Militants attack army camp, school in North Waziristan

North Waziristan is alleged to be a stronghold of Taliban fighters targeting American and Nato forces in Afghanistan. — Photo by AP

MIRAMSHAH: Militants fired three rocket-propelled grenades at a Pakistan army camp in the town of Miramshah in the North Waziristan tribal region, military officials said. There were no casualties.
In a separate incident, militants set off explosives at a boys’ school in Miramshah, damaging part of the building.
The tribal region is alleged to be a stronghold of Taliban fighters targeting American and Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Sehba challenges court order declaring Musharraf a PO

Pervez Musharraf. — AFP

ISLAMABAD: Pervez Musharraf’s wife Sehba Musharraf on Saturday challenged a court order that declared the former president a proclaimed offender, DawnNews reported.
Sehba filed a petition in this regard in Rawalpindi’s anti-terrorist court.
The petition states that Musharraf was declared a proclaimed offender in a faulty manner and on the basis of invalid sections and provisions.
The petition states that the court had used Section 87 against Musharraf. However, since Musharraf was residing outside Pakistan before the case began, the court should have referred to Section 93 in order to act against him, the petition says.
Subsequently, the anti-terrorist court issued a notice to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and adjourned the proceedings to Jan 21.

Obama vows US ‘military superiority’ despite cuts

US President Barack Obama speaks about the Defense Strategic Review at the Pentagon in Washington. -Reuters Photo

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama vowed Thursday the US military would maintain its “superiority” and bolster its presence in Asia despite planned cuts to the defense budget.
“So, yes, our military will be leaner, but the world must know, the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats,” Obama told reporters at the Pentagon.
Unveiling a revised military strategy designed to reflect a more austere era, Obama said the plan called for increasing the American presence in the Pacific while moving away from large ground wars against insurgents.
“We’ll be strengthening our presence in the Asia Pacific, and budget reductions will not come at the expense of this critical region,” said Obama, in an unusual appearance in the Pentagon’s briefing room.
“As we look beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the end of long-term, nation-building with large military footprints, we’ll be able to ensure our security with smaller conventional ground forces,” Obama said.
The strategy review is supposed to shape Pentagon budget priorities as Obama’s administration prepares for $487 billion in defense cuts over the next 10 years.
In a politically charged election year, White House officials stressed Obama was deeply involved in the strategy review and sought to portray the president as taking a responsible approach to defense spending informed by the advice of commanders.

Pagara taken to London by air ambulance

Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) chief Pir Pagara. — File photo

KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) chief Pir Pagara was taken to London on Thursday by a special air ambulance, along with his physician and family members, for treatment of his infected lungs.
According to sources in Kingri House, he was given clearance by a medical board on Wednesday to undertake the journey. His son Pir Sadruddin Shah Rashdi was already in London to make necessary arrangements in a private hospital.
Moving scenes were witnessed when the spiritual leader of Hur Jamaat was being taken in an ambulance to the Karachi airport from a hospital, where he had been under treatment for a couple of weeks. Hundreds of his followers prayed for his early recovery.
The air ambulance arranged by the Hur Jamaat was brought from Dubai.
The ailing PML-F chief was accompanied by his wife, elder son Pir Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi, physician Dr Saulat, secretary Dr Karim Mehar and adviser to the Sindh chief minister Imtiaz Shaikh.
The PPP leaders told reporters that President Asif Ali Zardari was in touch with sons of Pir Pagara and had offered government`s assistance.

PPP hints at early general election

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani chairing a meeting of Federal Ministers and leaders of PPP at Aiwan-e-Sadr. —Online

ISLAMABAD: Amid speculations that the coalition government may be wrapped up or face a ‘big blow’ before Senate elections scheduled for March 11, the Pakistan People’s Party leadership decided on Thursday to hold them in mid-February, a senior party member told Dawn.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the PPP’s core committee, jointly presided over by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani at the Presidency.
Some private TV channels quoted the Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Khursheed Shah, as saying that the next general election could be held any time after the presentation of budget in June.
A source in the PPP said President Zardari had called a meeting of all heads of coalition parties on Friday to take them into confidence on the decision taken by the core committee.
The party sources said the committee had reiterated its earlier decision of not writing a letter to Swiss authorities to reopen a money-laundering case against President Zardari.
Political observers see the move as an indication of a fresh confrontation between the government and the judiciary.
The Supreme Court had ordered the government to write the letter by Jan 10. Another significant decision taken by the committee was that President Zardari would not submit a statement before a judicial commission formed by the Supreme Court to investigate the memo issue.
The PPP leaders believe that the federation’s reply submitted to the court during the hearing on maintainability of petitions filed by PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and others in the memo case should be treated as a reply from the president.
“Under the Constitution we can hold Senate elections any time within one month before March 11,” Leader of the House in Senate Nayyar Bokhari told Dawn.
The Senate elections are held after every three years after the retirement of 50 per cent of its members. The term of a senator, however, is six years. Last elections were held on March 3, 2009 — nine days before the scheduled oath-taking of new members.
Article 224 of the Constitution says: “An election to fill seats in the Senate which are to become vacant on the expiration of the term of the members of the Senate shall be held not earlier than 30 days immediately preceding the day on which the vacancies are due to occur.”
The PPP leadership also decided to hold by-elections on seats recently vacated by legislators who had joined the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf.
“The meeting decided to hold by-elections on all vacant seats and complete legal formalities for the purpose at the earliest,” the president’s spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said.
Former law minister Dr Babar Awan said: “The ruling party will stick to its previous stance that no case can be tried against the sitting president.”
The meeting decided to hold consultations with coalition partners on the issue of creation of new provinces and take legislative measures in parliament for Seraiki province in the light of consultations with coalition partners.
The sources said Pakistan Muslim League-Q leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi and Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali, who met the president separately after the core committee meeting, had endorsed the PPP decisions on creating new provinces and holding Senate polls in mid-February.
The meeting praised the cabinet’s decision to support a private member bill seeking to make it mandatory for all servants drawing salary from the public exchequer to declare and make public details of their assets in the same manner as the parliamentarians do.
“The meeting noted that in the past such initiatives were thwarted on flimsy grounds and decided to push through the proposed legislation with vigour and political determination,” Farhatullah Babar said.
He said the meeting had rejected a proposal by some political circles to set up military courts and termed it undemocratic, uncalled for and undermining of civil and democratic institutions. “The PPP will resist any such move.”
The prime minister briefed the meeting on the gas, electricity, sugar and fertiliser situation and said the government was giving top priority to domestic gas consumers and there would be no interruption in supply.
Mr Babar quoted the prime minister as saying: “Gas supplies to industry, cement, fertiliser and thermal power sectors will remain suspended during the current month because of an expected increase in consumption by domestic users.”
Mr Gilani said the cabinet committee had been asked to introduce reforms in the energy sector as early as possible and to take steps to reduce system losses by gas companies.
Mr Babar said a committee, headed by Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hussain, had been asked to hold talks with stakeholders in Sindh to share some of the gas produced in the province with Punjab and submit its report.
The meeting decided to mobilise people and hold rallies and public meetings at divisional levels to be addressed by senior party leaders, including the prime minister.
It asked the president of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa PPP, Senator Sardar Ali to make preparation for holding a public meeting in tribal areas — the first of its kind by the PPP after Political Parties Order was extended to the region by President Zardari in August last year.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik briefed the meeting on the law and order situation.
The meeting was also attended by Nayyar Bokhari, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, Syed Khursheed Shah, Makhdoom Shahabuddin, Syed Naveed Qamar, Sherry Rehman, Faisal Raza Abidi, Sardar Ali, Nazar Gondal, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Rana Farooq Saeed Khan, Rukhsana Bangash, Fouzia Habib and Farhatullah Babar.

Girl, six, killed in Iraq bombings

A bomb site in Iraq. - File Photo.

BAQUBA: A six-year-old girl was killed and eight other people wounded in a series of bomb attacks Wednesday in the Iraqi city of Baquba, security and hospital officials said.
Five bombs exploded at short intervals in different parts of the city, starting from 6:45 am (0345 GMT), said an official at the operations command centre in Baquba, 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Baghdad.
One of them, which targeted the house of a local leader, killed a six-year-old girl, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Eight other people, including three police officers and five civilians, were wounded, he added.
The first blast struck a car in the city centre, with the others targeting the house of a police officer, another local leader’s residence, the house of an anti-Qaeda militiamen from the Sahwa group, and a checkpoint.
Doctor Firas al-Dulaimi, at Baquba’s general hospital, confirmed the toll from the bombings.
Violence in Iraq is down from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common. A total of 187 people died in violence in November, according to official figures.
A British NGO said on Monday that around 162,000 people, almost 80 per cent of them civilians, were killed in Iraq from the start of the 2003 US-led invasion up to last month’s withdrawal of American forces.

In Syria, Arab League monitors learn along the way

Syrian protesters, opposition leaders and foreign commentators are now questioning the worth of the monitors’ mission, some suggesting it will merely provide a cover for further repression. —AP Photo

BEIRUT: Arab League monitors could hardly have confronted more tragic evidence of the bloodshed convulsing Syria than the corpse of a five-year-old boy laid out on a rug in a mosque in the city of Homs.
“His name is Ahmed Mohammed al-Rai,” a man tells the two monitors. “Look at this. This happened despite the presence of the Arab League.”
A mourner then pulls back the white shroud to show a bloodied bandage and a bullet hole in the boy’s back. The scene was captured on an activist’s mobile phone, posted on Youtube.
The deployment of dozens of Arab League peace monitors to Syria was the first international intervention on the ground in nine months of ferociously repressed protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
But if it initially raised hopes among the opposition, the prospects of them bringing an immediate end to the violence were soon shown to be dim.
Three days into the mission, a harassed-looking monitor told a restless crowd in a mosque in the Damascus suburb of Douma: “Our goal is to observe…it is not to remove the president, our aim to is return Syria to peace and security.”
Footage of the incident was broadcast by al-Jazeera.
The crackdown by government forces appears to have gone on unabated since the first monitor teams arrived in Syria, with about 139 anti-government protesters killed across the country, by a Reuters count.
Syrian protesters, opposition leaders and foreign commentators are now questioning the worth of the monitors’ mission, some suggesting it will merely provide a cover for further repression. The appointment of a general from Sudan, a country with a dire human rights record, to lead it has also cast doubt on its integrity.
What it can realistically do to force the Assad government to ease the crackdown and negotiate with the opposition – and what it can do if he refuses – is unclear.
A blow was dealt to the peace mission on Sunday, when an Arab League advisory panel said it should give up in light of the unrelenting bloodshed.
“This is giving the Syrian regime an Arab cover for continuing its inhumane actions under the eyes and ears of the Arab League,” chairman Ali al-Salem al-Dekbas said in Cairo.
The revolt in Syria, ruled by the Assad dynasty for 41 years, broke out last March following the overthrow of Western-backed strongmen in Egypt and Tunisia and the outbreak of uprisings in Libya and elsewhere in the Arab world.
More than 5,000 people have been killed, according to a United Nations estimate, shot by snipers, blasted by tank fire, or victims of torture or summary execution.
The government blames the violence on foreign-inspired “terrorists” and says more than 2,000 members of its security forces have been killed. Peaceful civilian protests have given way to an armed insurgency led by the Free Syrian Army, whose ranks are filled with army defectors and led by Riad al-Asaad, a former army colonel.
The West, while deploring the violence and imposing sanctions, has resisted an intervention of the sort that hastened Muammar Gaddafi’s end in Libya.
Russia, which has a naval base in Syria and is its main arms supplier, and China also oppose intervention.
But a full-scale civil war could wreak havoc with the strategic balance in the Middle East.
The Arab League, a pan-Arab organisation, took action by suspending Syria and imposing sanctions. The moves were aimed in part at mollifying the various countries’ own populations, who have been enraged by footage of the carnage spread through social media and the Arab tv station al-Jazeera.
The Arab League mission was charged with monitoring a peace plan under which Assad had agreed to pull tanks and troops out of the cities, free detainees and start talks with his opponents. It would also allow in international media, most of whom have been banned from the country, making verification of reported bloodshed difficult.
It got off to a tricky start.
On the day the first monitors arrived in the capital Damascus, army tanks pulverised restive areas of Homs, one of the centres of the revolt, killing about three dozen people, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
When monitors arrived in Homs the next day, December 28, snipers were posted on roof tops overlooking the rubbish-strewn streets, where pools of blood still dotted the sidewalks. People came out to greet them, only to find the monitors were under a Syrian army escort.
One video clip posted on the internet showed them touring Homs’ Baba Amr district, an area ringed by army checkpoints and sandbagged positions.
Residents shouted at them and tugged at their jackets, pleading with them to enter neighbourhoods to see the destruction that has left whole sections of the city in ruins and led to a virtual state of siege.
Their car was mobbed by people shouting “those who kill their people are traitors”. But many resident refused to speak due to the presence of a Syrian army colonel.