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Old Friday, April 24, 2009
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Lightbulb International Media on Pakistan

Here you will find informations that would be worth-noticing regarding what international news agencies and papers report about Pakistan and others concerned with Pakistan.

Keep visiting again and again to this thread to find latest news and updates.

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Default Pakistani Taliban say withdrawing from key valley (From: Reutors.com)

BUNER, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistani Taliban commander has ordered his men to withdraw from Buner district, a spokesman said on Friday, amid mounting alarm in the United States over the Taliban advance toward the capital of the nuclear-armed Muslim state.

Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said there were around 100 fighters in Buner, a valley just 100 km (60 miles) from Islamabad and less than five hours drive from the capital.

"Our leader has ordered that Taliban should immediately be called back from Buner," Khan told Reuters.

Khan belongs to a faction led by Fazlullah, the Taliban commander in neighboring Swat valley, where the government has caved in to militants' demands for the imposition of Islamic law.

He said government and Taliban representatives were en route to Buner, along with Maulana Sufi Mohammad, a radical Muslim cleric who brokered the Swat deal, to deliver a message to fighters to vacate the district.

Khan was quoted in the past week as saying al Qaeda would be given refuge in lands under Taliban control.

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Pakistan's policies in Swat abdicated authority to the Taliban, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Pakistani leaders to act against foes who posed an "existential threat" to the state.

Earlier this month parliament forced a reluctant President Asif Ali Zardari to sign a regulation to introduce sharia, Islamic law, in Swat valley in order to pacify the Taliban.

Emboldened by the government's readiness to appease them, the Taliban moved into Buner from Swat more than a week ago, triggering alarm over their proximity to Islamabad.

The government and opposition have been reluctant to sanction the use of force in Swat, giving rise to doubts about the army's capacity and will to take on the Taliban.

"We will react if the writ of the government is challenged," Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told parliament, challenging legislators to show "moral courage" to stop the Taliban.

Gilani also rebuffed concern that the militants posed a risk to the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

"The country's defense is in strong hands and our nuclear program is in safe hands," he said.

LOSING GROUND

The military is confronted across the northwest by a Taliban menace that is now threatening to spread into Punjab province and the heart of the country.

On Thursday air force jets bombed militant targets in the Orakzai tribal region west of Peshawar.

Some 11 fighters were killed, taking the toll to 40 in three days of bombing, according to a military spokesman, though casualties cannot be independently verified.

Meanwhile, Taliban were also seen in another northwestern district of Shangla, manning checkpoints they had set up near Shahkot and Purn villages, according to intelligence officials.

Shangla, east of Swat and linked to Buner through a mountain pass, was the scene of fierce fighting between militants and security forces when the Pakistani military launched an offensive in late 2007 against militants loyal to Fazlullah.

The moves to defuse tensions in Buner came after intelligence officials in Peshawar briefed politicians from all the major parties in North West Frontier Province to build a consensus on how best to counter the Taliban threat.

The militants ambushed a convoy of Frontier Constabulary, as the government deployed more than 270 of the militiamen in Buner to restore the state's authority.

"There has been no other incident after the yesterday's firing on troops in which one policeman was killed," said Arsala Khan, a senior police official in Buner.

Taliban were entrenched in the mountains overlooking the town, according to Khan, but residents said Taliban fighters pray in their mosques and deliver sermons telling people to observe strict Islamic laws.

Residents of Buner saw a group of gun-toting fighters in an open jeep sweep through the town's main bazaar on Friday, but had yet to see any troops in the area and dreaded their deployment.

"The situation will turn bad if troops come here," said Mohammad Afzal Khan, the owner of a marble factory in Buner, while families were seen fleeing the town.

(Reporting by Junaid Khan in Swat, Abdul Rehman in Buner, Faris Ali in Peshawar and Augustine Anthony in Islamabad; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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Old Friday, April 24, 2009
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Default Kashmir alliance urges people to shun India poll (From: Reutors.com)

By Sheikh Mushtaq

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Kashmir's main separatist alliance Friday appealed to the people of the region to boycott India's general election, prompting authorities to place two separatist leaders under house arrest.

The decision by the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, which bands nearly a dozen political, social and separatist groups, comes after United Jihad Council (UJC) asked the separatist alliance to support their call to shun the poll.

UJC is a Pakistan-based amalgam of 13-militant groups fighting Indian troops in Jammu and Kashmir, the country's only Muslim-majority state.

"Elections are no substitute for the aspirations of the Kashmiri people and for the resolution of the dispute," Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said in a statement.

India's general election began last week, but voting in the Kashmir valley has been split into three phases starting from April 30.

The staggered voting is to allow thousands of security forces to move around the troubled region.

Besides Congress and its main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the regional National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party are also contesting in the Himalayan region.

"Elections in the presence of 700,000 Indian troops is itself a dispute. I appeal to people to stay away from polls," Farooq said.

Hardline separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani has already called for a boycott of the April-May election.

But another senior separatist leader, Sajjad Gani Lone, who walked out of Hurriyat in 2002, said this month that he would contest the poll and take his struggle to parliament in New Delhi.

Friday morning Hurriyat's Farooq and Geelani were placed under house arrest as they prepared to lead anti-poll rallies, police said.

A 20-year-old separatist revolt has killed tens of thousands of people in Kashmir, the cause of two of three wars between India and Pakistan, who claim the region in full but rule in parts.

Violence involving Indian troops and Muslim militants has declined significantly since the nuclear-armed neighbors launched a peace process in 2004. New Delhi paused that dialogue after the Mumbai attacks last year.

But people are still killed in daily shootouts in the region.

Two militants were killed in a fierce gun battle with security forces Friday morning near Sopore town, north of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, police said.

(Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Alex Richardson)
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Old Sunday, April 26, 2009
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Default Residents appeal for peace in Pakistani valley (From: Reuters.com)

By Javed Khan

BUNER, Pakistan, April 26 (Reuters) - Thousands of people rallied in Pakistan's Buner valley on Sunday to call on the government and the Taliban to avoid conflict as fears grew of an imminent military offensive in the northwest region.

The Taliban's creeping advance towards Islamabad -- Buner is just 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the Pakistani capital -- has heightened concern in the United States about stability of its nuclear-armed Muslim ally.

U.S. officials want Pakistan to take a stand rather than cede more territory to militants through policies of appeasement like the decision earlier this month to introduce Islamic law in a large chunk of North West Frontier Province. Emboldened after winning that concession, Taliban fighters moved into Buner from the neighbouring Swat valley, but their commander ordered some of them to withdraw on Friday, leaving behind only those fighters who hailed from Buner.

Western governments that need Pakistan's support to defeat al Qaeda and succeed in stabilising Afghanistan, dread the idea of any threat to the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

"We can't even contemplate that," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview with Fox News in Baghdad.

"We cannot ... let this go on any further. Which is why we're pushing so hard for the Pakistanis to come together around a strategy to take their country back."

CALL FOR RESTRAINT

People living on the frontline in Buner had another perspective.

They fear they will have to flee their homes if their valley becomes a battleground, and at a rally in Buner town called for the Taliban and government to show restraint.

"We appeal to the Taliban to stop shows of force and display of weapons, as there is no justification for it after enforcement of Nizam-e-Adl regulation," Mian Said Laiq, a politician, told the rally, referring to sharia, or Islamic law.

President Asif Ali Zardari last week reluctantly sanctioned the introduction of sharia in Malakand Division, which includes Swat and Buner, in the hope that it would help pacify the region.

On Saturday, 12 children were killed by a bomb hidden in a football in Lower Dir, part of Malakand Division, and Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik on Sunday blamed the Taliban.

"The Taliban have exposed their real face by killing innocent children," Malik said.

During the rally in Buner, cleric Misbahuddin Malikpuri warned the government against deploying security forces if the Taliban committed to keeping the peace.

"If government sent troops to Buner despite the Taliban's commitment not to disturb peace, then we will be with the Taliban," he added.

Pakistan's allies want to see a coherent, decisive action by Pakistan, and Zardari may want to show some steel before talks in Washington with President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai on May 6-7.

Pakistani officials say they are trying to use political means to reduce the violence, but there are growing signs that the government is preparing to unleash the military. (Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Alex Richardson)
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Default Pakistan and Islam (Source: nytimes.com)

by : Nicholas Kristof

For my last column, about Islam, I e-interviewed the mayor of Karachi, Syed Kamal, but his answers came to late to use. Still, since Pakistan’s future is so alarming, I thought his answers might be of interest. Here’s some of what he said.

I asked how much weight reformist Islamic scholars would actually have on the street. He answered:

Well it does carry weight, but the current situation in Pakistan where it looks like a confused society, there is no doubt that the vast majority of Muslims in Pakistani’s are not believers of so called Taliban sharia and their brand of Islam. People are moderate, they have tolerance for each other and they don’t accept the rigidness version of few groups. But it seems that the nation is confused, largely because of the media’s direction, specially the electronic media where there are people and prominent anchors who plead the cases of Taliban’s, religious extremist, militants and terrorist. They always try to justify their act of terrorism in their programs and create phenomena in which all acts of barbarism, terrorism portrayed as a justified act rather than telling them that they are evil, these extremist have been portrayed as heroes. The majority of common citizens of Pakistan are illiterate, the literacy rate is in single digits, therefore “Islam” and “Pakistan” has been the tool to fool the nation for last 62 years in the political history of Pakistan. It visibly strengthen in the era of General Zia Ul Haq and in order to, strengthen his regime and prolong his Presidency, he used this tool of Islam and played it criminally with the emotions of people of Pakistan. It’s all his sowing which we are reaping today.

Then i asked about the flogging of the girl in Swat, the burning of the girls’ schools in the name of Islam, and similar Taliban practices. The mayor answered:

Let me just say it very categorically there is no 2 version of Quran or in the interpretation of Quran, what we see happening in the name of Islam and Quran in the valleys of Pakistan, it’s not Islam and Quran’s version. It is more a tribal traditions and customs combined with the medieval illiterate and brain washed people’s philosophy. Quran rather emphasizes men and women both to get education and knowledge of the world as much as possible.

I strongly agree with the mayor that education is key: When people are uneducated, they are particularly likely to fall prey to fundamentalist mullahs. And the fundamentalists get the importance of education. That’s why they’ve started conservative madrassas all over Pakistan, and sent the brightest students to Saudi Arabia or other countries for further education. The hardliners have truly invested in education, while the West has mostly invested in the Pakistani army, which has used the billions of dollars to buy new toys that it can pile up on its eastern border with India. We would have been far better off investing that money in educating the young people of Pakistan, as Greg Mortenson has done (as described in his great book, “Three Cups of Tea”). We could have made investments through great groups like Developments in Literacy, which is Pakistani-run and educates girls all over the country.
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Default Amid US criticism, Pakistan again battles Taliban (Source : washingtonpost.com)

By NAHAL TOOSI
The Associated Press
Monday, April 27, 2009; 12:49 AM

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan sent helicopter gunships and troops to attack Taliban militants in a district covered by a peace deal after strong U.S. pressure on the nuclear-armed nation to confront insurgents advancing in its northwest.

At least 31 people were killed on Sunday in the operation, which sent some residents of Lower Dir district fleeing carrying small children and few belongings.

The push appeared to endanger a peace pact struck with Taliban militants in neighboring Swat Valley, although a top official insisted the deal was "intact." Another official demanded the insurgents disarm, but a Taliban spokesman said the militants would not give up their weapons.

The Lower Dir offensive also came ahead of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's scheduled meeting with President Barack Obama in early May, but Pakistani officials denied outside pressure influenced the move.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected in Islamabad on Monday for talks with Pakistani leaders.

Television footage from the district showed at least two helicopter gunships heading toward the mountains. Troops guarded a road blocked with paramilitary trucks, while some families sat nearby. Another family headed away in a vehicle packed with luggage.

The operation killed at least 30 militants, including a commander, plus one paramilitary soldier, according to an army statement.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister, said the troops were targeting militants suspected of killing a local mayor and several police officers.

The government agreed to impose Islamic law in Swat and surrounding districts that make up Malakand Division if the Taliban there would end their violent campaign in the one-time tourist haven. Critics labeled the deal a "surrender" to the militants and warned Swat was turning into a haven for allies of al-Qaida.

In recent days, Taliban forces from Swat began entering Buner, a neighboring district which lies just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Officials said most of the insurgents pulled out of Buner on Friday amid reports of possible military action, and threats that the government would scrap the deal.

Losing either Lower or Upper Dir to militants would be a blow not only for Pakistan but also for the U.S. because a part of the region borders Afghanistan, where the U.S. is sending thousands more troops to shore up the faltering war effort against a resurgent Taliban.

Farhatullah Babar, spokesman for President Zardari, insisted the operation did not render the peace agreement moot.

He said the government would fulfill its pledge to establish an Islamic judicial system in Malakand, a long-standing demand of local residents exhausted by the inefficient regular courts _ and a grievance exploited by the Taliban.

"The peace deal is intact," Babar said. "At the same time the government is determined to root out the militants hell-bent on destroying the law and order situation."

However, Rehman Malik, the head of the Interior Ministry, spoke of the deal in past tense when saying the Swat militants had to disarm.

"Enough is enough," Malik said. "There is no option for them except to lay down their arms, because the government is serious now to flush them out."

Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said the militants, "do not lay down weapons. Instead they snatch them." He said the Taliban were still trying to abide by the deal but wanted to make sure the newly created Islamic courts had full authority.

Amir Izzat, a spokesman for the hard-line cleric who mediated the deal, said the "operation is a clear violation" of the agreement and warned that the government would be responsible for the fallout.

A similar peace deal attempted in Swat last year fell apart within a few months, and officials said it gave the militants there a chance to regroup and rearm, making them a more challenging enemy when the army resumed its fight in the valley.

Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for Pakistan's tribal regions, said the army operation in Dir was a clear signal to the Swat Taliban that they must stop entering neighboring districts. He predicted it would be a "limited" operation.

"The government is sincere in the deal, but the militants don't seem to be," he said. "The government wants them to lay down their weapons, and when they don't, a message goes to everywhere that they have some other agenda instead having an interest in peace. If the government goes for an operation in Swat, this time it will be much stronger and bigger as compared to previous one."

Pakistan's attempts to battle militants using military offensives have also had mixed results.

In Bajur tribal region, for instance, officials said earlier this year they'd vanquished the Taliban after a monthslong operation, but recent reports indicate the militants there are regrouping. Hussain, the provincial minister, said troops went into Dir also to tackle militants moving east from Bajur.

The Pakistani military's ability or willingness to take on the Taliban has been questioned by some top U.S. officials in recent days, even as they ponder giving Pakistan billions more in military and other aid.

Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Pakistan's leaders should focus on the looming threat posed by extremists within their borders, instead of their rivalry with India.

"The most important, most pressing threat to the very existence of their country is the threat posed by the internal extremists and groups such as the Taliban and the syndicated extremists," Petraeus told a congressional panel.

Babar said the offensive Sunday had nothing to do with American pressure. "There is no question of pressure by anybody," Babar said.

Some two years worth of clashes between the military and insurgents in Swat killed hundreds of people and displaced up to a third of the valley's 1.5 million people.

___

Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad and Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Rasool Dawar in Miran Shah contributed to this report.
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Default Pakistan drop troops behind Taliban front line (Source : Reuters)

BUNER, Pakistan, April 29 (Reuters) - Pakistani troops dropped from helicopters onto hillsides behind Taliban fighters holding entrances to the Buner valley, according to witnesses, as the second day of an offensive began on Wednesday.

Pakistan's demonstration of military resolve will reassure U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, when they meet Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Washington on May 6/7 to discuss regional strategy.

The Taliban's entry into a region just 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Islamabad earlier this month had sent shivers through Pakistan and sparked alarm in the United States.

The army, however, said a few hundred militants holed up in the mountains did not represent a real threat to the capital of the nuclear-armed Muslim nation, despite their proximity.

Residents could see and hear the fighting on the slopes overlooking Buner town on Wednesday, and several saw troops rappelling down ropes from helicopters in a drop behind enemy lines.

"We saw a helicopter dropping troops on the hills early this morning. It came about seven or eight times," said Arshad Imran standing in the town's central bazaar.

"We hear sound of explosions off and on and we can see helicopters flying over the mountains."

The military estimated some 500 militants were in Buner, and that it might take a week to clear them out. Jet fighters and helicopters gunships provided air support for army and paramilitary troops leading the offensive on Tuesday.

U.S. ENCOURAGEMENT

Pakistan is desperate for military and economic support to fight the insurgency.

But allies had feared Zardari's government was too ready to appease the militants after he signed off on a regulation to introduce Islamic sharia courts in the Malakand division in the North West Frontier Province.

Malakand has a long history of Islamist fervour going back to the British Raj in pre-Partition India, even though in earlier times the Swat valley had been a centre of Buddhism and until a couple of years ago had been a favourite destination for honeymooners, hikers and skiers.

While Buner is located south of Swat, the first military operation began southwest of Swat, in Lower Dir district on Sunday.

The government had hoped that meeting demands for sharia courts would quieten the militants in Swat.

But the Taliban instead became emboldened, fanning out of Swat into other parts of Malakand, including Buner, Lower Dir and Shangla districts.

A military spokesman said 10 soldiers and around 70 militants were killed in three days of fighting in Dir, though there were no independent casualty estimates.

The Pentagon urged Pakistan to remain on the offensive.

"The key is to sustain these operations at this tempo and to keep the militants on their heels and to, ultimately, defeat them," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

"The test of all of these Pakistani military operations -- because we've seen them from time to time in the past -- is always their sustainability," he told reporters in Washington.

Washington is considering rushing hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency aid to Pakistan, the U.S. Senate's second-ranking Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, told reporters.

There have been signs of a sea change within Pakistan's fractious polity, with even conservative religious parties recognising the need to push the Taliban back.

A police official in Buner, speaking on condition of anonymity, said militants briefly took dozens of policemen and Frontier Constabulary personnel hostage in the district's Pir Baba area but released them on condition they would stay out of the fight. There was no official confirmation of the incident. (Additional reporting by Junaid Khan and Augustine Anthony in Pakistan; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
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Default Obama ‘Gravely Concerned’ About Pakistan (Source : NEW YORK TIMES)

By HELENE COOPER and JEFF ZELENY
Published: April 29, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Wednesday that he was “gravely concerned” about the stability of the Pakistani government but that he was confident Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would not fall into the hands of Islamic militants.

Speaking at a prime-time news conference on his 100th day in office, Mr. Obama called the government in Pakistan, where army forces are at war with Taliban insurgents who have been advancing on Islamabad, “very fragile.” Pakistan’s leader, President Asif Ali Zardari, is to visit Washington next week, and American officials have been pressing his government to be more aggressive in battling the insurgency.

“I am more concerned that the civilian government right now is very fragile,” Mr. Obama said, because it lacks the capacity to deliver services like health care and the rule of law. “As a consequence,” he added, “it’s very difficult for them to gain the support and loyalty of their people.”

Mr. Obama also hit back at critics including former Vice President Dick Cheney, maintaining that harsh interrogation techniques used by the previous administration did not yield any information that could not have been obtained through other means.

Responding to the fallout over his decision to release secret memorandums that laid out the Bush administration’s legal justification for interrogation techniques like waterboarding — which Mr. Obama called torture — the president said that none of the intelligence reports he had seen left him thinking such methods were justified or necessary. “I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe,” Mr. Obama said. “But I am convinced that the best way to do that is to make sure we’re not taking shortcuts that undermine who we are.”

He offered no shift, however, in his opposition to an independent inquiry into the Bush administration’s policies on the interrogation of terror suspects.

During the one-hour news conference, Mr. Obama struck a variety of notes, ranging from historian-in-chief to mom-in-chief, when he lectured Americans to take precautions against the swine flu.

“Wash your hands when you shake hands; cover your mouth when you cough,” he said. “I know it sounds trivial, but it makes a huge difference.”

There were a few light moments, particularly when Mr. Obama was asked what has surprised, troubled, enchanted and humbled him in the past 100 days. “Wait, let me get this all down,” he said, taking out a pen.

He was surprised, he answered, by the number of critical issues that appear to be coming to a head all at the same time.

“I didn’t anticipate the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” he said. “The typical president has two or three big problems, we have seven or eight.”

He said he was troubled, or at least, “sobered” by how much “political posturing and bickering takes place even when we’re in the middle of really big crises.”

He called himself enchanted by American servicemen and women, and their sacrifices they make, although he allowed that “enchanted” might not be the exact characterization.

By the time he got to what humbled him, he was ready to expound, going on about the how the presidency was “just part of a much broader tapestry of American life” and how “the ship of state is an ocean liner, not a speed boat.”

Often over the course of the hour, he sought to draw distinctions between himself and his predecessor, and said that he had changed America’s relations with the world. “We have rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals,” he said.

Asked about his administration’s support in several recent court cases for the Bush administration’s position that the government had a broad right to invoke national security secrets to block litigation, Mr. Obama responded that he wants to modify the so-called state secrets doctrine, but had not had time to do so when the court cases came up.

“I actually think that the state secret doctrine should be modified,” he said. “I think right now it’s over broad.”

Addressing the economy, Mr. Obama said his administration had made progress but that there was much more to be done and that he ultimately wants a more stable economy less prone to boom and bust.

“We cannot go back to an economy that is built on a pile of sand — on inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards, on overleveraged banks and outdated regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the prosperity of us all,” Mr. Obama said in an eight-minute speech before taking questions from reporters.

He offered a new catchphrase to describe his economic program, calling for a “new foundation for growth,” that would encompass increased spending on issues like education and renewable energy.

Mr. Obama suggested that the pressures of governing at a time of economic crisis, war and now a potential flu pandemic have led him to pay less attention to some issues of intense interest to his political base. Asked if he would keep a campaign promise to eliminate federal, state and local restrictions on abortion, he said that while he favored abortion rights, getting rid of those restrictions were “not my highest legislative priority.”

Asked about how he would use the government’s power as a major shareholder in companies like General Motors and Citigroup, he said the government should limit its involvement.

“I don’t want to run auto companies. I don’t want to run banks,” Mr. Obama said. “I’ve got two wars I’ve got to run already. I’ve got more than enough to do. So the sooner we can get out of that business, the better off we’re going to be.”

The news conference in the East Room of the White House was the final act in a daylong series of events staged to mark Mr. Obama’s 100th day in office.

Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Obama traveled to Missouri for a town meeting in a state that he narrowly lost last year. He offered an upbeat assessment of his first three months in the White House, but implored patience as he tackles a mountain of challenges, saying he could not work miracles.

The tone of Mr. Obama’s remarks on Wednesday reflected an assessment from several advisers that the next chapter of his presidency is likely to be even more difficult than the first. But his job approval rating remains high, particularly given the wave of challenges on his desk, which in the last week grew even larger with the first health emergency of his administration.
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Default Civilians Flee as Pakistani Forces Hit Resistance (Source : New York Times)

By CARLOTTA GALL and SALMAN MASOOD
Published: April 29, 2009

SHEIKH JANA, Pakistan — The Pakistani forces air-dropped commandos into the main town in Buner on Wednesday and quickly retook control of it from Taliban militants who flooded into the area last week, the military said. But the district was far from recaptured and the military may be in for a hard fight.

Villagers who fled the fighting and made it to this village on the plains said the military was bombing in Buner with fighter jets and firing rockets from helicopter gunships as Pakistani troops battled the Taliban on the ground for a second day.

Despite a curfew imposed by both the Taliban and the army, one villager, Walayat Khan, a cowherd in his 20s who did not know his exact age, said everyone was trying to get out of the district.

Some people were leaving on foot, as few vehicles were available. Those who left were forced to use back roads since the Taliban and military forces had blocked the main arteries leading into and out of Buner.

Mr. Walayat left his village, Kowgah, at dawn with 18 members of his family, mostly women and children, after jets bombed two nearby villages held by the Taliban on Tuesday afternoon. He left his brother and elderly father behind in the house, he said.

“Jets dropped bombs three times,” he said. “There was smoke and dust; I could not tell if they hit houses. We packed our things and then started moving because we thought they might hit us as well.”

Coming after intense criticism, both here and in Washington, of the military’s inaction, the air and ground campaign against the Taliban was the most intense waged by the army in six months.

Commandos of the Special Services Group were air-dropped into Daggar, the administrative center of Buner, a district of about one million people just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad, the military said.

The use of the American-trained special counterterrorism forces, jets and mobile units was a sign of the military’s seriousness of purpose in this fight, said a former government official, who did not want to be identified while discussing national security matters.

No civilians were displaced in Daggar, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the military spokesman, said at a news briefing in Rawalpindi. That part of the operation appeared to have gone fairly smoothly.

But elsewhere heavier fighting was reported. Military units backed by paramilitary forces were deployed in a three-pronged attack against the Taliban in Buner from neighboring districts, General Abbas said.

Those forces met fierce resistance in areas in the north, south and west of Buner — in Nawagin, Pir Baba and Sultanwas, where the Taliban have established positions, he said.

“We are facing stiff resistance in the area of Ambala,” General Abbas said, referring to the area near Mr. Walayat’s village, where local people said the Taliban were firmly entrenched and blew up a bridge on Tuesday to block the army’s advance.

Taliban were also reported to be patrolling a key road in the north near the Pir Baba shrine and the boundary with the Swat Valley, which is a stronghold for the militants. They were also firing on helicopters from the mountains, local reporters said.

Heavy fighting was also under way in Karakar, in the north of the district, where the Taliban were holding hostage about 70 police officers and members of the Frontier Constabulary. Eighteen of the men were later released, General Abbas said, without providing more details.

He said the army was concerned about hurting civilians. “Our constraint is that we are launching an operation in an area where militants have held the local population hostage,” he said. “We are trying to ensure there is minimum collateral damage and minimum displacement of local people.”

Civilians driving on the roads, including students, were wounded when their vehicles came under fire, local reporters said. Several civilians, including a child hit by a bullet, were taken to the hospital in Swari, reporters for the newspaper Dawn said.

People were unhappy with the military operation, Mr. Walayat said. But his relatives in the neighboring district of Swabi who gave shelter to the extended family said they supported it.

They live less than six miles from the boundary with Buner and said Taliban militants had come into their area just two days ago.

“People are happy with the operation because the government gave them a deadline to leave and the people are saying that the Taliban really want to take over Tarbela Dam and Islamabad,” said Yaqoub Khan, 42, a farmer who has made space in his house for 18 relatives who fled the fighting.

“If they had not come, the Taliban would have established positions here in this village by now,” he said.

Killings by the Taliban have shocked the local people, another relative said. Five days ago militants cut the throats of eight local policemen operating a post in the village of Chingalay in the south of Buner, just a few miles from Sheikh Jana.

“They cut their tongues out as well,” said Afsar Khan, 47, who saw the bodies of two of the policemen when he attended their funerals nearby.

Yet he said he doubted the military would be able to stop the Taliban advance. “This thing will expand,” he said. “It started from Afghanistan, then we saw Bajaur, Swat. Buner was the only place they could not gain a foothold,” he said.

But the local resistance in Buner to the Taliban also failed. “We expect this thing will come here as well,” he said.

Carlotta Gall reported from Sheikh Jana, and Salman Masood from Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.
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Default In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition (Source : nytimes.com)

By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: May 1, 2009

WASHINGTON — As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, administration officials said Friday.

American officials have long held Mr. Sharif at arm’s length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Mr. Zardari’s government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents.

The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan’s government is increasingly vulnerable, according to administration officials.

General Petraeus is among those expected to attend an all-day meeting on Saturday with senior administration officials to discuss the next steps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in advance of high-level sessions next week in Washington, when Mr. Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will meet with President Obama at the White House.

Washington has a bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani politics, and no one in the administration is trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif, administration officials say. But they say that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif to look for ways to work together, seeking to capitalize on Mr. Sharif’s appeal among the country’s Islamist groups.

That could be a tall order, given the intense animosity between the men, not to mention the ambivalence that many American officials still have toward Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister who was overthrown in a military coup in 1999.

Some Pakistani officials said that members of Mr. Zardari’s government already were reaching out to Mr. Sharif and that officials in Washington were exaggerating their influence over Pakistani politics. According to one Pakistani official, the government in Islamabad recently asked Mr. Sharif to rejoin the governing coalition. The two tried power-sharing last year, and that dissolved in acrimony only a week after Mr. Sharif and Mr. Zardari had banded together to force the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf.

Obama administration officials have been up front in expressing dissatisfaction with the response shown by Mr. Zardari’s government to increasing attacks by Taliban fighters and insurgents with Al Qaeda in the country’s tribal areas, and along its western border with Afghanistan. During a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said he was “gravely concerned” about the stability of the Pakistani government; on Friday, a Defense Department official described Mr. Zardari as “very, very weak.”

The official said the administration wanted to broker an agreement not so much to buoy Mr. Zardari personally, but to accomplish what the administration believes Pakistan must do. “The idea here is to tie Sharif’s popularity to things we think need to be done, like dealing with the militancy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity to speak more candidly about American differences with Pakistan’s government.

Mr. Sharif, 59, represents the Pakistan Muslim League-N, a coalition that includes a number of Islamist groups. He was prime minister twice during the 1990s, and received hero status in Pakistan for ordering nuclear weapons tests in 1998.

Both Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton have spoken with Mr. Sharif by telephone in the past month, and have urged Mr. Zardari’s increasingly unpopular government to work closely with Mr. Sharif, administration officials said. “We told them they’re facing a national challenge, and for that, you need bipartisanship,” a senior administration official said. “The president’s popularity is in the low double digits. Nawaz Sharif is at 83 percent. They need to band together against the militants.”

Sir Mark Lyall Grant, director of political affairs at the British Foreign Office, was in Washington on Monday for talks with Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton on Pakistan, according to American and European officials. The three discussed Mr. Sharif, but no conclusions were reached, a European official said. “There’s certainly no agreement that Nawaz should become Zardari’s prime minister,” the official said, speaking on grounds of anonymity. He said the enmity between the two would make such a situation impossible. But he added: “We need people who have influence over the militancy in Pakistan to calm it down. Who’s got influence? The army, yes. And Nawaz, yes.”

The Obama administration’s contemplation of a closer alliance with Mr. Sharif was first reported in The Wall Street Journal last week. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said that Mr. Zardari was open to talking to Mr. Sharif. “The president and prime minister of Pakistan have been striving for national consensus and continue to be in close contact with the leadership of all political parties,” Mr. Haqqani said.

The Bush administration struggled in 2007 to find a way to keep Mr. Musharraf in power amid a political crisis. The administration prodded him to share authority with his longtime rival, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, but those efforts ended after Mrs. Bhutto — the wife of Mr. Zardari — was shot and killed. The situation in Pakistan has become so dire, with the fragile government battling Taliban insurgents who have gotten close to Islamabad, that both American and Pakistani officials are looking hard to bring stability to the nuclear-armed nation.

“For the United States, there’s no ambiguity about where the danger lies; it’s in the people who are attacking the state,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. She said Mr. Sharif could broaden the appeal of the Zardari government, and his ties to Islamist militants give him added heft right now. “So the U.S. would dearly love to see both of those parties on the same page.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
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