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Since assuming his position as Army Chief from Musharraf in November 2007, Kayani has quietly endeavored to distance himself from his predecessor, relieving Musharraf's allies of sensitive duties and charting a new course in the Army's relationship with the United States . He has increasingly provided U.S. military commanders with operational details and critical information concerning regional developments. In return, Kayani has attempted to convince his American counterparts that a truly effective partnership must be built on mutual trust . Read more…

Peshawar, spread over 2257 sq kms, epitomizes the cost that the Northwestern Frontier Province (NWFP) and adjoining Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have paid as a consequence of the war that had originated in the early 1980s when the city became home to countless Afghan refugees, relief organizations, mujahideen commanders and a hot-bed of intelligence activities led by the United States, supported by MI 6 and other European outfits, and facilitated by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency . Read more…

On December 17, for instance, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) asked a panel of witnesses from the State Department, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Defense Department, about who was responsible for putting out this money (for Pentagon contracts); the assembled group of witnesses could not give her a total. “Pentagon auditors had examined US$ 5.9 billion worth of contracts and found about US$ 950 million in questioned and unsupported costs,” she said. “Because auditors have only looked at a fraction of contracts, the real amount of waste is likely to be much higher.” Read more…

During the Pak-Afghan-Iran foreign ministerial conference in Islamabad middle of January, the Afghan foreign minister Rangeen Dafdar Spanta issued a passionate appeal when he said his request to all the neighbors would be to “please keep Afghanistan out of your bilateral problems. We have already suffered a lot and do not add to those sufferings by fighting your proxy wars on the Afghan soil.” Spanta’s reference obviously centered on the Indo-Pak and US-Iran rivalries that keep casting ominous shadows on the stabilization efforts in Afghanistan . Read more…

What happened, in-between 1979-1989, to socio-political fabric of Afghanistan and Pakistan, is a story of shame and pain; the response to the Soviet Union in the 1980s was not confined to the tactical guerilla warfare field only; a massive anti-Russia propaganda campaign was accompanied by efforts to instill the “spirit of jihad” into the hearts and minds of Afghan children and teenagers alike. Millions of dollars and riyals (Saudi Arabian currency) were spent on the “jihadisation” of the Afghan primary and middle school curricula. Read more…

One of the deadliest of these attacks took place on March 27 at a mosque in the tribal Khyber agency; as close to 200 people began offering Friday prayers, the bomber pulled the trigger of his suicide jacket, leaving behind a trail of death, claiming as many as 85 lives. Another similar attack in a busy market in the heart of Peshawar – Khyber bazaar – took almost 150 lives in October 2009, followed by another brazen suicide strike in the crowded Meena Bazar, Lahore, took almost 50 lives a couple of days later. These bombings shook the entire nation. Read more…

The civilian casualty figure for the last eight years has reached a staggering 25,000 that includes militants, police, military personnel and civilians – 8 times of what the loss was in September 11, 2001 attacks in New York before President Bush embarked on his War Against Terror. Between July 2008 and end-December 2009 alone, Pakistan is believed to have lost about 3,600 civilians and more than 1,300 security personnel in terror strikes. Read more…

The American generals seem to be saying to Pakistan: You henceforth will ignore your own national security interests and devote yourself to our interests, whatever the cost to you. You will hand over all of the Taliban leaders and men in your country, and place your army under our strategic control. Otherwise we will bomb your cities. Most Pakistanis fear that Obama’s new Afghan plan is a way to wreak further havoc in the region and will do fundamental damage to the United States itself as the terror now knows no boundaries. Read more…

The entire American leadership as well as its CIA-led establishment continues to vent doubts about Pakistan’s nuclear program and systematically circulating fears of extremists laying their hands on these weapons of mass destruction for attacking American interests. This hysteric projection on the Pakistani nuclear arsenal – coupled with the string of news and rumors on the activities/presence of private security agencies such as Xe (ex Blackwater) and DynCorp – obviously give way to suspicions and fears within Pakistan. Read more…

Complimenting the importance of United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009, CRSS Board of Trustees’ member, Arshad H. Abbasi, an environmental expert, raises pertinent points on the destruction of the Siachen Glaciers, the largest in the world outside of the Polar regions. Read more…

Pakistani Nation and Armed Forces Will Defeat Terrorists: When TTP seized this town in a surprise attack on a paramilitary fort on January 25 last year, they instantly executed half of the two dozen Frontier Corps soldiers. Some of them were publicly slaughtered and this filled the hearts of roughly 8000 inhabitants with fear and forced them into a deadly submissive silence.. Read more…

Afghanistan - a messy melting pot of foreign policy failures: The US military establishment’s umbrage over its Pakistani counterpart – manifested in the Kerry-Lugar Bill – and the recent loud and clear allegations by Ambassador Anne W. Patterson over the Quetta Shura and the Taliban presence in Balochistan must therefore be seen in the context of failures and problems in Afghanistan. When the going gets tough, it is easier to scapegoat failures. Read more…

Patterns of and Dealing with Insurgencies: Most national insurgencies - the Huk rebellion or the Moro Muslim insurgency in the Philippines, the Biafra revolt in Nigeria, or the upheaval in India's northeast – are rooted in dissatisfaction and alienation. They used socio-economic injustices – just as the Taliban have been in Afghanistan and some Pakistani areas – to justify their war against the government. Read more…

Understanding a Few of Chinese Interest in Pakistan: Understanding a Few of Chinese Interest in Pakistan: For Chinese Sinkiang (Xinjiang), the western Muslim Majority province remains a concern in the context of Islamic extremist movements, which the Chinese fear might infect this region as well. Relentless pursuit and defeat of Islamist radicals, therefore, stands out as a “priority of priorities.” Read more…

Power Struggle Inside Taliban
FATA: Faqeer Mohammad, the TTP chief for the Bajaur agency had claimed Aug 20 he had taken over as the head of the organization. Hakimullah also insisted he had been unanimously made the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief by its Shura. Read more…