Taal Matol
Life in a war zone
By Shoaib Hashmi
We are at war. To be sure, it's a niggling, piddling little war contained in the remote northern areas of the country, but it is a war nevertheless with the entire Pakistan Army committed to eradicating all the Taliban who inhabit the area. For the moment the major effect is that about three million people who lived there have abandoned homes and hearths and shifted to the refugee camps set up all over the country.

attack
Obvious and most tempting target
The group claiming responsibility for the PC Hotel bombing may be new and unfamiliar, but their claim is believable
By Rahimullah Yusufzai
It is surprising why the Pearl Continental Hotel, Peshawar wasn't attacked earlier. It was an obvious and most tempting target for the militants. A grand hotel where guests from the Western countries stayed and which was frequented by the ruling elite and the rich and the beautiful, the kind of people who hate the Taliban and are hated even more by the religious extremists.

The National Judicial Policy 2009 enforced with effect from June 1 sets high standards and ambitious goals for the judiciary in order to provide relief to the people. A brief overview of the salient features is in order.

The policy announced within a short span of six weeks of the National Judicial Policy Making Committee's (NJPMC) first meeting in April this year sets quite challenging tasks for the judicial institutions of the country. Already a meeting to review implementation of the policy has taken place, which is an indication of the seriousness of the post-Long March judiciary to resolve some of the longstanding issues.

The document states that the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has declared the year 2009 as the "Year for Justice at the Grassroots Level" which has been endorsed by the committee. The policy has a mark of the Chief Justice's convictions which he has been conveying in his addresses to the bar since the judicial crisis followed by the Lawyers' Movement began in 2007.

Aims of the policy

Spread over twenty pages, the key aims of the policy, in the words of Justice Chaudhry are "…strengthening the independence of the judiciary by its separation from the executive and ridding the courts of the menace of corruption…" while achieving the goal to "initially reduce, and ultimately eliminate, backlog at the level of superior as well as subordinate courts, and further, to fix time frame for disposal of civil and criminal cases" especially in financial and rent, and family and juvenile matters.

The policy also envisages providing relief to the under-trial accused in criminal cases while recommending improvement in prison conditions and change in relevant rules.

Independence of judiciary

It has been decided to recall all judges from postings in the executive branch to perform judicial duties. This addresses both the long proven principle of separation of judiciary from the executive as well as, at least in part, the twin problem of backlog and delay in disposal of cases. Already, more than a hundred judicial officers are reported to have returned to their parent department.

It has also been decided that no judge of the superior court will accept appointment as acting governor of a province. This is a welcome decision which the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court, Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif, has already put in practice by refusing to accept his appointment when the Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer went abroad a few weeks ago. This is a healthy precedent.

While the law is on the side of the committee's recommendation in this particular respect, as there is no legal compulsion for a chief justice to act as the acting governor in the absence of the governor, there are laws which prescribe appointment of judges in executive positions. Members of the Election Commission under the Election Commission Order of 2002 have to be serving high court judges, and the Chief Election Commissioner could also be a serving Supreme Court or High Court judge. Here the existing law becomes a hurdle in the policy aim.

The generally accepted principle is that the judges should not accept executive positions during and after their service in the judicial branch. It should apply to the election commission as well. This could have been included as a policy recommendation and then the Committee could coordinate with the Law and Justice Commission, as it is supposed to, for the removal of such legal provisions from the books.

It has further been provided that "no retired judge of a superior court should accept an appointment which is lower to his status or dignity." Apart from the difficulty of formulating such criteria, the very option appears to allow for judges' post-retirement material advantage.

The committee needs to reconsider this option. Instead, change of law regarding the retirement age of judges may be seriously considered within the committee as well as in coordination with the Law and Justice Commission and other stakeholders and appropriate recommendation be put up before the parliament. Or still better, the competent retired judges may be put to good use in the institutions of judicial training and education which badly need competent human resource. This recommendation gets further strength for one important reason -- justice so often gets delayed because of poor available resources including inappropriately-trained judicial officers.

In order to further ensure independence of judiciary at lower levels, it is recommended in the policy that the appointment of judges by the provincial and federal governments to tribunals and other lower fora should be done in consultation with the concerned Chief Justice. However, it would be a good idea if the policy had envisaged a committee of three or five senior-most judges to recommend the names of qualified persons. The idea of a committee of senior judges needs to be given serious consideration. The committee should be required to record reasons for the recommendations of names and such reasons be made accessible to the public.

Eradication of corruption

Serious measures have been proposed to address eradication of corruption among judges. The policy states: "The prime duty of a judge is to present before the public a clean image of judiciary." However, more concrete steps than rhetoric need to be taken to cleanse the judiciary. Since transparency has been acknowledged as an important tool to fight corruption, it would be worth considering a requirement for the members of the judiciary to declare their assets and make them publicly accessible as is the case with members of the parliament. This has been attempted in India through the freedom of information legislation but the Indian superior judiciary is showing resistance to the attempt by some civil rights organisations.

Expeditious disposal of cases

Delay in disposal of cases is often cited as a reason for disenchantment with the system. The policy seems to lay extraordinary emphasis on the expeditious disposal of cases. All cases pending in the superior courts are sought to be disposed of by May 2010, and all fresh cases are to be decided within a year of their institution. Short time-frames have been laid down for the disposal of bail petitions and the submission of challan within 14 days after cognizance of offences. Family matters are to be decided within three to six months, rent cases within four months, banking and tax related cases within six months, and writ petitions, in sixty days in service and educational matters, otherwise as quickly as possible.

Other procedural measures such as timely issuance of cause lists and efficient working of process serving agencies have also been addressed by recommending increased strength and more frequent use of courier service.

In several respects, existing legal provisions and important judgments have been cited to take cue for early disposal of cases as well as to bring quality to judicial service.

However, a word of caution will be in place here. To be on the fast track is desirable, but the risk of tunnel vision must be avoided. It is a well-known fact that it is not just due to the wilful delay of the judges and lawyers and the corruption in the system that cases are not disposed off early but also because of lack of proper education and training and understanding of legal principles. The policy falls short in addressing this aspect. How can any policy succeed to make the system efficient unless the support mechanisms remain weak in essential respect of human resource in the judiciary as well as among the lawyers and the police and rest of the support infrastructure?

It is very likely that in the absence of proper training, the judges, in their eagerness to show good performance in terms of disposal of cases, may make wrong decisions causing harm rather than good to the cause of the justice seeking public. Further, in the absence of quality evidence gathering, the prosecution of criminal cases is going to remain problematic and the danger is that there will be more miscarriage of justice which can further alienate the population.

Such issues have not been highlighted in the policy to caution the judicial officers, which necessitates the need for an addendum to the policy. Not enough emphasis has been made regarding better education and training. That, in fact, requires larger perspective and a broader forum than the NJPMC. Initiative should come from the parliament and the government to cover the uncovered miles.

For example, the policy goals won't be achieved if the institutions of police continue to be run as personal fiefdoms of the ruling elite, in the colonial undemocratic fashion and without modern infrastructure at its disposal. A criminal, case even if decided within the prescribed timeframe but without quality evidence, will render the whole effort useless, rather counterproductive. The emphasis therefore should be more on the medium and long term achievable goals, and all the resources should be put together to provide high quality justice at the doorstep.

A few words on the consultation preceding the policy announcement: The consultation process revealed in the document shows that it was restricted to a narrow group, mostly individual lawyers or serving or retired judges. Even among lawyers, several prominent and capable names are missing. Also missing are the names of those organisations which have a proven track record in the area of human rights and law related activities. It is hoped that this insufficiency is due to the urgency felt to start a process rather than anything else, and in future other segments of society will also be taken on board.

Best things in life don't come cheap - at least private education doesn't. Financing your child's essential head start is becoming more difficult every day. The choice is simple: either you send him to a good private school with hefty fee or a not-so-good yet private school which is more affordable but highly compromising on quality. Most of the parents are not willing to compromise on the quality of education and they pay a high price for it - even if they have to cut down on other expenses. But what about the 'hidden charges' that schools refuse to explain to parents who stoically accept the fact that since every other parent is paying it, why should they question it. One such is the fee that the parents pay for the three months of summer holidays when the child is not even going to school.

The principal of one Lahore Grammar School branch says they have to charge for the summer vacations because they pay the teachers. "You want us to lay off teachers for the three months?" she questions. While she claims that they don't charge anything except the tuition fee the mother of a child from the same school has a fee bill to prove her wrong. The bill clearly includes all other charges, including miscellaneous, in the fee from July to August.

Maheen Ikram teaches O' Level students at a school in Karachi. She says that there is no way the school cannot charge her students for summer vacations. The reasons include staff payments, building and maintenance, science and computer laboratory etc. Another teacher from Lahore, Sidra Mahmud, has even a longer list: "maintenance, replacement of used or broken stuff, up-gradation, addition of new books to library and even the broken blackboards are bought, or reimbursed, in these months from this fee."

Farzana Jamal, a mother of two boys, seriously questions the capacity of the school to charge students for maintenance. She believes the school shouldn't charge additional fee from its students for maintenance. "What is the school doing in those three months when the children are at home? They aren't even going to school for library, swimming or computer - all things included in the fee bill."

The Punjab government has banned schools from running summer camps which are practically routine classes when the courses spill over and the teachers try to cover the syllabi which they should have done during the regular days. In Islamabad and Karachi, however, summer camps are being arranged in many leading schools. Contrary to what it sounds, summer camps have nothing to do with the season - no summer sports or activities only routine studies. Parents complain that even if schools arrange summer camps with extracurricular activities they charge extra. When a huge chunk of your salary is going to these 'unknown charges', education is bound to become something more than a necessity. It is more like a burden.

But there are those parents who accept that good education, especially high-class education, comes at a heavy price. Lalarukh Ejaz's young son will soon be going to Karachi's leading school. She believes there is nothing wrong with school charging children for the summer because "there are running costs to every organisation." To the argument that schools shouldn't be making profit, she thinks, that's a part of it - "After all, it is a business, a service for which they are charging you and not a non-profit organisation."

While most of the schools charge from July to September, it gives them a reason to validate the June fee because the child is going to school for the first two weeks. But the school where Uzma Ali, from Islamabad, sends her three children charges for May to July and in September it charges for August to October. Can't say much to that, can you?

We are at war. To be sure, it's a niggling, piddling little war contained in the remote northern areas of the country, but it is a war nevertheless with the entire Pakistan Army committed to eradicating all the Taliban who inhabit the area. For the moment the major effect is that about three million people who lived there have abandoned homes and hearths and shifted to the refugee camps set up all over the country.

Meanwhile, the big cities are having their own spillover of the war. Both Lahore and Peshawar have had their shares of attacks by minions of the Taliban on the offices of the security agencies. Lahore has had threats of attacks on educational institutions, as a result of which the authorities have had to abdicate their responsibilities to provide security and asked the private institutions to get their own. As a result, most private institutions have simply shut down in the middle of the semester and called it an extension of the coming Summer holidays.

And there is more. GOR 1 is one of the posh residential localities of Lahore. It stands for Government Officers Residences and the British established it when they took over the Punjab. It sits right in the middle of the town and is a lovely old place full of colonial houses, beautiful tree lined streets and little clubs and stuff. It is still occupied by the top officers of the provincial government of the Punjab.

The British did not want to turn it into a ghetto so city streets still criss-cross it in eight or ten different places. Last week, the authorities sent notices to all the residents that they intended to turn it into a no-go area for ordinary people. They intended to keep track of all vehicles going in and out of the place, and asked all residents to keep them informed of all friends intending to visit them.

They plan to place pickets on all ten possible entrances to the place and keep track of all people going in or out. What they seem to be forgetting is that we Lahoris like to call on friends without notice and at the drop of a hat. These officers have enough trouble, keeping friends from dropping in on them for a chat at their offices. The residences are quite another matter.

What is more, their families reside with them which include teenagers who want to visit friends at all odd hours. Many don't take too kindly to having to report to someone what time they want to go or come. Well, as I said we are living in a war zone and will have to get used to a new way of life.

It is surprising why the Pearl Continental Hotel, Peshawar wasn't attacked earlier. It was an obvious and most tempting target for the militants. A grand hotel where guests from the Western countries stayed and which was frequented by the ruling elite and the rich and the beautiful, the kind of people who hate the Taliban and are hated even more by the religious extremists.

Finally, on June 9, the militants managed to strike at the Pearl Continental Hotel, or PC as it is commonly known. They might have tried to bomb it in the past as well, but were probably put off by the visibly tight security at the hotel. In the end, the security arrangement didn't prove to be as good as it seemed from outside. Within minutes, Peshawar's lone five-star hotel had been suicide-bombed and put out of business, at least for some months.

The PC was one of Peshawar's modern landmarks. As arguably the oldest city in present-day Pakistan, it has many famous landmarks that define its history and character such as the Balahisar Fort, Chowk Yadgar, Qissa Khwani, Ghantaghar, Gorgathri, Islamia College, the Sethi Houses, etc. But the PC was a new landmark, luxurious and spacious, and the place to go and be seen.

Foreigners visiting Peshawar in these violent times preferred to arrange their meetings at the PC because they believed this was the most secure place in town. Its location in the Peshawar Cantonment area and its elite neighbourhood comprising the residence of the Corps Commander Peshawar, NWFP Assembly, Peshawar High Court, District Courts and Golf Course gave it a unique feeling of safety and security.

Security at the PC Peshawar was upgraded when the Marriott Hotel, Islamabad, was bombed and guests and visitors accepted the inconvenience caused by it for their own safety. The PC was the obvious venue for weddings of members of rich families and it was the first choice for those in power, businessmen, diplomats, foreign journalists and celebrities to stay and conduct business. The list of those who walked though its doors, stayed in its comfortable rooms, ate at its restaurants and sat in its conference rooms is not only endless but also a veritable who's who of Pakistan.

The devastating blast destroyed almost 40 per cent of its structure, created cracks in the rest of the building, damaged its belongings and killed four of its employees. Among those killed was the hotel manager, Syed Kamal Ahmad, who belonged to Punjab, its chief chef at the rooftop Tatara barbecue restaurant Sheikh Abdul Mateen, its Taipan Chinese food restaurant manager Lali Jan and security guard Shahzada Khan. Around 50 vehicles, mostly of guests and their organisations, parked outside the building were badly damaged.

The media reported 19 dead in the blast but government and police officials said 11 people were killed. It is unclear how the media arrived at its figure, though there was speculation and rumours galore at the site of the blast about bodies of foreigners, Americans to be specific, being quickly removed soon after the bombing. No evidence, however, was available to support this claim. Another frequent talking point at the scene of the bombing was the US efforts to buy the PC and turn it into its consulate in Peshawar.

Among the dead were two foreigners, a Filipina lady Perseveranda So employed by the UNICEF and Serbian national Alexander Vorkapic of the UNHCR, while several others were wounded. The UN officials were assisting with the effort to look after the internally displaced persons in the NWFP. They were attending a dinner when the bombing happened.

Only 40 rooms out of the 150 at the PC were occupied on the fateful day. It explained the low hotel occupancy at a time when foreigners and Pakistanis from outside the NWFP are avoiding visits to Peshawar and rest of the militancy-hit province. In fact, the hotel occupancy had picked up when the IDP crisis emerged as a result of the intense military operations in Swat and rest of Malakand division. The attackers saw their chance as they could get a number of foreigners at one place in one go.

The attack followed a pattern that was also in evidence earlier at the suicide bombing at the ISI and Police offices in Lahore. A car with gunmen firing at security guards deployed at the outer gate of the PC drove ahead of a mini-truck and cleared the way for it by managing to keep the formidable electrical barricade open. The mini-truck stuffed with more than 500 kilos of explosives was apparently being driven by the suicide bomber who rammed it into the left side of the PC building knowing fully well that the hotel's front portion was barricaded. The fate of the two or possibly three occupants of the white Toyota car wasn't known. According to the closed circuit TV footage, they were in uniform, which would have facilitated their entry into the PC premises.

An unknown al-Qaeda-linked group, Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. A spokesman of the organisation, Amir Muawiya, phoned reporters in Kohat to claim responsibility and threaten more of such bombings. He said the bombing was in retaliation for the military operations started by the Pakistani armed forces at the behest of the US in Swat and rest of Malakand region and also in the tribal areas of Darra Adamkhel and Orakzai Agency. He also claimed important people including foreigners were killed in the attack.

Amir Muawiya is a Pakistani Taliban commander operating in the gun-manufacturing, semi-tribal area of Darra Adamkhel, located between Peshawar and Kohat. His group, led by Commander Tariq Afridi, is affiliated to the Baitullah Mahsud-led Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

According to Amir Muawiya, until now different groups used to claim responsibility for bomb attacks but now the central shura, or council, of Taliban and also al-Qaeda had decided that only the Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade would in future do so and others would keep quiet.

When asked about evidence that his group indeed had carried out the suicide bombing at the PC, the spokesman said his group was willing to explode a small bomb outside the office of an international media organisation in Islamabad to prove the group's power and capability.

The spokesman claimed his group had carried out the attack on the Police Training Academy, Manawan, Lahore, and the bombing of the NATO transport terminals on the Ring Road in Peshawar.

By naming the group as Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade, its founders apparently wanted to honour the late Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian from Jordan who was among the first Arab nationals who volunteered to join the Afghan jihad against the forces of the then Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He gave up his teaching job at Islamic University in Islamabad and shifted to Peshawar to facilitate the Arab nationals who had been motivated by him to fight in Afghanistan.

Abdullah Azzam is also credited with convincing Osama bin Laden, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, Sheikh Omar Abdur Rahman and others to come to Peshawar and take part in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet forces and Afghan communists. He was killed along with his two young sons in a bomb explosion in Peshawar in the late 1980s and all of them were buried at the Jallozai camp for Afghan refugees some 30 kilometres from Peshawar.

Though the group claiming responsibility for the PC bombing is new and unfamiliar, the claim is believable because the Pakistani Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies would have the motivation to organise such an attack. They also have the capability to do so. And hitting such a visible target is understandable now that the Taliban militants are being attacked by Pakistan's armed forces in Malakand division, Frontier Region Bannu, Orakzai Agency, Mohmand Agency and other places.

As for the PC, its owner Sadruddin Hashwani has announced that he would reopen it within two months. After having reopened the bombed Marriott Hotel in Islamabad within the stated three months, he and his team could be depended upon to make the PC Peshawar operational in eight to 10 weeks. Many Peshawarites would wish him success as there is no other place in the city that could fill the void being felt with the closure, even if temporary, of the grand old PC.

MQM-Haqiqi followers have come out of their hideouts after seven long years -- with the hope that their dissident leader Amir Khan is about to be freed from jail. Political observers had been waiting for a bloodbath, as it is a set pattern in Karachi for the last one decade that political activism by any group other than MQM-Altaf is followed by bloody violence.

In the first 10 days of this month (June 1-11) 52 people have been gunned down in the city, including political workers and common people. Among the dead, 24 workers belong to Haqiqi faction of the MQM, 8 belong to the MQM-Altaf, four to the PPP, one to the PML-N and two to the Jamaat-i-Islami.

It is alleged that the recent city killings are a prelude to a power struggle in Karachi following the imminent release of jailed Haqiqi leaders Afaq Ahmed and Amir Khan. MQM-Haqiqi squarely puts blame on MQM-Altaf for the recent killing spree. The Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-i- Pakistan (JUP) and the Awami National Party (ANP) share the same view. Reportedly, Haqiqi's General Secretary Shamshad Ghuri said the other day that "Every year, as the month of June starts, which is when the MQM-Haqiqi celebrates its founding month, rival gangs start targeting and killing their workers to instil fear among them." Haqiqi alleges that in the last seven years, 400 of its workers have been killed by the rival faction in a bid to wipe out opposition from the city.

MQM-Altaf leader Haider Abbas Rizvi says it is a conspiracy against the party to involve it in these killings. The party leaders say that the Haqiqis are involved in eliminating the activists belonging to the two Haqiqi factions and that it is wrongly being involved in the massacre. Haqiqi stands divided around these two main leaders. The city's Liaqatabad area (aka Laloo Khait) is considered the bastion of Amir Khan and Landhi area is the supposed to be a stronghold of Afaq Ahmed.

A number of those MQM activists who have been shot dead in recent days are those who had defected back to it after leaving the Haqiqi group. Haqiqi leaders say that due to mass persecution of their activists, they had allowed their workers to join the MQM-Altaf to save their lives and now they were returning to their own faction. Thus, with the stepped-up activities of MQM-Haqiqi groups, the loyalty of the defected workers became suspect in the eyes of those who matter in the city.

A number of these activists have again gone into hiding. Haqiqi (Afaq group)'s leader Akhtar Hussain is reported to have said that 15 of their workers are missing and the party fears they would be killed. Such is the fear of targeted killing that a number of police wardens recruited in recent years on political recommendations disappeared from their duty places because they could be target of retaliation by the opposing groups.

The towns of Landhi, Korangi, Malir, Shah Faisal, North Karachi and Jamshed Town are the areas where most killings have taken place. Since Haqiqi came into action, a tension prevails in these areas and the men armed with sophisticated weapons patrol the streets. Haqiqi factions allege that the police are also victimising them by raiding on their activists' homes and dismantling their offices. Feroze Haider, the spokesman of Haqiqi (Amir group), is reported to have said, "The police have arrested the relatives of our workers and despite our efforts Sindh Home Minister Zulfikar Mirza did not give them an audience." However, the Home Minister has repeatedly said the government is carrying out operation against the criminals without any discrimination and has so far arrested 40 suspects.

In last two years, Imran Khan has also emerged as a factor in Karachi's politics. The walls of the city carry slogans with abusive language against him since he lodged a criminal complaint against MQM's Chief Altaf Hussain in London. It is believed that to gather evidence against Altaf Hussain, Imran Khan sought help from Altaf's detractor Afaq Ahmed's group which they provided to him. Of late, Imran Khan has been making efforts to bridge differences between Afaq Ahmed and Amir Khan. The teaming up of Imran Khan with Altaf Hussain's detractors in Karachi is also said to be obvious cause of concern for the party. Imran Khan also alleges that Karachi police has been packed with the people affiliated with one party in power alluding to the MQM (Altaf group).

It could be a mere coincidence that whenever a political group other than MQM-Altaf starts some activity in the city of Karachi, the city is drowned in mass killings. A religio-political group Sunni Tehreek gained strength and demonstrated its power by organising big public rallies. On April 11, 2006 at a rally in Nishtar Park, Karachi, the entire leadership of the party was eliminated in a bomb explosion that left more than 50 people dead and hundreds wounded.

On May 12, 2007 the mass violence took place when the Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry tried to enter Karachi against the wishes of the party that was closely allied with the then President Pervez Musharraf. Last year, the Tehreek-i-Insaaf chief Imran Khan tried to enter the city but was refused entry by the government. When a few months back the ANP, which won two provincial seats from the city in 2008 elections, got into action, the clashes and targeted killings of its political workers took place.

It could also be just a coincidence that whenever private news channels broadcast anything that goes against a party in power, they are threatened and attacked -- as the offices of Aaj TV came under attack on May 12, 2007. It is a common observation that even if a news channel dares not to live broadcast the party's function, its transmission through cable network is taken off in the city. With political opponents prevented from political activities and media gagged to report censorship on gunpoint, the future of the city looks gloomy to say the least.

In a story published in this newspaper on Feb 18, 2009 titled 'Pictures prove US drones parked in Pakistan,' proof was provided that the US unmanned aerial vehicles had been using not only Pakistani airspace but were in fact using a Pakistan's Shamsi airbase (or otherwise known as Bandari) in Balochistan.

Now some pictures which show that contrary to the claims made by the top echelons of the PAF hierarchy -- including several statements by then PAF air chief -- the PAF could shoot down the drones if asked by the government, senior PAF officers had inspected at least one drone parked at the said airbase and were given extensive briefings on its use and on the drones programme by uniformed US military officials. The photograph shows a group of PAF officers examining the drone in the presence of uniformed US military officials. While the exact time that this picture, and a few more like it, was taken cannot be determined, it is fair to say that they were taken somewhere around 2006 or most likely sometime last year.

This timeframe is also corroborated by several news reports in the mainstream US media, particularly the New York Times (in particular by reporters Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez), which speak of US drones operating out of a Pakistan airbases or airbases. One recent report on this matter is a detailed one by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann in The New Republic, carried out under the auspices of the New America Foundation.

The previous chief of the PAF Air Marshal Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed -- who publicly said on more than one occasions that the PAF had the capability to shoot down the drones if so ordered by the government -- was in charge of the PAF from March 2006 till March 2009. This is the same timeframe during which these pictures were taken, that is, of senior PAF officials being briefed on the drones and physically examining them at Shamsi (Bandari) Airbase.

It is quite likely that the CIA -- which is known to operate the Predators and another class of drones, the Reaper -- is operating from Shamsi as well and that the operatives who would be deployed there would most likely be from its Special Activities Division or the National Clandestine Service. Both outfits are used in operations where the government wants to keep the fig-leaf of plausible deniability or where the operation itself is classified and would never be officially admitted to and hence if unearthed its existence could be denied.

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Now, a bit about the recent report in The New Republic by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann (both with the New America Foundation) titled 'The drone war.' The report says America's campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan using drones has "been waged with little public discussion or congressional investigation of its legality or efficacy, even though the offensive is essentially a programme of assassination that kills not only militant leaders, but also civilians in a country that is, at least nominally, a close ally of the United States". Giving statistics from this year, the two researchers (Mr Bergen often comes on CNN and other mainstream media outlets as a "counter-terrorism expert") said that US President Barack Obama has not only continued the drone programme but has in fact stepped it up. In 2007, there were three drone strikes in Pakistan, in 2008 there were 34 and in the first few months of the current year there had already been 16. They say that there is no debate on any kind within the US -- at any level: media, Congress or think-tank -- of the costs and benefits of using the drones, whether the elimination of al Qaeda and the Taliban leaders and members is an objective that overrides the clear consequences of using drones, the primary one being that they provide al Qaeda and Taliban perhaps one of the most potent opportunities for fresh recruitment.

The reservations of the Gilani government as well as the military establishment, that the drones have pushed the militants deeper into Pakistan and given them a pretext to attack its major cities are endorsed in the report when it raises the issue that while the drones may be very useful in the short term, their continued use may well be fatal for US efforts to stabilise the region and win the war against al Qaeda and its allies in the long run. The report does say that because of the drone attacks the safe haven of FATA is not so safe any more for the militants but that this needs to be weighed vis-à-vis the long-term impact of using the drones. The report also made a telling observation about the drone programme on the government of Pakistan which it says uses them to take a populous posture while at the same time benefiting from their use if they manage to kill wanted militants and terrorists.