid and credit from Russia to close the Manas air base. Bakiyev has accused Washington of refusing to pay a higher rent for using the base. Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbayev said Washington would be given 180 days to wrap up operations after the parliamentary decision was signed into law. ìWe are prepared to look at the fees and see if there is justification for a somewhat larger payment,î Gates told reporters in the Polish city of Krakow. ìBut we are not going to be ridiculous about it. We are prepared to do something we think is reasonable. It is an important base, but it is not so important that we are going to waste taxpayer dollars paying something that is exorbitant.

The United States and its allies fly troops and supplies from bases in Europe and the Gulf and could increase this traffic to make up for the loss of Manas air base. ìWe have full stock piles. It is an inconvenience for allies and one to regret, but we can certainly absorb it,î NATO spokesman James Appathurai said. The closure underlined the challenges Washington faces in enlisting Russian support for its campaign in Afghanistan.

Will we be lucky enough to  realize our dreams of free Pakistan, free from injustices, free from western interests, free in decisions, and free from powerfuls' chains.?

Musa Khan....A sinless Victim

Pakistan’s shocked and saddened media community came out across the country on Thursday to protest the killing of Musa Khankhel, the Swat correspondent for Geo Television and The News.

 he 28-year-old Musa Khan was abducted by unidentified men while he was reporting on the controversial new effort to bring peace in the Taliban-overrun district of the North-West Frontier Province. His body was later found riddled with a dozen bullets.

According to his brother, also a journalist working in Swat, Musa Khan was picked up at gunpoint as he accompanied a “peace caravan” headed by Maulana Sufi Mohammed, the leader of the Tehreek-e-Nifas-e-Sharia-Mohammadi.

 he NWFP government had earlier in the week concluded an agreement with the TNSM for the imposition of Sharia courts in seven districts of the province, including Swat.

In return, Sufi Mohammed must persuade the Swat Taliban, headed by his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, to submit themselves to government rule.

The two were reported to be in negotiations at a secret location on Thursday in Swat but the killing of a journalist has cast a shadow over the Pakistani media’s enthusiasm for the deal.

 usa Khan was among the large number of journalists covering the TNSM leader’s march across Swat. He filed his last dispatch for Geo only hours before his body was discovered.

In the capital, a large number of journalists gathered to protest Musa Khan’s killing, demanding that the perpetrators be arrested, and pledged not to be silenced by this incident. His killing was the fourth of a journalist in Swat in one year. “Musa Khan, you have not shed your blood in vain,” the journalists chanted. “Musa Khan we salute your courage.”

The journalist had received several threats in the recent past, which he had reported to his organisation, the Jang media group. Pakistani journalists said it was impossible to say who might have killed him — the Taliban or, as one report in The News suggested, the security agencies. A proliferation of different Taliban groups in Swat, with militants owing allegiance to a local commander, complicates the picture.

“In Swat, and in many other places in NWFP, there are more grey areas than black and white, and this is the problem. In fact, this is Pakistan’s problem,” said Imtiaz Gul, a senior journalist.

Also on Wednesday, armed men walked into a press club building in Wana in the militant-stronghold of South Waziristan, asked the guards to leave, and then blew up the building, destroying it with explosives they planted as they arrived. No one was hurt or killed in the incident.

And in Lahore, the secretary-general of the South Asia Free Media Association, Imtiaz Alam, who has urged the Pakistan government to conduct a transparent probe into the Mumbai attacks, was attacked by motorcycle-borne men as he drove home at night. The bearded young men smashed the windows of his car, but he escaped without injuries to his person.

 Mazhar-Abbas, secretary-general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, said the government had so far not solved a single case of attack on a journalist, except one in the Sindh province, in which the PPP government arrested a former minister and a political opponent.

The tragic killing of Musa Khel has also sparked a debate on the employer’s responsibilities towards training and providing insurance for those working in hostile situations.