Pakistan and India are vigorously expanding their fissile material production capacity to increase their nuclear weapons stockpiles. One report says Pakistan has operationalized its new plutonium producing facility at Khushab, about six weeks after reports appeared that India has almost completed the construction of its second gas centrifuge facility near Mysore. India and Pakistan continue to aggressively pursue their nuclear weapons programs despite muted concern by the global powers at rising tensions between the two rivals, especially since the rise of Narendra Modi in India. Pakistan has reportedly operationalized its new plutonium producing facility at Khushab, about six weeks after reports appeared that India has almost completed construction of its second gas centrifuge facility near Mysore. According to Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a Washington-based think-tank, a recently purchased Digital Globe high resolution satellite image dated January 15, 2015 shows that Pakistan’s Khushab’s fourth reactor’s external construction is complete and has become operational. ISIS is a non-profit, non-partisan institution dedicated to informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security. Its primary focus is on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and related technology to additional nations and to terrorists, bringing about greater transparency of nuclear activities worldwide, strengthening the international non-proliferation regime, and achieving deep cuts in nuclear arsenals. “This assessment is based on the presence of a very specific signature: steam is venting from the reactor’s cooling system,” says David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini in an article posted on the ISIS website. Khushab-4 is part of Khushab Nuclear Complex — a plutonium production nuclear reactor andheavy water complex located 124 miles south of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad — is dedicated to the production of plutonium for...

In the one month since the horrendous attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan is critically reexamining and restructuring its counterterrorism narrative and mechanisms. On December 16, 2014, six Taliban militants attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar, killing 145 people, including 132 children. The siege lasted for six hours,  and all attackers were killed. The brazen and violent nature of the attack sent shockwaves throughout Pakistan, and in the international community. Public bloodlust overshadowed any previous outrage over the hundreds of terror incidents the country has faced in well over a decade of the conflict. The attack marked the beginning a massive restructuring of the internal policies by both the military and civilian governments, bringing about a monumental change in the national security policy. The military began bombardment of Taliban hideouts and increased the military footprint in the tribal belt on the same day. On December 17, 2014, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called an All Parties Conference (APC) in Peshawar. Backroom diplomacy and strategic dialogue, fueled by the catalyst of the scale of the tragedy, brought all political parties on board. On the same day, PM Sharif lifted a near decade long moratorium on the death penalty for convicted felons in the Pakistan judicial system. This caused a backlash with human rights groups, as the lifting of the moratorium implied that all convicted inmates would be hung. On December 19, 2014, the first two were hanged in Faisalabad. Over the next few days, several high-level meetings, involving both the civil and military leadership, take place. On the night of December 24, 2014, in a televised national address, PM Sharif laid out the National Action Plan for combating the menace of terrorism, a 20-point agenda that included the establishment of military courts to prosecute "jet black terrorists", steps to ban promulgation of all hate speech and paraphernalia, improving...

In the one month since the horrendous attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan is critically reexamining and restructuring its counterterrorism narrative and mechanisms. On December 16, 2014, six Taliban militants attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar, killing 145 people, including 132 children. The siege lasted for six hours,  and all attackers were killed. The brazen and violent nature of the attack sent shockwaves throughout Pakistan, and in the international community. Public bloodlust overshadowed any previous outrage over the hundreds of terror incidents the country has faced in well over a decade of the conflict. The attack marked the beginning a massive restructuring of the internal policies by both the military and civilian governments, bringing about a monumental change in the national security policy. The military began bombardment of Taliban hideouts and increased the military footprint in the tribal belt on the same day. On December 17, 2014, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called an All Parties Conference (APC) in Peshawar. Backroom diplomacy and strategic dialogue, fueled by the catalyst of the scale of the tragedy, brought all political parties on board. On the same day, PM Sharif lifted a near decade long moratorium on the death penalty for convicted felons in the Pakistan judicial system. This caused a backlash with human rights groups, as the lifting of the moratorium implied that all convicted inmates would be hung. On December 19, 2014, the first two were hanged in Faisalabad. Over the next few days, several high-level meetings, involving both the civil and military leadership, take place. On the night of December 24, 2014, in a televised national address, PM Sharif laid out the National Action Plan for combating the menace of terrorism, a 20-point agenda that included the establishment of military courts to prosecute "jet black terrorists", steps to ban promulgation of all hate speech and paraphernalia, improving...

The lingering Mufti Mahmood Flyover – designed to connect Peshawar Cantonment with central Peshawar – is a typical example of the tardy and expensive governance that Pakistan as a whole reels from. Former chief minister Akram Khan Durrani laid the foundation stone for the 1.5km elevated carriageway some time in early 2007. His successor Ameer Haider Hoti launched the actual construction work in June 2011, with a promise that it will complete in December 2013. Three years on, the project is snail-pacing with no signs of completing in the near future. The only certainty is that its cost would have nearly doubled when it is complete. That is also what happened at the new Islamabad airport, which was supposed to have become operational in 2010 at a cost of less than 40 billion, but has at least another year to go before the completion of the first phase and has cost a staggering 90 billion. The Mufti Mahmood Flyover in Peshawar is only one symptom of a governance paralysis – a direct consequence of decades of conflict, acute cronyism, and increasing reliance on prayers for socio-economic relief, manifest in the fact that the people of the province voted four different parties into power in the four elections between 1997 and 2013. The PML-N, the PPP, the ANP, and the JUI (in alliance with JI) have been tested. The fifth party, the PTI, is currently on trial. And the common people continue to suffer because of broken roads, fumes of dust and traffic jams. The presence of several security checkpoints on the busiest roads – such as the Saddar-Jamrud Road – and even within the cantonment itself, represent a painful nuisance that people in the provincial capital suffer daily. These pickets defy common logic. Terrorists never cross these check-points. When they do come, they come from behind, via small allays, heavily armed, and kill 150-odd children and adults. When they decide to kill over a hundred Christians at the All-Saints Church, they do so without detection....

Pakistan has decided to ban the Haqqani Network, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and 10 more organisations in a move described by security analysts as a ‘paradigm shift’ in the country’s security policy. Confirming the development, senior officials told The Express Tribune that a formal announcement to this effect would be made in ‘coming days’. The decision came a day after the US State Department declared the fugitive chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Mullah Fazlullah as a ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’. Mullah Fazlullah had claimed responsibility for the December 16 bloody massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar. The methodical killings of the schoolchildren prompted an overhaul of the country’s policy to counter the menace of terrorism. Government and opposition parties approved a wide-ranging National Action Plan against terrorism which, inter alia, envisages establishment of military courts to expedite trials of terror suspects. The Haqqani Network was designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States in September 2012. Subsequently, the UN Security Council’s Taliban sanctions committee also added the group to a UN blacklist. The network, founded by Afghan warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, has been blamed for some of the most spectacular attacks on US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan. The network was believed to be using North Waziristan as a springboard for launching such attacks until the Pakistani military launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb in mid-June, last year. Security analysts say that banning the JuD is also a significant development as India, as well as the US, have long considered the charity run by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant outfit which has been blamed by New Delhi for masterminding the 2008 terrorist attacks on landmarks in Mumbai. “It’s our first step towards execution of the National Action Plan. The nation will see more positive steps towards dismantling militant groups. Both civilian and military...