Pakistan Media Centre Europe

Govt rejects call for army to quell Karachi violence

ISLAMABAD: The government shrugged off demands in the Senate from two allied parties on Thursday for an army crackdown to put down violence in Karachi and ‘deweaponise’ the national commercial capital.

Two senators of the Awami National Party and Science and Technology Minister Mohammad Azam Swati of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam called for handing over Karachi to the army for some time to restore peace after the latest spurt of violence over the past few days and to make the city what one of them said ‘weapon-free’.

But leader of the house Nayyar Hussain Bokhari of the Pakistan People’s Party, who represents Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in the upper house, effectively dismissed these calls and suggestions of a failure of Sindh police and Rangers, pointing out that the Constitution allowed army intervention only after a request from the provincial government.

Mr Bokhari was responding to angry exchanges over the issue mainly between the ANP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement that overtook an inconclusive debate on flood havoc in the country before Deputy Chairman Jan Mohammad Jamali read out a presidential order proroguing the house after an 11-day session.

Three MQM senators present at the time staged a token walkout to protest against what one of them, Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, described as a government failure to hunt down those responsible for the assassination of party’s provincial assembly member Raza Haider on Monday and what he called “criminals, gangsters … and dregs of the society killing our people in Karachi”.

Mr Bokhari was also unhappy with the ANP and MQM, partners in the PPP-led governments at the centre and in Sindh, blaming each other for violence in Karachi and, like minister Swati, whose party is a partner in the federal coalition, accusing both the Sindh provincial and federal authorities of not doing enough.

“Let us get out of the blame game,” he said calling for cooperation of all parties to meet the situation and “not become instrumental to those who want to destabilise Pakistan”.

Abdul Rahim Mandokhel of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party was the first to divert the debate on floods to Karachi where he said Pakhtuns were being massacred, with ANP’s fiery-tempered parliamentary leader Haji Mohammad Adeel chipping in: “The government, Rangers and police there have failed and we say Karachi be immediately handed over to army.”

“There is no government failure. The government will stay for five years,” retorted PPP back-bencher Khatu Mal Jeewan.

Mr Swati said calling army was the last resort after “police and Rangers have failed” and added: “We want a weapons-free Karachi.”

ANP’s Ilyas Ahmad Bilour directly accused the MQM of targeting Pakhtuns and MQM’s Ports and Shipping Minister Babar Khan Ghauri of threatening retribution despite party leader Altaf Hussain’s call to his followers not to take law into their own hands.

WikiLeaks posts huge encrypted file to Web

LONDON: Online whistle-blower WikiLeaks has posted a huge encrypted file named “Insurance” to its website, sparking speculation that those behind the organization may be prepared to release more classified information if authorities interfere with them.

At 1.4 gigabytes, the file is 20 times larger than the batch of 77,000 secret US military documents about Afghanistan that WikiLeaks dumped onto the Web last month, and cryptographers say that the file is virtually impossible to crack – unless WikiLeaks releases the key used to encode the material.

“There’s no way that anyone has any chance of figuring out what’s in there,” Paul Kocher, president of US-based Cryptography Research, said Thursday.

That hasn’t stopped bloggers and journalists from speculating. Some say the files could be the 15,000 or so intelligence reports which WikiLeaks says it’s held back for vetting.

Others, pointing to its enormous size, say it could be a compilation of the 260,000 classified diplomatic cables allegedly accessed by Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley acknowledged Thursday that the government suspects that WikiLeaks is sitting on at least some of its message traffic. The organization itself is keeping mum, at least in public.

“We do not discuss security procedures,” WikiLeaks said in an e-mail response to questions about the file.

Editor-in-chief Julian Assange was a bit more expansive – if equally cryptic – in his response to the same line of questioning in a television interview with independent US news network Democracy Now! earlier this week.

“I think it’s better that we don’t comment on that,” Assange said, according to the network’s transcript of the interview. “But, you know, one could imagine in a similar situation that it might be worth ensuring that important parts of history do not disappear.”

Cryptographers say that the file was likely made using a 256-bit encryption standard known as AES256, which the US government and others employ to mask some of their most sensitive data.

“It is widely viewed as extremely strong,” said cryptography pioneer Whitfield Diffie, of Britain’s Royal Holloway College. He said there were no known instances of anyone being able to beat the standard.

Kocher, of Cryptography Research, agreed, saying that the only conceivable way anyone outside of WikiLeaks could decode “Insurance” was if Assange and his colleagues haused a blatantly obvious password or experienced some kind of “catastrophic algorithm error.”

“We’re not going to find out what’s in that file unless somebody reveals the key,” Kocher said.

It’s not clear when – if ever – that might happen. WikiLeaks has so far refused to discuss the file, its contents, or when they might be released. And while the group has boasted about sitting on a huge wealth of leaked data from all over the world, Assange has declined to answer questions about whether WikiLeaks has the State Department cables, and, if it does, whether and when it plans to publish them.

Manning, currently jailed on suspicion of leaking classified material to WikiLeaks in a previous case, has been quoted as saying that the cables would expose “almost criminal political back dealings” and that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would “have a heart attack” when the files went public.

Both Diffie and Kocher said that the size of the file indicated that there was a huge amount of data being encrypted, although what the original file actually contains is anyone’s guess.

“The question is,” Kocher said, “is it a bluff or is it something more substantial?” – AP

CIA moved detainees from Gitmo before court

WASHINGTON: Four of America’s most highly valued terrorist prisoners were secretly moved to Guantanamo Bay in 2003, years earlier than has been disclosed, then whisked back into overseas prisons before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers, The Associated Press has learned.

The transfer allowed the US to interrogate the detainees in CIA “black sites” for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in US courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those rights.

“This was all just a shell game to hide detainees from the courts,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a Seton Hall University law professor who has represented several detainees.

Removing them from Guantanamo Bay underscores how worried President George W. Bush’s administration was that the Supreme Court might lift the veil of secrecy on the detention program. It also shows how insistent the Bush administration was that terrorists must be held outside the US court system.

Years later, the program’s legacy continues to complicate President Barack Obama’s efforts to prosecute the terrorists behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The arrival and speedy departure from Guantanamo were pieced together by the AP using flight records and interviews with current and former US officials and others familiar with the CIA’s detention program. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the program.

Top officials at the White House, Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA consulted on the prisoner transfer, which was so secretive that even many people close to the CIA detention program were kept in the dark.

CIA spokesman George Little said: “The so-called black sites and enhanced interrogation methods, which were administered on the basis of guidance from the Department of Justice, are a thing of the past.”

Before dawn on Sept. 24, 2003, a white, unmarked Boeing 737 landed at Guantanamo Bay. At least four al-Qaeda operatives, some of the CIA’s biggest captures to date, were aboard: Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Nashiri, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.

Binalshibh and al-Hawsawi helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Al-Nashiri was the mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Zubaydah was an al-Qaida travel facilitator. The admitted terrorists had spent months overseas enduring some of the harshest interrogation tactics in US history.

By late summer 2003, the CIA believed the men had revealed their best secrets. The agency needed somewhere to hold them, but no longer needed to conduct prolonged interrogations.

The US naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, seemed a good fit. Bush had selected the first six people to face military tribunals there, and a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that detainees could not use US courts to challenge their imprisonment.

And the CIA had just constructed a new facility, which would become known as Strawberry Fields, separate from the main prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The agency’s overseas prison network, meanwhile, was in flux. A jail in Thailand known as Cat’s Eye closed in December 2002, and in the fall of 2003 the CIA was preparing to shutter its facility in Poland and open a new one in Romania. Human rights investigators and journalists were asking questions. The CIA needed to reshuffle its prisoners.

The prisoner transfer flight, outlined in documents and interviews, visited five CIA prisons in Afghanistan, Poland, Romania, Morocco and Guantanamo Bay. The flight plan was so poorly thought out, some in the CIA derisively compared it to a five-card straight revealing the program to outsiders: Five stops, five secret facilities, all documented.

The flight logs were compiled by European authorities investigating the CIA program.

The flight started in Kabul, where the CIA picked up al-Hawsawi at the secret prison known as the Salt Pit. The Boeing 737 then flew to Szymany, Poland, where a CIA team picked up Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and took him to Bucharest, Romania, to the new prison, code-named Britelite.

Next it was on to Rabat, Morocco, where the Moroccans ran an interrogation facility used by the CIA.

At 8:10 pm on Sept. 23, 2003, the Boeing 737 took off from a runway in Rabat. On board were al-Hawsawi, al-Nashiri, Zubaydah and Binalshibh. At 1 am the following day, the plane touched down at Guantanamo.

Unlike the overseas black sites, there was no waterboarding or other harsh interrogation tactics at Strawberry Fields, officials said. It was a holding facility, a place for some of the key figures in the Sept. 11 attacks to await trial.

Not long after they arrived, things began unraveling. In November, over the administration’s objections, the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether Guantanamo Bay detainees could sue in US courts.

The administration had worried for several years that this might happen. In 2001, Justice Department lawyers Patrick Philbin and John Yoo wrote a memo saying courts were unlikely to grant detainees such rights. But if it happened, they warned, prisoners could argue that the US had mistreated them and that the military tribunal system was unlawful.

“There was obviously a fear that everything that had been done to them might come out,” said al-Nashiri’s lawyer, Nancy Hollander.

Worse for the CIA, if the Supreme Court granted detainees rights, the entire covert program was at risk. Zubaydah and al-Nashiri could tell their lawyers about being waterboarded in Thailand. Al-Nashiri might discuss having a drill and an unloaded gun put to his head at a CIA prison in Poland.

“Anything that could expose these detainees to individuals outside the government was a nonstarter,” one US official familiar with the program said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the government’s legal analysis.

In early March 2004, as the legal documents piled up at the Supreme Court, the high court announced that oral arguments would be held in June. After that, a ruling could come at any time, and everyone at the island prison — secretly or not — would be covered.

On March 27, just as the sun was setting on Guantanamo Bay, a Gulfstream IV jet left Cuba. The plane landed in Rabat the next morning. By the time the Supreme Court ruled June 28 that detainees should have access to US courts, the CIA had once again scattered Zubaydah, al-Nashiri and the others throughout the black sites.

Two years later, after The Washington Post revealed the existence of the program, Bush emptied the prison network. Fourteen men, including the four who had been at Guantanamo Bay years earlier, were moved to the island prison. They have remained there ever since.

The four men who were making their second journey to Guantanamo Bay received what they nearly obtained years earlier, before they were spirited away.

“The International Committee of the Red Cross is being advised of their detention and will have the opportunity to meet with them,” Bush said in a White House speech Sept. 6, 2006. “Those charged with crimes will be given access to attorneys who will help them prepare their defence, and they will be presumed innocent.” – AP

Flash floods kill at least 60 in Kashmir

SRINAGAR: At least 60 people were killed and hundreds injured after rare rainfall triggered flash floods Friday in an area of Indian-administered Kashmir popular with foreign fans of high-altitude adventure sports.

The overnight floods, prompted by an intense cloudburst, tore through Leh, the main town in the Buddhist-dominated Ladakh region, causing what state Tourism Minister Nawang Rigzin Jora described as “unprecedented” devastation.

Television footage showed scenes reminiscent of an earthquake, with collapsed buildings, downed power lines and residents scrabbling knee-deep through mud to try to dig survivors out of the rubble.

The floods hit Leh and surrounding villages without warning during the night when most residents were asleep.

“So far we have some 60 dead,” Jora told AFP from Leh.

He said the death toll was likely to rise “significantly” with dozens still missing in Leh and rescue workers unable to reach some of the affected districts nearby.

At least 200 people were reported injured.

“The devastation is unprecedented,” Jora said, adding that the military had been called in to help with the relief efforts.

The Indian army has a large presence in Ladakh, which shares a sensitive border with neighbouring China.

The force of the flash flood was so strong that it destroyed part of a camp belonging to the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force.

“More than a dozen of our vehicles got washed away,” said CRPF spokesman Prabhakar Tripathi.

The mountainous region, sitting in the southeastern part of Muslim-majority Kashmir, is popular with foreign adventure tourists interested in Himalayan trekking and river-running.

August is the peak tourist season in Ladakh, which experiences extreme weather conditions and is largely inaccessible during the harsh winter.

Some 3,500 metres above sea level, Leh is surrounded by high-altitude desert where heavy rainfall is uncommon.

The town was effectively cut off Friday, with the flood waters washing away sections of the main highways to the popular backpacker destination of Manali and Srinagar.

“So far, we have no reports of any tourists among the dead, but some are stranded on the Leh-Manali road. The army has sent rescue teams there,” Jora said.

A police spokesman said Leh airport had also been damaged, stopping all incoming and outgoing flights.

Daily temperature fluctuations in Leh are dramatic. In the summer months, the thermometer can plunge to minus 3 degrees Celsius during the night and then rise as high as 30 degrees during the day.

“I would say we are seeing something quite unusual this year,” said Ravi Ramaswamy, the director of a travel agency in Leh.

“We have had intense snow melt because of soaring daytime temperatures and the rivers have been running at alarming levels,” Ramaswamy said.

Seven more killed; Karachi toll rises to 82

KARACHI: Another seven people were killed in Karachi taking the death toll in the fresh wave of violence to 82, DawnNews reported on Friday.

The killings occurred in Karachi’s Orangi Town, Baldia Town, Ibrahim Hyderi, Risala and Docks areas.

Earlier, on Thursday, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said he had given “shoot at sight” orders to law enforcement agencies to control target killings and restore law and order in Karachi.

Bilawal says he’s not ready to enter politics

LONDON: Benazir Bhutto’s son says he’s not ready to enter the family’s troubled political dynasty yet.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the eldest child of the former Pakistani prime minister who was assassinated two years ago, has finished his history degree at Oxford University.

Some had been speculating he would address a political rally in Birmingham on Saturday with his father – Pakistan’s president – but he issued a statement saying he would instead help collect donations for the deadly floods that have killed some 1,500 people in Pakistan.

The 21-year-old says he is considering studying law before considering a career in Pakistani politics.

The path would be similar to his grandfather, who was hanged shortly after being ousted. – AP

Half million flee as floods threaten Sindh

SUKKUR: Pakistani authorities have evacuated more than half a million people in Sindh province, threatened by the worst floods in 80 years.

Floods have already spread to Sindh but much heavier waters threaten to inflict far worse suffering.

“Monsoon rains continue to fall and at least 11 districts are at risk of flooding in Sindh, where more than 500,000 people have been relocated to safer places and evacuation still continues based on the Meteorological Department’s alerts,” said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affair.

Meteorologist Hazrat Mir said on Thursday flood waters were moving at high levels in north Sindh province and would enter the town of Sukkur by Saturday. Those in low-lying areas of the Indus river are most vulnerable.

“There have been constant rains which have aggravated the situation in the areas already struck by floods,” said Saleh Farooqui, the director general of the provincial Disaster Management Authority.

“People had to leave their homes because of floods and they now also have to face problems because of rains.”

Those who have not been evacuated can only wait for what are likely to be raging waters like the ones which ravaged the northwest and the agricultural heartland Punjab.

The Pakistani military has led flood relief efforts since state relief agencies don’t have the resources to cope.

In a typical scene, army helicopters fly above roofs of houses to pull up people stuck there since entire villages were submerged. But there is only so much the military can do.

Across the country, many Pakistanis fend for themselves. Many are out in the open and are likely to be displaced again.

They face the same plight as cattle-breeder Khair Mohammad. “We don’t have anything, no one has given us even a single penny,” said cattle breeder Khair Mohammad, under a drizzle, after two hours of rains which poured down earlier suggested his problems are far from over.

Some distance away, an elderly woman who fractured her leg while leaving her flooded house sat on a portable wooden bed, wondering, like so many others, if help will ever come.