'Reluctant allies' hope to cooperate
9 July 2012 12:55 PM GMT
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed hope on Sunday that Pakistan's recent reopening of NATO supply lines into Afghanistan might lead to a broader approach in US-Pakistani relations after a difficult period for the reluctant allies.
After attending a 70-nation Afghan aid conference, Clinton met privately with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to discuss reviving the US-Pakistani relationship, which has suffered a series of debilitating crises over the last year-and-a-half but is still seen as critical for the stability of South Asia.
It was their first meeting since Clinton's apology last week for the November killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers by NATO, a move that led to the end of Pakistan's seven-month blockade of the supply routes.
'We are both encouraged that we've been able to put the recent difficulties behind us so we can focus on the many challenges ahead of us,' Clinton told reporters. 'We want to use the positive momentum generated by our recent agreement to take tangible steps on our many shared, core interests.'
The most important of these, Clinton said, was fighting militant groups. They have used Pakistan as a rear base to attack US troops and jeopardise the future of Afghanistan. She and Khar 'focused on the necessity of defeating the terror networks that threaten the stability of both Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as the interests of the United States,' Clinton said.
Last week's accord helped repair ties that have been torn over everything from a CIA contractor who killed two Pakistanis to the unilateral US raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound. The November incident was the deadliest among the allies in the decade-long fight against al-Qaeda and other extremist groups along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier. Pakistan's reaction in closing the border cost the US at least USD 700 million.
Clinton, who joined the Pakistani minister and Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul for a three-way meeting later, said her discussions with Khar covered stalled Afghan reconciliation efforts. The US is counting on Pakistan to help convince the Taliban and other groups fighting the Afghan government to halt violence and enter into a political dialogue.
They spoke as well about enhancing US-Pakistani economic ties to make it a relationship defined more by trade than aid. Still, Clinton acknowledged the lingering difficulties hindering US-Pak cooperation, without getting into details.
EXTREMISTS PROTEST REOPENING OF NATO ROUTES
Thousands of members of an alliance of religious and extremist groups in Pakistan on Sunday launched a 'long march' from Lahore to Islamabad against the government's decision to reopen vital NATO supply routes to Afghanistan.
Workers and leaders of the Defa-e-Pakistan Council, formed last year by Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, assembled at Nasser Bagh and set off for Islamabad in buses, cars and motorcycles.
Saeed and other DPC leaders are leading the long march and the protestors are expected to reach the federal capital tomorrow.
The organisers said the protestors would reach Gujrat district of Punjab province later on Sunday.
After halting for the night at Gujrat city, the march will resume tomorrow morning.
The number of participants is expected to swell the march reaches Muridke and Gujranwala, where the JuD enjoys considerable support.
Addressing the protestors, Saeed said the government had sold Pakistan's sovereignty and autonomy for aid from the US.
He claimed the US and its allies were suffering losses of billions of dollars a day in Afghanistan.
He demanded that the US should withdraw its forces from the region, vacate all Pakistani airbases and stop drone attacks in the tribal belt.
Saeed claimed the US had paid Pakistan back for reopening the supply routes by carrying out a drone strike that killed over 20 people.
He further claimed the DPC would force the government to change its decision to reopen the supply lines.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-S chief Maulana Sami-ul-Haq and Jamat-e-Islami head Munawar Hasan also addressed the protestors.
As the protestors reached Shahdara, former ISI chief Hamid Gul was taken to a nearby hospital after he complained of chest pains. Officials said he was out of danger.
In a related development, senior adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik said the government would not block the long march but leaders of banned groups in the DPC would be arrested if they tried to enter Islamabad.
He said everyone, including the DPC, had the right to organise protests but the government will not allow anyone to take the law into their own hands.
The DPC organised the long march after the government last week reopened supply lines to Afghanistan, which were closed last year after a cross-border NATO air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.Pakistan decided to reopen the routes after the US apologised for the NATO attack.
23 KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN
Roadside bombs and insurgent attacks killed 16 Afghan civilians, five policemen and two members of the US-led coalition in southern Afghanistan where militants are trying to reclaim territory, Afghan and NATO authorities said on Sunday.
A surge in Afghan and coalition forces during the past two years routed Taliban fighters from many of their strongholds in the south, but the insurgents stepped up their attacks this summer to take back key areas.
The civilians, including women and children, were killed in a trio of blasts in Arghistan district, along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. Kandahar province spokesman Ahmad Jawed Faisal said one bomb exploded when a minivan ran over it on Sunday morning. A second went off when other civilians riding a tractor arrived to help the wounded. A third explosion occurred about two hours later when a civilian vehicle hit a roadside bomb in another area of the district, killing two women.
At least 10 other civilians were injured in the three blasts.
The policemen were killed while responding to a gun battle being waged against insurgents early on Sunday at a checkpoint in the Musa Qala district of neighboring Helmand province. Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman in Helmand, said a group of Taliban fighters attacked the police checkpoint at about 3 am. Afghan police called for reinforcements, but on the way, one of the police vehicles hit a roadside bomb, killing the five policemen.
PUBLIC EXECUTION OF 'ADULTERESS' NEAR KABUL
A man Afghan officials say is a member of the Taliban shot dead a woman accused of adultery in front of a crowd near Kabul, a video obtained by Reuters showed, a sign that the austere Islamist group dictates law even near the Afghan capital.
In the three-minute video, a turban-clad man approaches a woman kneeling in the dirt and shoots her five times at close range with an automatic rifle, to cheers of jubilation from the men watching in a village in Parwan province.
'Allah warns us not to get close to adultery because it's the wrong way,' another man says as the shooter gets closer to the woman. 'It is the order of Allah that she be executed'.
When the unnamed woman, most of her body tightly wrapped in a shawl, fell sideways after being shot several times in the head, the spectators chanted: 'Long live the Afghan mujahideen [Islamist fighters]', a name the Taliban use for themselves.
Provincial Governor Basir Salangi said the video, obtained on Saturday, was shot a week ago in the village of Qimchok in Shinwari district, about an hour's drive from Kabul.
'When I saw this video, I closed my eyes ... The woman was not guilty; the Taliban are guilty,' Salangi said.
After attending a 70-nation Afghan aid conference, Clinton met privately with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to discuss reviving the US-Pakistani relationship, which has suffered a series of debilitating crises over the last year-and-a-half but is still seen as critical for the stability of South Asia.
It was their first meeting since Clinton's apology last week for the November killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers by NATO, a move that led to the end of Pakistan's seven-month blockade of the supply routes.
'We are both encouraged that we've been able to put the recent difficulties behind us so we can focus on the many challenges ahead of us,' Clinton told reporters. 'We want to use the positive momentum generated by our recent agreement to take tangible steps on our many shared, core interests.'
The most important of these, Clinton said, was fighting militant groups. They have used Pakistan as a rear base to attack US troops and jeopardise the future of Afghanistan. She and Khar 'focused on the necessity of defeating the terror networks that threaten the stability of both Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as the interests of the United States,' Clinton said.
Last week's accord helped repair ties that have been torn over everything from a CIA contractor who killed two Pakistanis to the unilateral US raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound. The November incident was the deadliest among the allies in the decade-long fight against al-Qaeda and other extremist groups along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier. Pakistan's reaction in closing the border cost the US at least USD 700 million.
Clinton, who joined the Pakistani minister and Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul for a three-way meeting later, said her discussions with Khar covered stalled Afghan reconciliation efforts. The US is counting on Pakistan to help convince the Taliban and other groups fighting the Afghan government to halt violence and enter into a political dialogue.
They spoke as well about enhancing US-Pakistani economic ties to make it a relationship defined more by trade than aid. Still, Clinton acknowledged the lingering difficulties hindering US-Pak cooperation, without getting into details.
EXTREMISTS PROTEST REOPENING OF NATO ROUTES
Thousands of members of an alliance of religious and extremist groups in Pakistan on Sunday launched a 'long march' from Lahore to Islamabad against the government's decision to reopen vital NATO supply routes to Afghanistan.
Workers and leaders of the Defa-e-Pakistan Council, formed last year by Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, assembled at Nasser Bagh and set off for Islamabad in buses, cars and motorcycles.
Saeed and other DPC leaders are leading the long march and the protestors are expected to reach the federal capital tomorrow.
The organisers said the protestors would reach Gujrat district of Punjab province later on Sunday.
After halting for the night at Gujrat city, the march will resume tomorrow morning.
The number of participants is expected to swell the march reaches Muridke and Gujranwala, where the JuD enjoys considerable support.
Addressing the protestors, Saeed said the government had sold Pakistan's sovereignty and autonomy for aid from the US.
He claimed the US and its allies were suffering losses of billions of dollars a day in Afghanistan.
He demanded that the US should withdraw its forces from the region, vacate all Pakistani airbases and stop drone attacks in the tribal belt.
Saeed claimed the US had paid Pakistan back for reopening the supply routes by carrying out a drone strike that killed over 20 people.
He further claimed the DPC would force the government to change its decision to reopen the supply lines.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-S chief Maulana Sami-ul-Haq and Jamat-e-Islami head Munawar Hasan also addressed the protestors.
As the protestors reached Shahdara, former ISI chief Hamid Gul was taken to a nearby hospital after he complained of chest pains. Officials said he was out of danger.
In a related development, senior adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik said the government would not block the long march but leaders of banned groups in the DPC would be arrested if they tried to enter Islamabad.
He said everyone, including the DPC, had the right to organise protests but the government will not allow anyone to take the law into their own hands.
The DPC organised the long march after the government last week reopened supply lines to Afghanistan, which were closed last year after a cross-border NATO air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.Pakistan decided to reopen the routes after the US apologised for the NATO attack.
23 KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN
Roadside bombs and insurgent attacks killed 16 Afghan civilians, five policemen and two members of the US-led coalition in southern Afghanistan where militants are trying to reclaim territory, Afghan and NATO authorities said on Sunday.
A surge in Afghan and coalition forces during the past two years routed Taliban fighters from many of their strongholds in the south, but the insurgents stepped up their attacks this summer to take back key areas.
The civilians, including women and children, were killed in a trio of blasts in Arghistan district, along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. Kandahar province spokesman Ahmad Jawed Faisal said one bomb exploded when a minivan ran over it on Sunday morning. A second went off when other civilians riding a tractor arrived to help the wounded. A third explosion occurred about two hours later when a civilian vehicle hit a roadside bomb in another area of the district, killing two women.
At least 10 other civilians were injured in the three blasts.
The policemen were killed while responding to a gun battle being waged against insurgents early on Sunday at a checkpoint in the Musa Qala district of neighboring Helmand province. Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman in Helmand, said a group of Taliban fighters attacked the police checkpoint at about 3 am. Afghan police called for reinforcements, but on the way, one of the police vehicles hit a roadside bomb, killing the five policemen.
PUBLIC EXECUTION OF 'ADULTERESS' NEAR KABUL
A man Afghan officials say is a member of the Taliban shot dead a woman accused of adultery in front of a crowd near Kabul, a video obtained by Reuters showed, a sign that the austere Islamist group dictates law even near the Afghan capital.
In the three-minute video, a turban-clad man approaches a woman kneeling in the dirt and shoots her five times at close range with an automatic rifle, to cheers of jubilation from the men watching in a village in Parwan province.
'Allah warns us not to get close to adultery because it's the wrong way,' another man says as the shooter gets closer to the woman. 'It is the order of Allah that she be executed'.
When the unnamed woman, most of her body tightly wrapped in a shawl, fell sideways after being shot several times in the head, the spectators chanted: 'Long live the Afghan mujahideen [Islamist fighters]', a name the Taliban use for themselves.
Provincial Governor Basir Salangi said the video, obtained on Saturday, was shot a week ago in the village of Qimchok in Shinwari district, about an hour's drive from Kabul.
'When I saw this video, I closed my eyes ... The woman was not guilty; the Taliban are guilty,' Salangi said.
Next Story
