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DEC 18, 2009 – JAN 21, 2010

Middle East

Pakistan’s Peshawar, epicentre of jihad

Michael Georgy

Reuters

Pakistani provincial minister Amir

Haider Khan Hoti spends much

of his time handing out envelopes

containing cheques. Some people

suffering from shrapnel wounds limp

to collect them.

Others weep and hug him after the

names of their deceased sons are read

out as dozens await their turn.

It has become a ritual in Peshawar,

where those devastated by bombings

– the worst in the country in a

militant campaign against the

Government – receive compensation

from authorities.

“We are facing an insurgency at

its best. It’s natural that I have to give

maximum time for these activities,”

Mr Hoti, chief minister for the North-

West Frontier Province (NWFP),

said, “If we lose this war, God forbid.

This country will go to the dogs.”

Peshawar and its surround-

ing areas near the border with

Afghanistan are the epicentre of the

battle against militants, who recently

raised security alarm bells with a

suicide bombing and gun attack near

Pakistan’s military headquarters, 30

minutes from the capital.

Failure to contain violence in

Peshawar could mean more opera-

tions like that one because it would

make it easier for militants to get

to large cities and strategic areas,

spreading more chaos and fear in the

nuclear-armed country.

Authorities seem well aware of

that, judging by Peshawar’s siege

atmosphere. Military and state police

check vehicles for weapons and

bombs at checkpoints. Behind them,

soldiers with machineguns keep an

eye out for suicide bombers.

Sandbags have been placed in

front of vital businesses. School

children are taught drills to follow in

the event of a bomb.

But tight security may only

produce short-term success in

Peshawar, a run-down city 170km

north-west of Islamabad, once home

to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Militants often exploit poverty

and unemployment, enticing impres-

sionable young men with promises of

glorious holy war. Winning long-term

trust in the state is half the battle.

“It’s not only the military opera-

tions. Military operations are to be

followed by relief, reconstruction and

rehabilitation,” said Mr Hoti.

“The space that was exploited by

these [militant] elements. We need to

fill that space. Administrative issues,

political issues, the social sector,

poverty – you name it. A system of

good governance.”

Two students in a market area

reinforced that view. Taliban fighters

in their village paid other young

men “good” money to join the group

and take up arms, they said. At first,

Peshawar had offered high hopes,

until the bombings killed more

and more people, hundreds since

October.

They spend their time hanging out

in a hunting gun shop and making

small talk with its owner. The ripple

economic effects of violence have cut

his sales to a rifle a month.

“I am afraid I am going to die,” said

one of the students, Azhar Farooq.

During the 1980s, Peshawar

became a den of spies and jihadis

when the United States and Saudi

Arabia covertly funded a mujahideen

guerrilla war to expel Soviet troops

from Afghanistan. Pakistan also

supported the effort. It’s a bitter irony.

Nowadays, Peshawar police chief

Liaquat Ali Khan sits at his desk

explaining how Taliban, al-Qaeda and

criminal elements are co-ordinating

in a shadowy network trying to

terrorise the city.

Mr Khan is a confident hard-nosed

man who says he has no doubts

the police will emerge victorious,

perhaps in a few months. But his

description of the police force’s

resources, and the methods of the

enemy, highlighted the magnitude of

the task.

The police force needs highly

sophisticated bomb and weapon

detectors. They only own a handful

to improve the safety of a city of 1.5

million.

Militants, on the other hand, are

brainwashing boys as young as 14, or

threatening to blow up their homes

and families, to force them to become

suicide bombers, said Mr Khan.

For now, he must rely on police

officers like Inspector Khaista Khan,

whose picture hangs on a wall outside

the police chief’s office. He was killed

after pouncing on a suicide bomber

outside a Peshawar court – the

incident killed nine people. The act

may have prevented a much higher

death toll.

“A suicide bomber comes and the

policeman goes and hugs him, and

takes all the blast for himself and

protects the public. I think this needs

motivation, devotion to duty and

courage,” Mr Khan said. “This you

can only find in the Peshawar police.”

Bombings have become a part of life in Peshawar, where the insurgency against the Pakistani

government is most evident.

A MAJEED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Ali Reza Jaha

The Epoch Times

Iranian opposition leader Mir

Houssein Mousavi is feeling the

effects of standing up for basic

freedoms in Iran. On December 8,

he was prevented from leaving the

entrance of Tehran’s Academy of

Fine Arts by over 30 motorcyclists

circling the building, just one of the

forms of intimidation recorded on Mr

Mousavi’s own website, Kaleme.com.

While they were not identified,

the motorcyclists are suspected to be

plainclothes Revolutionary Guard

members.

The motorcycle event occurred

one day after Iranian students took

to the streets in a nationwide rally

to commemorate Student Day,

December 7.

Student Day, a day that com-

memorates the death of three

Iranian students in 1953 during

the Mohamed Reza Pahlavi Shahs’

regime, has been a symbolic day of

revolution, supported in the past by

the Islamic regime in Iran.

However, in recent years, the day

has become a symbolic reference to

freedom and human rights, and even

much more so in light of the post-

presidential election protests in the

summer.

Thousands of Iranians participated

in the rally, ending in a violent clash

with Basiji security forces and the

arrest of over 200 people, the Islamic

Republic News Agency (IRNA)

reported.

The arrests come in the wake of

another round of mass trials for post-

election protesters, which resulted in

several executions.

Protesters criticised

Ali Larijani, Iran’s speaker of

Parliament, criticised protesters for

deviating from what he claimed to

be the true mottos of Student Day

and “neglecting the list of US hostile

actions against Iran.”

He stated that three students

were killed in 1953 for opposing US

policies in Iran and that the day is for

maintaining vigilance towards the

“enemies’ plots”.

The arrests, intimidation of the

opposition leader Mr Mousavi and

Mr Larijani’s public criticism of the

protesters are seen by some analysts

as an effort by the regime to curb

support for the opposition leader,

Mr Mousavi, especially at levels seen

during the summer’s post-election

period.

Those protests, arising after the

announcement of Mr Ahmadinejad’s

victory in the presidential elections,

were the most high-profile and violent

clashes since the Islamic regime’s

overthrow of the Shah’s regime,

leading to the confirmed death of 85

Iranians, with unconfirmed reports

pushing the death toll higher, to over

200.

Amnesty report

A recent Amnesty International

report also documents attempts by

the Iranian regime to cover up horren-

dous human rights abuses conducted

by security forces following the June

presidential elections.

The report states that the Iranian

authorities “have acted as part of

a repressive state machinery to

allow the security forces to act with

impunity”, resulting in the arrest of

over 4000 Iranians and the deaths of

36 people – though sources put the

death toll over 70 – with the total

number of Iranian executions since

the elections well over 100.

The report also references graphic

accounts of rape of both women and

men, with instruments such as a baton

or a bottle.

Amnesty International has been

monitoring the post-election events

from outside Iran, requesting in

various forms – including contacting

the Iranian Embassy in London – for

meetings on the subject of violence

against its people and permission

to attend trials in Iran, including

the most recent mass “show” trials

broadcast on Iranian state television,

but to no avail.

Intelligence minister criticises

former Iranian president

The Iranian regime’s Intelligence

minister, Heydar Moslehi, denounced

senior clerics who supported opposi-

tion leader Mir Hossain Mousavi,

specifically naming former President

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was

recently banned from speaking at the

prayer sessions moderated by high-

ranking Iranian authorities.

“Shockingly, Mr Rafsanjani

expresses the same ideas that come

in the statements of [opposition]

leaders,” said Mr Moslehi during a

gathering of pro-government clerics

in the city of Qom on December 10.

Mr Rafsanjani’s support for Mr

Mousavi, and public criticism of the

regime’s violence against post-elec-

tion protesters, has had extenuating

ramifications that have only recently

bubbled to the surface, say experts.

Mr Rafasanjani’s outspoken voice

hints at a larger divide in the power

structure within the regime.

Iranian opposition leader targeted, protests persist

Students participate in post election protests during Student Day, a

particularly significant day for commemorating freedom and human

rights in Iran.

KARIM SAHIB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES