Information Blog

KARACHI: Lyari remained under siege for a third consecutive day on Sunday with at least four more persons, including a policeman, killed in pitched battles between law-enforcement personnel and heavily armed gangsters.
The day-long violence also left several persons, including two DSPs and as many mediapersons, wounded.
Top leaders of the banned People’s Amn Committee decided to become more vocal on Sunday as they contacted several mediapersons on their cellphones and also participated in some television talk shows through a remote video link.
In a related development, Inspector General of Sindh Mushtaq Shah put all other units of the crime investigation department (CID) under the direct command of CID SP Aslam Khan asking them to assist him in the ongoing Lyari operation.
Senior police officials claimed that they regained control of major areas in Lyari. However, PAC leader Zafar Baloch contradicted the police claim, saying they had not been able to take control of even one inch of Lyari.
Some area residents told Dawn that gangsters such as Mullah Nisar and Tajdar alias Taju and their men were still in the area, busy attacking the police. Other gangsters, including Noor Muhammad alias Baba Ladla and Jabbar alias Jingu, were still holding their positions in their respective areas.
On Sunday, armed men taking positions on rooftops targeted the police and mediapersons present at Cheel Chowk and at the same time a rocket was also fired, which resulted in injuries to policemen and some mediapersons. Eight people, including two cameramen of private television channels, were wounded in the attack.
The wounded were identified as Assistant Sub-Inspector Aleem Niazi, Constables Fayyaz Ahmed, Naveed, Imran, Sajid, cameramen Asif of Express television channel and Arif Ali of Dhoom television, and Kashif, a charity worker.
They were rushed to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where Constable Fayyaz died during treatment.
In another incident, a man identified as Kashif, 25, was shot dead in Nawalane within the remit of the Kalakot police station. The victim’s family member took away the body without completing any medico-legal formalities at the Civil Hospital.
In Afshani Gali, a young man, identified as Asghar, was killed and his father, Yousuf, was wounded when they were hit by bullets fired from unknown directions.
DSP Abdul Razzak and DSP Nawaz were also wounded during an exchange of gunfire in the Nawalane area.
DSP Nasir Lodhi of the Special Police Group claimed that Sajid alias Gabber, a brother-in-law of Baba Ladla, was killed near Gabol Park. However, the whereabouts of his body were not clear, he added.
In another attack, constables Kashif and Khalid and 18-year-old Ghazal were wounded near Nawalane. They were shifted to the Civil Hospital for treatment.
DSP Lodhi said the police faced massive resistance in Lyari and gangster used rockets, light machineguns, hand-grenades and an improvised rocket, invented by the Lyari gangsters.
Meanwhile, the Sindh home department directed the police to intensify the operation in Lyari and arrest eight key Lyari gangsters dead or alive.
Those wanted by the department are Noor Muhammad alias Baba Ladla, Jabbar alias Jingo, Umer Katchi, Tajdar alias Taju, Shahid MCB, Zafar Baloch, Uzair Jan Baloch and Habib Baloch.
Protest rallies
Residents of Lyari took out processions in protest against the police operation and demanded an immediate halt to it.
Protests were held in the Albela Signal, Mauripur Road, Gurumandir, Kalapul and Nishtar Road areas.
The protesters also set on fire flags of the Pakistan People’s Party.
The Sindh police chief visited the Civil Hospital on Sunday evening. He said the police would rid Lyari of criminals in the next two to three days.
He said a number of terrorists had been killed in the Lyari operation, but the gangsters were shifting their bodies in private ambulances.
Answering a question, he said the police were in touch with the Rangers and as part of a strategy the paramilitary force had not been called in. “We will seek their help when a need arises,” he added.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called on Russia and China to help fund Afghan security after 2014, when international troops are due to leave the country.

Rasmussen was speaking at a press conference in Brussels after a meeting between NATO ministers and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who reportedly did not respond to Rasmussen’s request.
Rasmussen said Russia had offered the use of a new transit route, which will allow ISAF to send supplies in and out of Afghanistan using both the Russian rail network and air transport.
During the meeting, Lavrov repeated Russian objections to NATO’s planned European missile-defense project, saying it could tipped the balance of power between itself and the United States in NATO’S favor.

US President Barack Obama is sending his key trouble-shooter to Pakistan later this month amidst efforts to reset ties in light of the new foreign policy guidelines recently approved by parliament.

Former presidential hopeful and chairman of the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee Senator John Kerry is expected to travel to Islamabad on April 29 to meet the country’s top civil and military leadership, an official told The Express Tribune.

He will also meet the opposition politicians and interact with the civil society in an attempt to convey a message that the US still considers Pakistan a key partner despite recent strains.

One official said that the influential US senator would likely offer a formal public apology on behalf of the Obama Administration over the Nato airstrikes on a Pakistani check post in November last year.

The formal public apology over the attacks that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers is one of the key preconditions set by parliament for the normalisation of ties including resumption of vital land routes for the Nato forces stationed in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, ahead of the crucial trip, the Defence Committee of the Cabinet will have another session on April 24 to firm up Pakistan’s position on key issues with Washington.

Official sources said senior US figures including President Obama’s ‘point man’ for the region, Marc Grossman, intended to visit Islamabad at the earliest but the trip was delayed at the request of the government, which is seeking clarity in its approach on redefining the strained relationship.

Though the new policy terms provide broader guidelines, the government with its key stakeholders is working on a framework providing a clear roadmap for addressing some of the crucial issues with the US, sources added.

US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter told a private news channel on Thursday that his country was ready to discuss new recommendations with Pakistan but said it did not necessarily mean that Washington would accept all of the demands.

His remarks appear to suggest the differences with Pakistan on drone strikes inside the country’s tribal belt.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2012.

Washington: The United States and other Western nations plan to demand that Iran immediately close and ultimately dismantle a recently completed nuclear facility deep under a mountain as part of new talks with Tehran over its nuclear programme, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The Obama administration and its European allies also will call for a halt in the production of higher-level enrichment of uranium fuel, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of Iran, the newspaper said, citing US and European diplomats.

The diplomats told the Times that they could not imagine any agreement that left Iran with a stockpile of fuel, enriched to 20 percent purity, that could be converted to the grade needed to make an atomic bomb in a matter of months.
“We have no idea how the Iranians will react,” a senior Obama administration official told the newspaper. “We probably won’t know after the first meeting.”

The opening talks are tentatively set for Friday.

In January, major powers signaled willingness to reopen the talks about curbing Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons but said Tehran must show it was serious about negotiations. Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed solely at generating power.

The United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are the six powers involved in diplomacy aimed at resolving the long-running row over Iran’s atomic plans.

Russia and China recently joined the four Western powers in expressing “regret” over Iran’s expansion of higher-grade enrichment, most of which is now taking place deep inside a mountain near the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom to better protect it against Israeli or US attacks.

The focus on diplomacy followed rising tensions between the West, which is seeking to cut Iran’s oil sales, and Tehran, which threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz through which almost one-fifth of oil traded worldwide flows.

The United States has gradually tightened sanctions on Tehran due to its failure to answer questions about its nuclear programme.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday warned the six-power group negotiating with Iran to set stringent limits on its nuclear enrichment at forthcoming talks.

“If the P5+1 will set a much lower threshold, like just stop reaching 20 percent it means that basically the Iranians at a very cheap cost bought their way into continuing their military programs, slightly slower but without sanctions,” Barak said in English in an interview aired on Sunday by CNN.

“That would be a total change of direction for the worse,” he added.

The so-called P5+1, comprising the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, is scheduled to begin talks with Iran in coming weeks, though no date has been set and Tehran has rejected at least one proposed venue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month set three “benchmarks” for a peaceful settlement of the Iran nuclear issue: That the Islamic republic dismantle its underground nuclear facility in Qom, stop uranium enrichment and get rid of all enriched material in Iran beyond what would allow it to make medical isotopes or generate nuclear power.

“And when I say all the material, I mean all the material, from 3.5 percent up,” Netanyahu said, during a March 2 visit to Ottawa on his way to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington.

The New York Times reported late Saturday that the United States and its European allies plan to demand the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling of the Qom plant, a halt in the production of uranium fuel that is considered just a few steps from bomb grade, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country.

“Mr. Obama and his allies are gambling that crushing sanctions and the threat of Israeli military action will bolster the arguments of those Iranians who say a negotiated settlement is far preferable to isolation and more financial hardship,” the Times wrote.

The Obama administration says it does not believe Iran has taken a decision to develop a nuclear weapon, or that the time is right for military action, preferring to give sanctions time to work.

But Israel, which sees a possible Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat to its very existence, claims Iran may be on the cusp of “breakout” capability — when it could quickly build a nuclear weapon — and it does not rule out staging a pre-emptive strike of its own.

Iran last held talks with the six powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — in January 2011 with no results.

Obama has told Iran the United States would accept Tehran having a civilian nuclear programme if the Islamic state can prove it is not seeking atomic weapons, the Washington Post said Friday.

Obama sent such a message to Tehran via Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who delivered it to Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei last week, said the newspaper’s foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius.