http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011015/ts/attack_musharraf_dc_2.html Pakistan Says U.S. Should 'Take Out' Taliban Leader

http://www.dawn.com/2001/text/top7.htm Controversy brewing over Musharraf interview. Did it take place or not?

Pakistan is evacuating Pakistanis who have been fighting alongside Afghan Taliban forces trapped in Kunduz. "American officials, who have been evasive on this subject, say they do not have information on the planes. Pakistani officials today declined comment." "The United States is indebted to Pakistan for its support of the war against terrorism but has said it wants any foreign fighters trapped in Kunduz captured or killed. Pakistan has made clear that it is deeply concerned about some of its agents and soldiers trapped in the town." ... "Some alliance officials accused Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an alliance commander, of striking a deal with the Pakistani government to evacuate several hundred foreign fighters. Atiqullah Baryalai, the deputy defense minister, was one of a handful of Northern Alliance leaders who asserted today that General Dostum had allowed more than 50 pickup trucks full of foreigners to leave Kunduz and gather at an undisclosed location outside Mazar-i-Sharif. Mr. Baryalai said he suspected that General Dostum may have acted at the request of the Pakistani government." http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nyt/20011124/wl/pakistanis_again_said_to_evacuate_allies_of_taliban_1.html

Washington Post: Pakistan Continues to Hold Nuclear Scientists Pakistan's military intelligence service continues to detain two nuclear scientists for questioning about their alleged connections to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist group, senior Pakistani intelligence sources said today. "We want to be absolutely sure before giving a clean chit to nuclear scientists who had confessed to having met Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and several al Qaeda leaders last year," said a senior Pakistani official. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majid have acknowledged meeting bin Laden and Taliban leader Mohammed Omar during at least three visits to Afghanistan last year, the sources said. But the scientists have insisted throughout the six-week investigation that those meetings were in connection with Ummah Tameer-I-Nau [Islamic Reconstruction], a relief agency they founded in 1999. [snip] Mahmood ... vigorously advocated extensive production of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium enrichment with a view toward equipping other Islamic countries with nuclear capabilities [snip] "Mahmood was the strongest advocate of the view that only nuclear weapons could provide ultimate security to Muslim nations against infidel powers," said an MIT-trained Pakistani nuclear scientist who works at a key Pakistani nuclear facility and spoke on condition of anonymity. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6708-2001Nov23.html

Pakistan's Jihad Fervor Replaced by Resentment By KIM MURPHY, Times Staff Writer TALASH, Pakistan -- Mohammed Youssef tried to stop it, first calling the local religious leader on the phone, then following his convoy of young jihad recruits into Afghanistan and confronting him in person. Don't take them, Youssef said. They're just boys. They don't know how to fight. If it gets bad, they don't know how to run. "I personally talked to Sufi Mohammed twice and requested him not to go to Afghanistan with the large number of young people, all untrained," Youssef, a 55-year-old veteran of the Afghan war with the Soviets, said over the weekend. " 'Don't kill them,' I asked him. But he did not listen to me, and he refused." After the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Afghanistan began eight weeks ago, young Pakistani men from the deeply religious border region were clamoring for the chance to fight with the Taliban. In this small farming village in the northwest frontier, more than 60 youths joined thousands of others who followed Mohammed, charismatic founder of the fundamentalist Movement for the Enforcement of the Laws of Muhammad, across the rugged frontier to take up arms. A few weeks later, the Taliban was in substantial retreat, reports of Pakistani fighters being slaughtered were emerging, and Mohammed slipped quietly back across the border. Of the 60 jihadis who left with him from Talash, fewer than 25 have returned. "It's a tragedy," Shansur Rehman, whose 23-year-old son was confirmed dead near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, said with a shrug. http://www.latimes

Just in time for Xmas: Tuesday December 25, 3:50 AM Pakistan military warns of nuclear conflict with India By Raja Asghar CHAKOTHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - A senior Pakistani army officer said on Monday continued border clashes with India could spark an uncontrollable flareup involving nuclear weapons. [. . .] "Because in that situation, that tension, even a small little incident can result in a chain reaction which nobody will be able to control," he told Reuters Television at Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistani-held part of Kashmir. He said an all-out war between the two nations could "become really horrific for the entire world". Asked if nuclear weapons could be used, Yaqub, giving what he called his personal view, said: "But if there is a war between the two countries and if any country feels that it comes to its own survival, probably there won't be any hesitation to use nuclear weapons." http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-80387.html

Three "must read" articles. http://www.thefridaytimes.com Najam Sethi, in his weekly editorial: ---------------------- As India ferries its tanks and missiles to the border to "teach Pakistan a lesson" for "meddling in Kashmir", it might sensibly pause to consider its error. One nuclear power can�t possibly teach another nuclear power any lessons through war. Nor can it rest assured that its military intervention will have limited objectives. Escalation is inevitable when each side is able and willing to hit back, as both India and Pakistan discovered to their mutual discomfort in the Kargil conflict. Equally, Pakistan�s old strategic doctrine of supporting proxy wars in India�s periphery, especially through an Islamic jehad in Kashmir, so that the conventional military balance is restored to more manageable proportions, is out of sync with recent realities. In particular, the post 9/11 world sees Islamic jehad as pure terrorism that must be stamped out everywhere. Then, Khaled Ahmed, who has just been thunderous in his critique of Pakistan government policy the last month or so: Extremism and shariat: One reason Talibanisation spread in Pakistan was the identity between what Mulla Umar wanted to enforce in Afghanistan and that which the ideological state of Pakistan wants to enforce as shariat . There is a general misconception in Pakistan that the Taliban actually put forward a vision of Islam which was alien to Pakistan. The truth of the matter is that the Taliban vision was alien to Afghanistan and was exported to it from Pakistan. The department of Amr bil Maruf , responsible for most of the extreme measures taken in Afghanistan, was actually proposed by the PML government of Nawaz Sharif in its 15th Amendment. The only difference is that Mulla Umar went ahead and implemented what the Pakistani state was first in contemplating. The Council of Islamic Ideology in Pakistan has been recommending institutional reform - for instance the inquisition-like office of Hisba - that would 'complete' the ideological state. And finally an intricately argued piece by Ejaz Haider on the dynamics of the India/Pakistan conflict and the status of Kashmir: There is need therefore for India to give General Pervez Musharraf the room to implement the rethought policy. The problem the general is facing just now is the all- or nothing situation he is confronted with. That is a problem inherent in any policy that has been allowed to run longer than it should have. Given India�s refusal to talk Kashmir, the issue before Islamabad is whether Kashmir can be kept alive without its force- multiplying role -- i.e., whether the Kashmiri groups themselves will be able to sustain New Delhi�s repressive policies and allow Pakistan to play a purely political role. This is especially important if India continues to deny that Kashmir is a dispute. Nicholas Kristof in the Friday NYT: -------------- The scariest aspect of the crisis between India and Pakistan today is not the way troops are exchanging artillery fire along the snowy mountains of Kashmir. Rather, it is the way the escalations mimic war simulations held over the years. Spooks and scholars have conducted many mock conflicts between the two countries, with specialists playing the parts of leaders on each side. Very frequently the result is nuclear war. In conversations with experts, including those who launched nuclear strikes in these war games, the precariousness of the South Asian nuclear balance is clear. Paradoxically, the tiny number of nuclear weapons on each side creates instability and an incentive to launch a first strike -- use your arsenal or lose it. Now, I don't really think that another war will erupt between India and Pakistan, or that if it does it will go nuclear. Essentially what is happening is that the Indian government is huffing and bluffing, both for domestic political gain and to scare Pakistan into making concessions. As Stephen P. Cohen, an American scholar, puts it: "The Indians are escalating the crisis to an international level. They see this as a good opportunity to press Pakistan." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/28/opinion/28KRIS.html

I communicate with a college student working on his Master's degree. He attends university in Islamabad, and he is so very dear that he worries about me when he is actually the one who is in harm's way! He's Pashtun and very special. I wish him a long a happy life but he needs to get away from there. Unhappily our government and his are not on the best of terms and permits to enter this country for graduate school is very difficult. I wish I had better news for him.