Makkah a Dangerous Adventure Pilgrimage Photographed By a Christian

 VIEW ON THE BIG MOSQUE DURING A SAMALAT AT THE KA-ABA

 VIEW ON MEKKA

 VIEW ON MEKKA

 VIEW ON MEKKA

 THE PRINTERS BUILDING IN MEKKA

 THE HAJJI TENT CAMP AT SYEDANA  MAIMUNAS TOMB

 VIEW ON THE WESTERN PART OF THE MINA VALLEY DURING THE HAJJ

VIEW ON THE EASTERN PART OF THE MINA VALLEY DURING THE HAJJ

 VIEW ON MUZDALIFA, THE HAJJI STOPOVER PLACE BETWEEN MINA VALLEY AND MOUNT ARAFAT

 A HAJJI TENT CAMP AT MOUNT ARAFAT

 A HAJJI TENT CAMP TO THE EAST OF MOUNT ARAFAT

 A HAJJI TENT CAMP TO THE WEST OF MOUNT ARAFAT

 HAJJI CAMP EAST OF MOUNT ARAFAT

GROUP PORTRAIT OF SHARIF YAHYA WITH HIS RIDING CAMEL, HIS SLAVE & TWO SHARIFS OF LOWER RANK

 GROOM SITTING ON BRIDAL THRONE IN MEKKA

 RIKA OR BRIDAL THRONE, WHEREUPON THE BRIDE IS PLACED DURING DUKHLA NIGHT IN MEKKA

HAJJI TENT CAMP AT THE TOMB OF SYEDANA  MAIMUNA, THE WIFE OF THE PROPHET

HAJJIS VISITING THE HOLY SITE OFSYEDANA  MAIMUNAS TOMB 

Dubai Before oil Recovery 17 Amazing Images

Ramesh Shukla decided to take a picture one day of this old man and his donkey who would often take shelter and rest in front of his house in Dubai

 Foreigners in Dubai

 His Highness Shaikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai inspecting the cadets during the graduation ceremony in Dubai.

 Sheikh Shakhbut greets Susan Hillyard and her daughter Deborah in Abu Dhabi in the winter of 1957.

 After the Dubai Creek was dredged in the 1950s, the waterway saw a boom in shipping, and resulting increase in trade, re-exports and cargo handling

 Custom house BP office on upper story copy

 Dubai in the ’50s

Deborah outside Qasr Al Hosn in the 1950s. The building had just undergone a massive expansion whereby a new fort encircled the old.

 Onboard Features fishing. Haji the Nakhoda ( skipper)

 This undated file photo shows the first branch of the Bank of Oman, now called Mashreq, in Deira in the mid-20...

Unloading times of petrol for the Shikh Nov 53 to Jan 54 TADW Hillyard 

Ramesh Shukla, he loves to capture the lives of people. Here is one he took of a young Bedouin boy playing an instrument surrounded by birds

In this picture taken by Ramesh Shukla, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai is seen leading an impressive lineup of camels at a royal wedding in 1970

In this picture clicked by Ramesh Shukla, he takes an aerial shot of the Dubai Creek in the 1960s

An abra ride on the Dubai creek would cost a few annas

How it used be in the old days - Ramesh Shukla's picture of a man carrying barrels of water on his shoulder on a misty morning in Satwa, Dubai

In one of Ramesh Shukla's photographs, the Late Shaikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum is seen inaugurating the Dubai museum in May 1971

Sheikh Mujib Wanted a Confederation with Pakistan

Sheikh Mujib wanted a confederation: US papers WASHINGTON, July 6: The US State Department’s newly declassified documents about the 1971 debacle show that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman wanted to have a “form of confederation” with Pakistan rather than a separate country. The documents include two telegrams dating Feb 28, 1971 and Dec 23, 1971 “based on the sentiments of Sheikh Mujib and the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,” showing that Sheikh Mujib was not secessionist, as many in the then West Pakistan believed. The telegrams, sent to the State Department by the US embassies in Pakistan and India, document key foreign policy decisions and actions of the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The telegram, entitled “Conversation with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,” shows the path followed by the Awami League leader as he “talks of excesses by West Pakistan, states he (Mujib) is not willing to share power and does not want separation but rather a form of confederation.” In November 1969, a year before the war began, a US diplomat sent this report to Washington: “… East Pakistan, one also senses a growing undercurrent that beyond some intangible point the West Pakistan landlord-civil service-military elite might prefer to see the country split rather than submit to Bengali ascendancy.” One telegram quotes Indira Gandhi as saying that President Nixon has “misunderstanding about India’s case” and that “there is fantastic nonsense being talked about in the US about our having received promises from the Soviet Union about the Soviet intervention against the seventh fleet and against China.” The documents released on June 28 provide full coverage of the US policy towards India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the newly created state of Bangladesh from January 1969 to December 1972. Documents from March to December 1971 include intelligence assessments, key messages from the US embassies in Islamabad and New Delhi and the Consulate General in Dhaka, responses to National Security Study memoranda and full transcripts of the presidential tape recordings that are summarized and excerpted in editorial notes in volume XI. The historian branch of the State Department held a two-day conference on June 28 and 29 on US policy in South Asia between 1961 and 1972, inviting scholars from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to express their views on the declassified documents. During the seminar, Bangladeshi scholars acknowledged that their official figure of more than 3 million killed during and after the military action was not authentic. They said that the original figure was close to 300,000, which was wrongly translated from Bengali into English as three million. Shamsher M. Chowdhury, the Bangladesh ambassador in Washington who was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in 1969 but had joined his country’s war of liberation in 1971, acknowledged that Bangladesh alone cannot correct this mistake. Instead, he suggested that Pakistan and Bangladesh form a joint commission to investigate the 1971 disaster and prepare a report. Almost all scholars agreed that the real figure was somewhere between 26,000, as reported by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, and not three million, the official figure put forward by Bangladesh and India. Prof Sarmila Bose, an Indian academic, told the seminar that allegations of Pakistani army personnel raping Bengali women were grossly exaggerated. Based on her extensive interviews with eyewitnesses, the study also determines the pattern of conflict as three-layered: West Pakistan versus East Pakistan, East Pakistanis (pro-Independence) versus East Pakistanis (pro-Union) and the fateful war between India and Pakistan. Prof Bose noted that no neutral study of the conflict has been done and reports that are passed on as part of history are narratives that strengthen one point of view by rubbishing the other. The Bangladeshi narratives, for instance, focus on the rape issue and use that not only to demonize the Pakistan army but also exploit it as a symbol of why it was important to break away from (West) Pakistan. Prof Bose, a Bengali herself and belonging to the family of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, emphasized the need for conducting independent studies of the 1971 conflict to bring out the facts. She also spoke about the violence generated by all sides. “The civil war of 1971 was fought between those who believed they were fighting for a united Pakistan and those who believed their chance for justice and progress lay in an independent Bangladesh. Both were legitimate political positions. All parties in this conflict embraced violence as a means to the end, all committed acts of brutality outside accepted norms of warfare, and all had their share of humanity. These attributes make the 1971 conflict particularly suitable for efforts towards reconciliation, rather than recrimination,” says Prof Bose.

The Real Mr Jinnah

He wanted a secular Pakistan. He vowed to constitute himself as the "Protector-General of the Hindu minority in Pakistan." But "the fanatic tolerated Jinnah till Pakistan was achieved." Time and again he was made aware that he was an outsider." His famous speech of 11 August 1947 was allowed to be published in full only after Dawn's editor, "Altaf Hussain, threatened" those who were trying to tamper with it "to go to Jinnah himself if the press advice was not withdrawn." Dr. Ajeet Jawed's "Secular and Nationalist Jinnah" is another book on the same topic. And, as Singh's book shook the sangh pariwar in India, so Jawed's promises to jolt the rightist Muslims in Pakistan. Consider this sentence for instance: "Jinnah, who ate pork, drank whiskey, seldom entered a mosque, was ignorant of Islamic teachings, did not observe Islamic rituals, could not speak Urdu, wore high-class western suits and had come from Hindu Bhatia family..." But, a change occurred in Jinnah when he found that India would be partitioned on communal basis and to adapt himself to the changed situation, he adopted achkan, pyjama and cap. Reference: The Real Mr. Jinnah Written by S.G.Jilanee Thursday, 11 February 2010

Cases Gather Dust in Courts as Zardari Rots in Jail An Archive From History

ISLAMABAD: A high-powered four-member lawyers team headed by Farooq Naik and comprising Abu Bakar Zardari, Arshad Tabraiz and Qurban Ali Khoso, represents Asif Zardari in the numerous cases against him in various courts. The lawyers are not shy to declare that most of these cases have no substance and evidence but are politically motivated. Senior lawyer Farooq Naik said that Asif Ali Zardari has been imprisoned in Pakistan and the seventh consecutive year has been started now to him in jail. Since the government of his spouse, Benazir Bhutto former Prime Minister of Pakistan was dissolved by Presidential fiat on 5th November, l996. He was arrested on November 5, 1996, from the Governor house Lahore and since then facing the solitary confinement in different jails and presently he is kept in a small room in the government's hospital known as PIMS at Islamabad declared as sub-jail. He is no doubt an ailing person but his morale is very high as he believes in democracy, social justice, equality before law and supremacy of God who tests his people by putting them under various pressures as after all life and death is Ordained by God Almighty claimed Mr. Naik.

While telling the history of the cases registered against Asif Ali Zardari, Farooq said it is the painful story spread over the years because past three successive governments of Farooq Leghari, Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf has registered 16 cases in Sindh and Punjab provinces. Out of the 16 cases, in one case, Pakistan Steel Mills reference, he was convicted. He has acquitted the case known as Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) case, while out of remaining 14 under trial cases he got bail in 13 cases and is now in jail because of the BMW carcass. There are at present eight references under National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance 1999 pending against Zardari at Rawalpindi and Attock Fort, a military garrison, he observed. A legal expert said if the list of corruption charges against General Musharraf was prepared, it would be far more substantial and larger than the cases against Asif Zardari as in none of these cases conclusive evidence has been produced to convict him. That is why the Government has dragged these cases on to keep Asif in jail. Here is a brief list of the charges:

1. Asset Reference No.l4/2001: This Reference is pending since July 1998. Presently it is being tried in the Accountability Court at Attock Fort since April 2001 after Zardari was shifted from Karachi to Rawalpindi/Islamabad by NAB authorities. The prosecution till date has only examined 33 witnesses out of 62 witnesses.

2. Polo Ground Reference No. 6/2000: This Reference was adjourned sine die by the Accountability Court in Attock Fort on l7th March 2001. No date of hearing has been fixed since then.

3. Ursus Tractor Reference No. 25 /2000: This Reference, which was filed in July 1998, has not proceeded at all since the day it was transferred from the Accountability Court in Rawalpindi to the Accountability Court in Attock Fort in November 2001.

4. Cotecna Reference No.35/2001: This Reference, which was filed in July 1998, has also not proceeded since 12th June 2001 when it was adjourned sine die by the Accountability Court in Rawalpindi on the request of the Prosecutor General NAB.

5. SGS Reference No. 41/2000: This Reference was remanded to Accountability Court Rawalpindi, by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 5th Apri1 2001 after setting aside the judgment of the Accountability Court dated l4th April 1999 convicting Zardari along with his spouse Benazir Bhutto for retrial. Thereafter the prosecution evidence has not commenced till date.

Application of Asif Zardari that he has served his sentence and that he cannot be tried again on the principle of "double jeopardy" has not been heard and decided by the court despite the fact it was filed as far back as l4th September 2002 under Article 13 of the Constitution of Pakistan which lays down that no one can be tried or convicted twice for the same offense".

6. A.R.Y. Gold Reference No.23/2000: This Reference, which was filed on July 1998, is pending before the Accountability Court in Rawalpindi since its transfer at the beginning of the year 2000. The Prosecution has not examined any witness since its transfer to the present court.

7. BMW Care Reference 59/2002: In this Reference, warrants of arrest of Zardari were issued in the evening of l5th December 2001 when he was bailed out in the last of the cases viz. Narcotics Case on 15/17 December 2001. Issuance of Warrant and arrest of Asif in this Reference was only to prevent his release. The allegation is that he imported the car in 1995 and miss-declared the value thereof and evaded payment of duties and charges. First of all the car is not registered in the name of Asif. It has changed ownership thrice and there is no document linking Zardari with the car. Secondly under Section 32 of Customs Act 1969, if there is a declaration by any importer, short levied duty cannot be recovered after three years. In this case, car was imported in 1995 and as such the recovery of dues, if any, is barred by limitation.

As far as the trial of the case before the Accountability Court is concerned, the NAB filed the Reference in May 2002. After the court indicted Zardari, the prosecutor examined one witness, who had been instrumental in importing the car from the UK to Pakistan. The said witness has stated that one Ghani Ansari and his brother Rashid Ansari imported the said car through him and that Zardari had nothing to do with it. Asif has filed an application for the acquittal, which is pending.

8. Steel Mills Reference No. 27/2000. In this Reference, which was filed on June 1998, the Accountability Court Rawalpindi convicted Zardari on 12 September 2002 after being put under extreme pressure by the government. The judgment was announced at 8.50 p.m. which is against the practice and law as the court rise for the day at 4.00 p.m. Surprisingly at 9.00 p.m. on the same day the government announced on national media about the conviction in order to malign and defame Zardari.

The conviction order is without substance as there is not an iota of evidence involving Asif in the commission of the alleged offense. The allegation in the said case was that Mr. Sajjad Hussain, former Chairman Pakistan Steel Mills in order to gain favor of Asif Ali Zardari for confirmation of his service arranged a sum of rupees 30 million from mercury corporation which had a contract with the Pakistan Steel Mills by giving the said Corporation and paid the same to Asif Ali Zardari. Sajjad Hussain, unfortunately, died before he gave evidence in the court.

However, during his lifetime while he was unlawfully confined by the Nawaz regime to extract forcible confession from him, his wife Mrs. Amna Hussain had filed constitution petition in the Sindh High Court at Karachi contending that her husband is suffering from various deceases including acute depression and his being forced by the Nawaz regime specially senator Saif ur Rehman the then Chairman Ehtesab Bureau to make statement Asif Ali Zardari.

The irony of the case is that National Accountability Bureau recovered the said sum of Rs. 30 million from Mercury Corporation, as prior to the announcement of judgment convicting Asif Ali Zardari but the said fact was not revealed to the Accountability Court, which convicted the Asif Ali Zardari. The judgment is nothing but a travesty of justice said the lawyer.

Six Criminal Cases at Karachi (Sindh): The said cases are not being proceeded since February 2001 when Zardari was sent on internal exile from his home town Karachi within the province of Sindh to Rawalpindi/Islamabad within the province of Punjab about 1000 miles away. These cases included four murder cases registered against him told Farooq Naik.

The Government is responsible for the delay, as Asif is confined in Rawalpindi, is not being produced before these courts at Karachi despite the fact that orders for his production are regularly being issued for every date of hearing by the concerned courts. Murder cases are titled as Murtaza Bhutto, Justice Nizam, Alam Baloch, and Sajjad Hussain. One case is registered against Asif allegedly said that he has shifted households to Surrey Mahal London form Bilawal House Karachi.

Two cases have been registered against Asif alleging that he attempted to commit suicide in jail while he was under investigation.

Narcotics Case No. 436 1998: This case is pending in session court Lahore and Asif Zardari is being taken to Lahore for appearance before the Sessions Judge in violation to the order of the Supreme Court but however, he is not being produced before the Court at Karachi under the cover of the order of Supreme Court.

In the said case since 1998 till date out of 23 witnesses only five-prosecution witness have been examined. The evidence of all these witnesses which has come on record explicitly show that a false case at the behest of Saif Ur Rehman former Chairman of Accountability Bureau during the period of Mian Nawaz Sharif, the then prime minister, was registered against Zardari, his lawyer observed. He said it is obvious that the government with malafide intentions and ulterior motives in a systematic and planned manner wants to keep Asif in prison for the rest of his life claimed Naik. Asif Zardari is suffering from various life-threatening ailments including Spondylitis. Zardari was admitted in Dr. Ziauddin University Hospital, Clifton Karachi, which had the requisite facilities including Hydrotherapy under the order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, dated 11th August 2000.

However, NAB authorities without the permission of the Supreme Court shifted him from Karachi the Rawalpindi/Islamabad unilaterally and arbitrarily in February 2001 and confined him in a small room, the windows of which remain closed all the time and black painted, in the hospital known as Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Islamabad. All the facilities granted to Asif Ali Zardari in the hospital including Television and meeting with his counsel and family members (twice a week) are under the order of various courts. It can be said without fear of contradiction that government never of its own granted or gave any facility to Asif, said Naik. The officials on duty have strict instructions not to allow any facility to him over and above granted by the courts. A qualified physician/doctor does not accompany Asif in the ambulance which is old and rickety, for appearance before various courts said, Farooq. The government till date has flouted the order of the court by not providing with the facility of a walk as ordered by the court under the advice of the doctors and which is having serious adverse effect on his health, claimed Naik. The hydrotherapy treatment is not being carried out, as the said facility is not available in PIMS. The said facility is of utmost necessity as the specialists who examined him, have recommended the same.

Affluent Afghans get Pakistani IDs as poor Pashtuns suffer

KARACHI: For the right price, any Afghan can obtain Pakistani nationality. In fact, hundreds of affluent Afghans have managed to obtain Pakistani IDs in exchange for handsome sums paid to National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) officials, The Frontier Post has learnt.

While poor Afghan refugees and ethnic Pakistani Pashtuns take the hit in the wake of lapses by Nadra in granting CNICs – as was the case with the late Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour’s citizenship – those with enough money can easily obtain CNICs by greasing the right palms.

In 2012, Afghan business tycoon Abdul Rehman Alokozay’s family obtained over 150 computerized national identity cards (CNICs) against a payment of Rs20 million to NADRA officials close to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

“It’s not the only well-off Afghan family enjoying nationality of its neighboring country, however, a big one, which is trading inside this country with Pakistani identity,” a source said. Alokozay Group of Companies (AGC), an Afghani conglomerate with its headquarters in Dubai, has presence in over 40 countries with distribution network in Middle East, Central Asia, Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

“From the highly successful Alokozay Tea to the flourishing Alokozay Cooking Oils, Tissues, Evaporated Milk, Coffee, Biscuits, 3in1 Tea & Coffee, Sugar, Detergent Powder, Wet Wipes, Baby Diapers, Pasta, Corn Flakes, Engine Oil, Shampoo, Conditioner, Shower Gel, Hand wash, Bar Soap, Toothpaste, Body lotion, Mouthwash and many more premium products, Alokozay continues to expand its horizon”, the website of company reads.

The group’s ABCo in Kabul, Afghanistan is the bottling and distribution plant of the entire range of carbonated Soft drinks, Energy drink, Juices & Water.

“PepsiCo, one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, today signed an Exclusive Bottling Appointment (EBA) with the Alokozay Group of Companies to manufacture and distribute a broad range of PepsiCo beverages in Afghanistan. The beverages will be produced at ABCO (Alokozay Beverages Company), Alokozay’s beverage bottling plant, which will be set up in Kabul with an initial investment of US$ 60 million,” the PepsiCo’s official website announced on April 20, 2011.

Chairman of the group is Abdul Rehman Alokozay, whereas Jalil Alokozay is its Chief Executive Officer and managing director, who is also CEO of the Alokozay International Ltd based in Mississauga, Ontario L5C 2T1, Canada.

The amount, Nadra official, said, was paid by Abdul Waris Alokozay, Lahore based son of the Afghan business tycoon. Unlike his father Abdul Rehman Alokozay and brother Jalil Alokozay, Waris doesn’t carry the family name as he is Chief Executive Officer of Alokozay International (Pvt.) Limited, situated at Suite No 305, 3rd Floor, Eden Tower, Main Boulevard Gulberg III, Lahore Pakistan.

Besides, company in Lahore, the family has several restaurants on the motorways across, Pakistan. Korean made cigarettes Kent, which are sold in abundance in Pakistan, are also smuggled into Pakistan by this same family whereas FBR has been unable to find who to serve the notice with, a source in the Federal Board of Revenue told.

According to Nadra official, the family had shown themselves permanent residents of Mohmand Agency while obtaining Pakistani CNICs. However, the tribe Alokozay has never lived on Pakistani side of the Durand line Border.

The Alokozay, a sub-tribe of the Abdali Pashtuns of Afghanistan, are found primarily in Helmand, Kandahar, Kabul, Laghman, Kunar Sarkani District and Herat provinces in Afghanistan, and form the majority of the population in the Sangin District. “Jaldak, which is located 110 km northeast of Kandahar, is the original domicile of the Alokozay tribe,” according to “The hidden Treasure” (Pata Khazana), a biography of Pashtoon poets Mohammad Hothek.

Few years back, Abdul Rehman Alokozay was kidnapped in Pakistan. “The family secured his release by paying 25 million to the kidnappers” a source close to the family reveals.

A news published in this newspaper in 2012 had reported the issuance of Fake IDs after which the issue was taken up by Standing committee of the National Assembly but it never came to conclusion due to influence of the family in Pakistan’s political circles.

“Such examples of wealthy Afghans are in abundance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. These Afghans are not only rich in term of wealth but they are also very well connected with both the Afghan government and the Taliban,” a source said.

The reason why these Pakistan based rich Afghans keep good relations with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is because Taliban protect their crops back in Afghanistan – in most cases that of opium – and they help them with protecting their business interests in Pakistan as well, a Pashtun nationalist leader from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa says.

“As they buy Pakistani identity with their wealth, the Pashtuns of Pakistan are humiliated in Punjab and Sindh to get their CNICs,” he adds.

Published in The Frontier Post on Jun 1, 2016

Hamid Mir Khalid Khawaja a Story

2010: What was the last mission of Khalid Khwaja? Hamid Mir Sunday, May 02, 2010 ISLAMABAD: The last mission of ex-ISI officer Khalid Khwaja failed but his assassination exposed many hidden secrets, including differences between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, and has put a spotlight on his highly complex underworld life, as a mediator, sometimes on behalf of the Americans, a power-broker, a mover and shaker besides an ardent Islamic preacher. Squadron Leader (retd) Khalid Khwaja had been playing an active behind-the-scenes role in domestic politics of Pakistan for the last 22 years. He became an important international player 11 years ago when he first tried to establish direct links between the Kashmiri militants and the Clinton Administration but failed.

He had been trying to establish direct contacts between the USA and the Taliban for the last five years. He also tried to mediate between the Pakistan Army and the Taliban many times in the last two years but all his efforts failed due to lack of trust between him and the current military leadership of Pakistan. His known contacts with some former CIA officials and an American businessman Mansoor Ijaz also created problems for him. He was intelligent enough in maintaining links with Americans and their critics like Hameed Gul at the same time but unfortunately, he could not anticipate the seriousness of his adversaries, who did not miss any opportunity to strike against friends and foes alike.

He was sacked from the ISI on the direct orders of General Ziaul Haq in 1987 but he remained active with the ISI even after his sacking. He was the right-hand man of former DG ISI Hameed Gul in 1988 and played a significant role in the making of the anti-PPP political alliance, the Islami Jamhoori Ittihad (IJI).

He claimed that he arranged a meeting between Osama bin Ladin and Nawaz Sharif in Saudi Arabia in 1989. He made this revelation just a few weeks before the dismissal of Nawaz Sharif government in 1999. Khalid Khwaja tried to convince Nawaz Sharif not to support Asif Zardari as president in August 2008 but the PML-N leader did not listen to him.

Khalid Khwaja was assassinated by a group of Punjabi Taliban on April 30 near Mir Ali in North Waziristan. He was kidnapped on March 26 along with another former ISI official Col (retd) Ameer Sultan and a British born Pakistani filmmaker Asad Qureshi. An unknown group of Punjabi Taliban, with the name of Asian Tigers, alleged that Khalid Khwaja was working for the ISI and the CIA but that was not the main reason behind his killing.

A few weeks before his abduction, he met Taliban leader Waliur Rehman Mehsud in North Waziristan and handed over a list of some militants and alleged that they were working for Indian spy agencies. Within a few hours of that meeting, the vehicle of Waliur Rehman was attacked by a US drone but the Taliban commander survived. Waliur Rehman immediately informed the Punjabi Taliban to be careful about Khwaja, who then decided to trap him.

A spokesman for Punjabi Taliban hinted on Saturday that “charges against Col Imam are not strong and we may release him”. He also admitted that the Afghan Taliban were also putting pressure on the Punjabi Taliban to release the former ISI colonel.

While talking to this scribe on phone from North Waziristan, the spokesman reacted to the statement of Khalid Khwaja’s wife, who declared that her husband was a martyr because he was killed by some criminals.

The spokesman for the Punjabi Taliban said that both Mr. and Mrs. Khalid Khwaja played an active role in Lal Masjid tragedy in July 2007. They forced late Abdul Rashid Ghazi not to surrender but disappeared when the operation started.

Some friends of Khalid Khwaja, however, tell a different story. They say that Khwaja was arrested just a few days before the operation in Lal Masjid but they also admit that Khwaja was not supporting the surrender.

It is also learnt that Khalid Khwaja was investigated by a three-member committee of the militants for more than four weeks. Initially, Khwaja claimed that he had moved a petition in the Lahore High Court against the drone attacks along with former PML-N MNA Javed Ibrahim Paracha and he came to North Waziristan for recording the statements of drone victims to be produced in the court on April 6.

The militants confronted him as to why on the one hand he was opposing the drone attacks but on the other hand, he was trying to establish contacts between the USA and the Taliban. The militants claimed that he arranged a meeting between US Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes and a religious cleric Javed Ibrahim Paracha in 2005 in Serena Hotel, Islamabad. They also produced some articles downloaded from the Internet and asked about his links with former CIA officials, James Woolsey and William Casey.

Khwaja had met these former CIA officials through an American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, who was very close to the Bill Clinton administration. Ijaz played a key role in forcing the Sudanese government to expel Osama bin Ladin from Khartoum in 1996 and helped Khwaja to establish direct links between the Taliban and the Bush administration in October 1999 when he wanted Mullah Omar to meet James Woolsey to avert an American attack on Afghanistan. Mullah Omar refused to meet the then CIA leader.

Next year, Khalid Khwaja tried to fix a meeting between American businessman Mansoor Ijaz and Kashmiri militant leader Syed Salahuddin. Khwaja contacted Salahuddin through his friends in Jamaat-e-Islami and informed him that Mansoor Ijaz wanted to deliver a letter from Bill Clinton. Syed Salahuddin came to know that Mansoor Ijaz had meetings with Indian Army officials in Srinagar in early 2000 and also with then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He smelled a rat and refused to meet Mansoor Ijaz. Shortly after these attempts by Ijaz, a ceasefire was announced by a rebel Kashmiri militant commander Abdul Majid Dar in July 2000 but it failed. Majid Dar was assassinated after sometime in Kashmir.

Khalid Khwaja was arrested in 2002 after the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi. Khwaja had exchanged some e-mails with Pearl just a few days before his killing. Later, Marianne, the widow of Pearl, informed investigators that Pearl contacted Khwaja through Mansoor Ijaz and he only tried to help her husband in obtaining the contact numbers of some militants. Khwaja was released after a few weeks.

He surfaced again in 2005 when he gave an interview to a foreign newspaper and claimed that he was instrumental in arranging funds for a training camp established by a politician from Rawalpindi for Kashmiri militants. The same year he arranged a meeting of an MMA parliamentarian Shah Abdul Aziz, a religious leader from Kohat Javed Ibrahim Paracha and a pro-Taliban businessman Arif Qasmani with some top US officials, including Karen Hughes.

Javed Paracha confirmed that meeting to The News on Saturday and said that it was arranged by Khalid Khwaja. He said: “I was offered a huge amount of money for talking to the Taliban on behalf of the US government, but I told the Americans that first the Pakistan Army must give me a green signal and then I will proceed but Americans were acting on their own and the talks broke down.”

Javed Paracha also said that Khalid Khwaja came to his home on March 25 with Col Imam and a British journalist. Khawja wanted me to help him in his visit to North Waziristan. He said, “Maybe Khwaja was again trying to establish communication lines between the Americans and the Taliban but I received a clear message from Taliban that your friend is not welcome.”

Paracha claimed that he advised Khwaja not to go there. He said: “I also requested Col Imam not to take the risk. Col Imam was reluctant but Khwaja insisted and they left for Mir Ali against my advice.”

Both Javed Paracha and Khalid Khwaja had close relations with Lal Masjid clerics in 2007. Paracha met Maulana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi along with then Federal Minister Ejazul Haq and requested them to surrender. Khalid Khwaja advised Lal Masjid clerics otherwise.

Khwaja became very active in August 2008 when he contacted PML-N leaders and asked them to file a petition against the participation of Asif Ali Zardari in the presidential election. According to PML-N leader Senator Pervez Rashid, “Khalid Khwaja offered us that Nawaz Sharif should file a petition against Zardari and he will manage a Supreme Court verdict against Zardari within 24 hours but we refused to play in the hands of Khwaja.”

Khwaja had played a very active role against the government of Nawaz Sharif in 1999. He claimed in front of some JUI-F leaders that Nawaz Sharif took money from Osama bin Ladin in 1989 and promised that he would not act against Arab militants after coming into power. Those were the days when Americans were putting pressure on Nawaz Sharif to start operations against the Arabs living in Pakistan. The JUI-F and the JI started a mass campaign against Nawaz Sharif and within a few weeks his government was toppled.

This scribe tried to confirm the claim of Khalid Khwaja from Osama bin Ladin in November 2001 but he never confirmed it. Khwaja told American TV channel ABC in November 2007 that he had arranged a meeting between Nawaz Sharif and Osama bin Ladin in the Green Palace Hotel of Madina in 1989 just a few weeks before the no-confidence move against Benazir Bhutto. Osama was reported to have agreed to provide him some money.

US officials investigated this claim from many al-Qaeda operators arrested after 9/11 but only one, Ali Muhammad, told the FBI that a meeting between the representatives of Osama and Nawaz Sharif took place long ago in Saudi Arabia. He never confirmed a direct meeting between the two. Osama bin Laden never liked these claims of Khalid Khwaja who always claimed to be a friend of Osama. Khwaja had no meeting with Osama bin Laden in the last 20 years but he always claimed to be a friend of Osama.

Khwaja and Shah Abdul Aziz met Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in early 2009. They convinced Baitullah to write a letter to General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani for a ceasefire. The Pakistan Army leadership never trusted Baitullah Mehsud and this effort failed.

Khalid Khwaja filed many petitions in superior courts in his last days. One of them was against the constitutional immunity for the president. His political role is still a mystery. His friends claim that he definitely had relations with some Americans but he was not a CIA agent.

Sources in the military establishment said that he had no mandate of the Pakistan Army for talking to the militants. Some sources said that Khalid Khwaja was used by the Pakistani establishment against Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto many times but he was not trusted in his last days.

The whole drama of his kidnapping and assassination exposed the internal differences of many Taliban groups. A powerful Taliban commander of North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, tried his best to rescue Khwaja but failed due to his limited influence in Mir Ali. This area is mostly populated by Dawars but these days Mir Ali is controlled by Mehsud militants who have provided sanctuaries to different groups of the Punjabi Taliban, including some Kashmiris, who have developed differences with Pakistani establishment after the ban on many outfits during the last few years. These disgruntled militants don’t listen to Hafiz Gul Bahadar and Sirajuddin Haqqani group, which is influential in the areas close to Miramshah. It is also interesting that these Punjabi Taliban have no respect for staunch US critics like General Aslam Beg and Hameed Gul just because they don’t support bomb blasts in Pakistan. REFERENCE: What was the last mission of Khalid Khwaja? Hamid Mir Sunday, May 02, 2010 

The Memoirs of Syeda Abida Hussain By BASHARAT HUSSAIN QIZILBASH ,

Her account of a meeting with the American officials is an eye-opener. It is imprudent to generalize the behavior of the Americans towards the Pakistanis but it does show how humiliating some encounters can be with the haughty officials.

Syeda Abida Hussain is as bold a writer in her recently published autobiography “Power Failure” as she was as a politician because only she can dare to write that Dr. Sher Afghan Niazi was a “veritable joker”; Altaf Hussain a “veritable fascist” (p 353) and that Rehman Malik pronounces his doctorate in criminology as “criminology”. Then there are some frank admissions as well: her father Syed Abid Hussain remained her hero throughout her life whereas her father considered Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah as the “heroine of Pakistan”, who in turn was so bitter about the way things were sliding in the country that once Abida herself heard Ms. Jinnah lamenting, “Had my brother (Quaid-e-Azam) foreseen all this, would he have struggled so hard for the creation of Pakistan? Would he have wanted a country without a constitution, without justice, where skilled sycophants become powerful, while people with integrity and dignity start falling behind? If this was what Pakistan was to become, then making Pakistan was a foolish mistake (p 8).”

Abida has lived a stylish life and tells us that she developed her sense of style during education in Florence. A Florentine maestro after drawing her sketch felt that she was “better looking than Gina Lollobrigida” while Begum Nusrat Bhutto felt that the author reminded her of Elizabeth Taylor and therefore sought her advice as to how she should do her eye make-up. Abida must have been a pretty lady because Tahir Ayub, the youngest son of Ayub Khan was keen to marry her and though President Ayub sent a formal marriage proposal through the Nawab of Kalabagh, the then Governor of West Pakistan; her father declined. Even the “Melody Queen” Madam Noor Jehan brought the marriage proposal of her son, Akbar Rizvi which amused Abida’s father who “asked her to sing for him before he gave his response, to which she had answered that if the proposal was accepted she would sing for him whenever he wanted, if not she would not waste her breath.” She eventually got married to her cousin Fakhar Imam, who, at the time of marriage, she thought was “boring” and a “hopeless dancer,” however, after a marriage of forty-five years she is full of praise for her partner’s patience, perseverance, and tolerance.

Equally interesting are some other titbits. General Ghulam Jilani Khan, who also served as the Governor and Martial Law Administrator of Punjab had apart from soldiering also studied dance and music at Rabindranath Tagore’s Shantiniketan Academy, of course, in pre-partition days. Abida’s maternal grandfather Syed Maratab Ali Shah was awarded knighthood for being the “favored caterer of the British Indian army.” President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was so frugal in the use of public money that when his wife requested the re-upholstering of the sofas whose silk had frayed, he said that silk was too expensive and he could only sanction funds for the cotton fabric made in Pakistan. Similarly, before leaving as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, when the author asked Ishaq Khan that should she take a briefing on the nuclear issue from Dr A Q Khan, the President said that “there was no need, as A Q would mostly talk about himself” and instead directed her to meet Dr Ashfaq Ahmed of PINSTECH. As an ambassador in Washington, she was surprised to see in a party the Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan and the Israeli ambassador “with their arms around each other, laughing their heads off.” The author ruefully notes that though the Saudis are considered good friends by the Pakistanis, Prince Bandar refused to meet her despite repeated requests.

These titbits aside, the book is a first-hand account of the political history of the country in which the author also played an important role at critical junctures as the Member of the Parliament as well as Minister and by being an independent politician as well as a member of both the PPP and the PML. She remained a great fan of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto throughout her life so much so that while Bhutto was alive and in power, she had a dream in December 1976 in which she saw “Bhutto with a noose around his neck, hanging from the mango tree in the front garden of our house in Lahore.”Nevertheless, she left the PPP when the modernist yet “gender-biased” Bhutto refused to grant her the ticket to contest the National Assembly seat in the 1977 general elections just because she was a woman aspirant in a misogynist society.

Prior to Benazir Bhutto’s (BB) return to Pakistan in 1986, President Zia toyed with the idea of grooming Abida and Fakhar as the “power couple” to politically neutralise BB but dropped the idea after his chief spook told him that as the couple were shias, the Saudis would be immensely annoyed and instead picked up Nawaz Sharif for the leadership. The author remained estranged from BB for many years but agreed to be friends in 2003 provided BB explained her allegedly non-transparent financial dealings during her premiership especially in view of the fact that even her late father’s worst enemies could not raise a finger of financial corruption against him. BB’s explanation to her deserves to be quoted in full. Benazir “explained that her mother, being a simple person, before her father’s brutal elimination, gave away whatever cash they had to whoever said they could help so that by the time they were allowed to leave the country, they had to ask Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi for assistance. Although he was generous, it was not pleasant to incur this kind of obligation; so on becoming Prime Minister, her priority was never to be in a situation where she would have to ask anyone for money again (p 612).”

The most revealing section in the book is the account of her dealings as the ambassador of Pakistan with the American politicians and the officialdom at large. It affirms the popular perception that the US plays a decisive role in the affairs of Pakistan, at least at crunch time. We are told that it was the Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations, Senator Claiborne Pell, who prevailed upon his government to pressure General Zia to allow Benazir to return to her homeland. And so she landed in April 1986. Two years later, it was again the then US Assistant Secretary, who brokered a deal between President Ishaq Khan and Benazir that enabled the latter to become the prime minister.

During Abida’s ambassadorship, there was immense US pressure on Pakistan to roll back its nuclear programme. Anybody who was somebody in the US State Department or Pentagon had only one message: “Roll back your nuclear programme.” To the Pakistani efforts to stand up to the American pressure, the then US Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz observed that “the Pakistan government had attempted eyeball to eyeball conversations with the US government in the past, but had always ended up blinking first.”Strangely, the Americans continued arm-twisting despite the fact that their CIA chief Bob Gates had informed Pakistan that “the Indians had mounted nuclear tipped missiles on the Kashmir Line of Control (p 420).”

During her ambassadorship, the visit of the then COAS General Asif Nawaz to the US sheds some light as to how rude the American officials can be at times in their interactions and insincere in their democracy promotion agenda in Pakistan. On his visit to the State Department, General Asif felt “most offended” at being frisked by the security staff at the entrance hall and later on while the General and Abida proceeded through the hall, they were shouted upon to be “out of the way” and unceremoniously pushed into one of the elevators to clear the way for the Israeli and Palestinian delegations moving down the hall which made the annoyed General to complain that the Americans were “shockingly rude” (pp 445-446). During the visit to the Pentagon, General Asif Nawaz was told by the then Defence Secretary Dick Cheney that if Pakistan stepped “back from the red lines on our nuclear program, then a military takeover of the government in Pakistan would be tolerated by the Americans (p 448).” Though the General replied on the fact that “the army was in no mood to take over” yet he did brood over the idea of replacing the Nawaz Sharif government by making the MNAs to switch their loyalties but with the specific intention to buy some time with the Americans (pp 448-449).”

Abida’s account of another meeting with the American officials is an eye-opener. It is imprudent to generalise the behaviour of the Americans towards the Pakistanis but it does show how humiliating some encounters can be with the haughty officials. Just before Abida’s departure as ambassador, this meeting took place at the President House in Islamabad where President Ishaq Khan, Siddiq Kanju, Foreign Secretary Shehryar Khan, President’s Secretary Fazlur Rahman and Abida received the visiting US Under Secretary Bartholomew along with the US Deputy Chief of Mission Elizabeth Jones from the US Embassy and a staff officer. This is what happened at the meeting: “Bartholomew, addressing the President, urged him on behalf of the US President George H Bush to roll back our nuclear programme, if he wanted a resumption of the US assistance to Pakistan. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan picked up a file and showed the letters he had been exchanging with President Bush. Bartholomew looked at the letters, then picked out one and asked President Ghulam Ishaq to read it, in an edgy voice. The President nodded at him, picked out another letter, telling the visitor that this was what he had written in response. Having read it, Bartholomew threw the entire file onto the table in front, muttering that if we Pakistanis did not wish to understand what the US Government was urging us to do, it was bad for us. He then stood up and without acknowledging his exit, he said to his accompanying compatriots, ‘Let’s get out of here,’ shutting the door hard behind them (pp 415-416).” This was a manifestation of naked arrogance of American power. In addition, she has penned down a sample of the American corporate greed as well. Again, no generalisations but one can imagine to what extent the US big business can stoop for the sake of big money. When the General Dynamics (GD) found out that Pakistan was terminating the contentious F-16defence deal, their head honcho called Abida over to a meeting in which he said that his sources had informed him that she could influence her Prime Minister to change his mind and continue with the deal and in return the GD could buy her a nice house in Washington DC which she could rent out to meet the educational expenses of her two daughters studying at Harvard but she refused to sell her conscience (pp 483-484).”

Another challenging task as the ambassador was to convince the US Congressmen about Pakistan’s position on various issues. Not many were even interested in Pakistan such as Senator Jesse Helms, who stated that “Asia could certainly go to hell, and so could South Asia but within South Asia, he wished greater hell to India than to Pakistan” as the latter stood on the right side of the US. Some were adamant in their opposition such as Senator Orrin Hatch, who urged her to prevail upon the Pakistan government to follow the Indian example by recognising Israel. Some such as Senator Al Gore were least bothered as to who was Pakistan’s ambassador in his country because when she visited him, the Senator took her accompanying Deputy Chief of Mission Mr Sarwar as the ambassador despite the fact that her profile was sent to him in advance. One wonders why we still keep receiving so many American officials!