Pakistan attack kills four troops

BBC Online

Taliban militants attacked a military checkpost in Pakistan's tribal area, killing four soldiers, officials said.
The attack comes as troops continue their operation in the South Waziristan region. The army on Saturday captured the key Taliban town of Kotkai.
Meanwhile, schools have reopened in Punjab and Sindh provinces a week after they were closed fearing attacks. But in the North West Frontier Province they remain closed because of the security threat.
About 20 militants, armed with rockets and guns, attacked the Matak post in Bajaur district near the Afghan border overnight, officials said.
"First they lobbed several rockets and then approached the post and opened fire with automatic weapons," AFP news agency quoted local administration official Ghulam Saidullah as saying.
The "sudden assault" killed four troops and left two wounded, he added. Officials said soldiers retaliated, killing six Taliban militants and wounding four others.
Militants have recently stepped up activity in Bajaur, a tribal area along the Afghan border.
Some analysts say the militants could step up attacks on security forces in Bajaur and elsewhere to divert the attention from South Waziristan, where the military is pressing with a major offensive. Meanwhile, schools and colleges have reopened in Punjab and Sindh provinces.
Security is tight and students are being allowed in after showing their identification cards at the entry gate.
All schools, colleges and universities were ordered shut across Pakistan last Wednesday after suicide bombers attacked a university in Islamabad a day earlier.
The Taliban said they carried out the twin blasts at the International Islamic University in which eight people died and at least 18 were wounded.
They threatened there would be more violence unless the army ended its offensive in the tribal areas of South Waziristan
South Waziristan is considered to be the main sanctuary for Islamic militants outside Afghanistan.
Pakistan launched its offensive last Saturday after a wave of militant attacks, believed to have been orchestrated from South Waziristan, killed more than 150 people.
On Saturday, soldiers captured the key Taliban town of Kotkai in South Waziristan, security officials said. Troops took the town after days of bombardments, officials said.
Kotkai, home to top Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, has seen fierce fighting since Pakistan launched its offensive. Journalists are being denied access to the area and cannot verify the reports. Up to 100,000 civilians have fled the conflict zone, the army says.
AFP adds: Pakistan's military said Monday that the death toll in a major military assault on the Taliban rose to 227, reporting heavy losses in the battle to control a village en route to a Taliban bastion.
Nineteen militants were killed during the last 24 hours, a military statement said, bringing the overall number of insurgents killed to 197 during what is now a 10-day ground offensive backed by warplanes and helicopters.
In addition, six soldiers have been killed in the offensive around South Waziristan, where authorities say scores of Al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked attacks have been masterminded, bringing the overall number of dead soldiers to 30.
TBT Regional Desk
Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has paid a recent visit to South Waziristan where army troops are launching offensive to stamp out Taliban militants.
He met the field commanders and troops deployed in the area.
He linked eradication of terrorism and extremism in the country to the success of the Rah-i-Nijat operation in South Waziristan, the stronghold of banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which has claimed responsibility for most of the terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
'The army is not conducting operations against any tribe or area, but against a handful of terrorists who have not only destroyed the peace and tribal traditions of the area but have also made the majority of the people hostage to their anti-state agenda,' the COAS said, during a visit to Wana on Sunday to meet field commanders and troops fighting insurgents.
During the day-long visit, Gen Kayani appreciated the morale and spirit of the troops. He also ruled out any foreign support in carrying out the operation. He was received by Corps Commander Lieutenant General Muhammad Masood Aslam.

A panic-proof resolve

Profiling cannot be wrong in the West but right in our part of the world. Extremists of every ilk are our adversaries. Pakhtuns, Afghans, Tamils or Nagas are not.

Rajmohan Gandhi

Let me start this piece with a declaration of faith. As an Indian who knows the neighbouring country, I affirm that Pakistan has enough courage, commonsense and diligence in its people to survive the tough challenge it faces.
I follow this avowal with a groan. What, I ask, will be the consequences of the cruelty heaped the other day in Faisalabad on a humble young woman and a humble young man for their crime of seeking the shade of a campus tree for a short conversation away from their hard lives of poorly compensated toil?
The uniformed security guard who reportedly shaved those innocent heads, and thereby proved his manliness to himself, was an unknowing accomplice of the Taliban, and campus officials who refuse to punish the security guard are, whether or not they know it, the Taliban's allies.
May this hurtful reminder of our subcontinent's cruel streak spur us towards a total, public and unrelenting repudiation of extremist thinking wherever it comes from, and whoever acts on it, whether a Hindu, Sikh or Muslim, a Sunni or a Shia, a separatist or a nationalist.
And let us not forget even for a split second that suicide bombing, whatever its psychological roots, has nothing to do with someone belonging to this or that religion, nation, sect or ethnicity. Profiling cannot be wrong in the West but right in our part of the world. Extremists of every ilk are our adversaries. Pakhtuns, Afghans, Tamils or Nagas are not.
At this watershed moment - to turn to the larger canvas - Pakistan and India need not so much a grand deal (e.g. movement over Kashmir by New Delhi matching a Pakistani resolve against anti-Indian militancy) as a purposeful partnership.
Deals are struck by parties nursing suspicions about each other. In a deal, each party stands poised to renege before the other can break its word. A partnership, by contrast, is forged by parties that see a common danger and know they have to fight it jointly.
All our eyes see a common danger before us. Let us believe our eyes.
Indians live in denial or daydream when they imagine that extremist triumphs in Pakistan will leave them unscathed. Pakistanis inhabit a fantasy world if they think that terror strikes aimed at India will leave them unhurt. Suicide bombs snuffing out young lives in an Islamabad university are not unconnected to murderous attacks on innocent villagers in Indian-administered Kashmir or on tourists in Mumbai. There is no escape from this law of consequences.
But we must also believe what we know to be true, which is that the vast majority of Pakistanis and Indians are disgusted by the culture of the gun and the suicide bomb. They would like an uncompromising partnership to banish that culture. We should remain panic-proof in our firm knowledge that this is where the people of Pakistan and India stand.
Indians must acknowledge that Kashmir is a dispute that remains to be settled and one that should be settled through creative dialogues involving India, Pakistan and all major shades of Kashmiri opinion. And Pakistanis should accept the error in thinking that support for extremist violence in Kashmir was risk-free.
Any Pak-India partnership must before long find a reflection even in the Afghan policies of each country. Both India and Pakistan have a stake in the triumph of the ballot over the bullet in Afghanistan. Successes for the Taliban there will hurt Pakistan before they can threaten India.
Indians on their part should be totally clear in their minds that New Delhi's engagement in Afghanistan is meant for the benefit of the Afghan people and in the interest of Pakistan as well as India, not for pressurising or embarrassing Pakistan. Not only that. The people and government of Pakistan should be kept informed of Indian projects in Afghanistan. In fact efforts should be made for joint India-Pakistan projects in a country that has been battered for decades.
To allay Pakistani concerns, India should announce categorically that it will not send soldiers to Afghanistan and also that it will not send trainers for Afghanistan's army or police. Even if it be true that many an Afghan harbours warmer feelings for India than for Pakistan, Indians should recognise that ties of geography, ethnicity and family bring to the Pak-Afghan relationship a depth that can never enter the India-Afghan relationship.
Whatever the Obama administration decides about American troop levels in Afghanistan for the immediate future, the phasing out of America's military involvement there is inevitable. The US simply does not have the stomach for a long-term nation-building exercise in Afghanistan. Recognising this reality, Pakistanis and Indians should focus less on what America should or should not do, and more on how they (we) can assist Afghanistan - separately and jointly - once the US leaves and even before the US leaves.
It is only too true that the governments (and armies) of India and Pakistan are not yet ready to enter into a purposeful partnership. Stubborn suspicions and prejudices will not disappear in days or weeks.
But patent self-interest may conquer suspicion and override prejudice. India will not be able to fold its arms and remain a detached witness of the struggle within Pakistan between the vast majority who cherish life, safety, friendships and liberty, and a small minority that wants to squeeze all life into the narrow barrel of a gun.
Any successes for that minority will injure India. Most Indians therefore would want the Pakistani majority to win out. At this important moment, Pakistanis must reject the temptation to fear India, and Indians must reject any urge to curse Pakistan.A country's battle against extremism can never be won by outsiders.
The necessary moral, ideological and military effort has to come from within. Neither America nor India nor Pakistan can save Afghanistan if Afghans themselves are unable to resist extremism.
Nor can America win Pakistan's hard battle against extremism. But Pakistanis have too much to lose in not fighting the battle, or in playing the blame game, and they have the capability to win the battle. Indians should be rooting for them.

The writer is a research professor at the University of Illinois, US.

The US and Afghan trap

History is not encouraging. In two centuries, the Pashtuns have never once tolerated a permanent presence of armed foreigners.

Gilles Dorronsoro

In Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's view, the key to success in Afghanistan is to "secure the population." The thinking is that the populated area of the country, largely the Pashtun belt in the south and the east, must be cleared of Taleban insurgents. Concurrently, the US must win hearts and minds through local development projects. Over time, with enough US troops, the population will come to feel protected and the insurgents will be marginalized.
So goes the plan. But after eight years of war, this approach is surprisingly ignorant of both the realities of Afghan society and the limitations of America's tolerance for casualties.
I was in Afghanistan during the summer, as 20,000 coalition troops tried to retake Helmand province, one of 11 provinces now under de-facto Taleban control. But over three months, during which they sustained significant casualties, the troops failed to take control of even one-third of the area. The coalition had built an archipelago of small outposts, leaving much of the territory between unsecured. As one Afghan told me in Kandahar, "The Americans control what they see." Imagine how many troops - and how many casualties - it would take to secure every one of those provinces, even under the most promising circumstances.
History is not encouraging. In two centuries, the Pashtuns have never once tolerated a permanent presence of armed foreigners. Defending families and villages is a cultural duty of local men, and the presence of outsiders is generally perceived as a threat, especially when they are non-Muslim. Historical memories are long in this part of the world. Some Afghans still say prayers for Mujahedeen who fought against the British - in the 19th century.
Because the Afghan culture highly values politeness, Westerners rarely understand how unpopular they are in the region. Locals are annoyed by the road-hogging conduct of NATO patrols. They have a suspicion of men wearing sunglasses. They are outraged at the mistreatment of prisoners and the killings of civilians.
In the countryside, Westerners are essentially perceived as corrupt and threatening to traditional Afghan or Muslim values. Contrary to our self-perception, the villagers see the foreigners as the main providers of insecurity. The presence of coalition troops means IEDs, ambushes and airstrikes, and consequently a higher probability of being killed, maimed or robbed of a livelihood. Any incident quickly reinforces the divide between locals and outsiders, and the Afghan media provide extensive and graphic coverage of botched airstrikes and injured civilians.
The cultural misunderstandings between the Pashtuns and Western forces provide fodder for the Taleban. Its members have capitalized on Afghans' natural distrust of outsiders to propagate conspiracy theories, including the claim that the Americans are helping the Taleban to give themselves an excuse to stay in the country and exploit its natural resources.
Even the US attempts at soft power are largely failing. There is a worrisome correlation between the amount of aid for civilian projects per capita and the strength of the insurgency. Helmand province receives the highest amount per capita - $250 a year, which is still not a lot, compared with the Balkans - but it has the highest level of coalition casualties. The first Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan, based in Gardez, has spent tens of millions dollars helping the local population, but the Taleban have captured the area, and US troops are basically unable to move outside their posts without huge security measures.
Funding reconstruction programs in places dominated by the insurgency fuels the war economy and thus the Taleban itself. In August, one Afghan contractor in Kandahar told me that in order to work outside the city, he had to pay hundreds of dollars a month to local insurgents. In addition, the population can easily reap the benefits of reconstruction programs and still support the insurgency. Not far from Kabul, some members of a Western-funded shura (tribal council) were recently unable to participate in a session because of wounds suffered in battle against coalition forces the previous night.
Aid always has the potential to create trouble. Contrary to what is often supposed, an Afghan village is rarely a "community," in the sense that its residents are accustomed to working together toward common goals. Afghans are much more individualistic than that. Foreign aid imposes cooperation at a local level, creating tensions about how to define projects. (Should we build a school or a clinic? An irrigation system or a road?) These processes can easily upset local hierarchies, creating lasting resentment.
Frankly, we don't have the human resources to do work of this kind. Very few Westerners speak a local language, and it is too much to expect soldiers carrying heavy packs to have sustained contact with the population in hostile villages, where the threat of IEDs is always present. The population rarely confronts foreigners directly - it is not polite - but it pursues indirect means of negotiation and fighting.
What, then, of "an Afghan partner"? The Afghan police force, the crucial element in any counterinsurgency strategy, remains weak, routinely infiltrated by the Taleban and rarely able to help the coalition. Without local help, US troops cannot distinguish between civilians and Taleban, most of whom are locals anyway.
NATO's current projections of building a 250,000-strong Afghan Army are not realistic. To build an army of 150,000 by 2015 would be a good result. But with troop levels like that, pursuing McChrystal's counterinsurgency plan will require the majority of the coalition's forces in Afghanistan for the next 10 years. So far this year, 130 coalition troops have died trying to implement this "clear, hold and build" strategy in Helmand, with no results so far.
If the White House heeds McChrystal's advice and sends more troops to the south and east of Afghanistan in hopes of retaking Pashtun population centers, American casualties will likely rise above 800 a year, about what they were in the worst years in Iraq. This will leave President Barack Obama with worse choices and fewer options.
To succeed, the coalition must focus on securing Afghanistan's cities, where institution-building can take place and the population is neutral or even favorable to the coalition. The Afghan Army and, in certain cases, small militias must protect cities, towns and the roads linking them.
Fewer casualties will buy the coalition time to build up the Afghan security forces, stabilizing the country and allowing it to focus on Al-Qaeda, the enemy that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

Gilles Dorronsoro is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Fish shortage

Bangladesh now faces acute shortage of fishes as there is wide gap between the demand and production. Besides, the shortage has increased due to large scale legal exports as well as smuggling out of hilsha fish from the country. The huge shortage contribute largely to the skyrocketing of fish prices in the local market. Fishes are among the most delicious and popular food items of the people of Bangladesh. But fishes are scarce and dearer due to production shortfall. The country's fish deficit at present stands at 1.37 lakh tons with the production being 25.63 tons as against the demand for 27 lakh tons annually.
As many of the rivers, canals, water-bodies, and ponds have already dried or are drying up the natural breeding grounds of fishes have been destroyed. Dearth of water in ponds, haors, beels and other water-bodies and pollution of available water are the main reasons for the shortfall in the production of fishes in the country. As fishes can neither survive nor lay eggs in polluted water, the natural water-bodies and breeding places are becoming fishless with the passing of time.
Meanwhile, at a time when fishes continue to be scarce and dearer at least 57 indigenous species of sweet water fish, particularly small ones, in the southern region are disappearing fast. These varieties may be extinct within next ten years. Against this backdrop, the government should take effective steps to protect the canals, water-bodies, haors and rivers and ensure the proper atmosphere for spawning of fishes. All out efforts should be made to increase fish production.

Resolving water crisis

Water crisis has again taken a serious turn in certain areas of the capital which is running chronically short of water supply. The city gets supply of at best 2000 million liters of water per day as against the need for around 2500 million liters, thus the shortfall of water supply stands at 500 million liters. The shortfall is attributed to deficiency in production, system loss, theft, wastage and misuse of water. And people are suffering terribly due to water shortage. This deficit hits hard mainly the dwellers of old Dhaka and the areas like Nayapaltan, Arambagh, Shantinagar, Shajahanpur, Mugda, Moghbazar, Rayer Bazar, Mohammadpur, Mirpur etc.
In fact, in the capital Dhaka, only 45 percent of the dwellers have access to safe drinking water. In other words most of the city dwellers do not get adequate water while in some areas WASA water is fetid and full of dirt and worms due to merging of water pipes with sewerage lines at places. As a result of mixing up of dirt and sweepings from sewerage lines with water of WASA pipes the water has become contaminated and unusable. The situation has complicated further as WASA is continuing to pump heavily contaminated water from the Shitalakhya river to Saidabad water treatment plant and supply it to the city. The contaminated, dirty and stinking water supplied by WASA is posing a serious threat to public health, but surprisingly instead of resolving these problems WASA authorities have increased the tariff of water by 5 percent with effect from July 1.
However, it is encouraging that the government has announced its decision to try to resolve the water crisis. Local Government, Rural Development (LGRD) and Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam recently said appropriate steps would be taken for resolving the water problem in the capital. He said the problem would decrease to a large extent with the implementation of Pagla/Keraniganj water treatment plant project. "The government will do whatever is needed for the implementation of the project," he said. The project proposal for Pagla/Keraniganj water treatment plant involving Tk 2,200 crore has been submitted to the Planning Commission. WASA Chairman has said that two thousand generators would be purchased and 15 new water pumps would be set up at different places of the city to ensure smooth supply of water. Earlier, a parliamentary standing committee has asked the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) to take measures for bringing water of Padma and Dhaleswari rivers for distribution after treatment among the city dwellers with a view to ensuring smooth supply of safe water.
It goes without saying that water and power crises are inter-related as load shedding impedes the lifting and supply of water. Under the circumstances, it is time for the government to step up the efforts to resolve the water crisis and to that end the power crisis should also be resolved.