There has been talk of raising a new Counter Terrorism Force for combating the rising level of organized crime, terrorism and lawlessness in Pakistan. Let us have a look at a previous experiment. The Federal Security Force (FSF) was disbanded by the Martial Law Authorities soon after the 1977 coup. It was construed as a…
It is a sorry state of affairs that since the beginning of 2014, hardly a day has passed without a terrorist event of one type or another. Widespread incidents of violence, of all hues, in Pakistan’s urban centres signify the challenges confronting the federal and provincial governments in restoring law and order. Taliban’s trajectory is…
Our major problem is that we cannot seem to separate Counter-insurgency (CI) operations from Counter-terrorism (CT). Terrorism is more urban- based, insurgency normally operates mainly in rural areas. With great sacrifice CI has been a resounding success, a CT policy does finally exist now but it is yet to be translated into reality. Contrast the…
Uzbekistan celebrates “Constitution Day” every year on December 8. It was adopted on December 8, 1992 and recently it celebrated its 22nd Constitution day. It provided a solid foundation of building a new state and new society and formed a legal and legislative basis in building the independent democratic state. It was the first giant…
Democratic transition in Pakistan in May 2013, has opened new vistas of cooperation between the two countries. Nawaz-Obama summit in October last year and the comprehensive Joint Statement issued thereafter provided the vision and future direction for this relationship. President Obama and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had agreed that mutual interactions should focus people centric…
IntroductionAs a young man, I wished to travel the world but with limited resources at my disposal it was not possible. Twice I made plans to visit London but both the times something happened and I could not go. In 1974 again I decided to go to London. I had a second hand car which…
IntroductionIn the present environment of universal turmoil especially in the post 9/11 scenario, the Muslims have become a target of universal hate propaganda and Pakistan is perceived to be at the core. The extremists justify terrorism under the garb of Islam. Thus the ignorant facilitate the anti Muslim lobbies to propagate and project all Muslims…
A young teenager wrote in his diary; “I’ll not be a common man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony”. His name was Peter O’Toole and by 1962, he surely was not a common man just like the character of T.E. Lawrence that he played. O’Toole died on December 14, 2013. He is known…
Unmanned Combat Aerial vehicles more commonly known by their innocent sounding nomenclature “drones” have ultimately come under the UN scrutiny. For the first time, the UN General Assembly has pronounced itself on the ever-increasing use of armed drones in the pursuit of ‘war on terror’. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has unanimously passed a…
The Qatar’s Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDP&S) forecasted that growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) during the current fiscal year would grow by 5.3 percent. Different Qatar’s official figures suggest that over the past six years, its economy grew over five times in size during 2002 to 2008, at an average annual…
