Another thing for us to be proud of (especially the ghairat brigade). I cannot post the link as I am using my phone, please feel free to post the link.
A few years back the Americans were renovating their consulate in Islamabad by a hefty one billion dollars, some of us thought this would be the case and now we have Washington post confirming it.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
I have learned to be skeptical about anything being published in US Govt mouth pieces such as NYT and WP etc.
Thats why I don't give a ---- about what they write.
I think our agencies are doing a pretty decent job given the resources they have and in the hostile neighborhood we live.
Anybody can see after the free movement of americans is contained in Pak, the number of terrorist strikes has gone down quite a bit (Thank God for that)!.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
Well all of us know that CIA is there in Pakistan, Raymond Davis was caught there, and so were many so called diplomats stopped visiting sensitive areas within Pakistan. In Pakistani media it was reported a couple of years back that the Americans are building a mega embassy in islamabad, what would be that embassy be for? To give visas to American tourists, I don't think so. The Americans are carrying out drone attacks within tribal areas without our army's consent based upon their own spy network. So we cannot completely negate the story as false.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
I think our agencies are doing a pretty decent job given the resources they have and in the hostile neighborhood we live. Anybody can see after the free movement of americans is contained in Pak, the number of terrorist strikes has gone down quite a bit (Thank God for that)!.
That is not reality.
Americans come in and out of Pakistan at will, Bin Laden raid showed this.
Suicide bombers attack whenever they want. Even military bases are not safe.
The agencies need to become professional's before they reach the standards of CIA,Mossad, MI6, etc
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
So what?
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
Just check ,Who gave visa to Raymond,
you will know all .
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
After the incident isi claimed that haqqani was giving the visas from united states without their approval
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
He cleared now on his arrival that he was not that .
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/al-qaeda-targets-dwindle-as-group-shrinks/2011/11/22/gIQAbXJNmN_story.htmlThe leadership ranks of the main al-Qaeda terrorist network, once expansive enough to supervise the plot for Sept. 11, 2001, have been reduced to just two figures whose demise would mean the group’s defeat, U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence officials said.Ayman al-Zawahiri and his second in command, Abu Yahya al-Libi, are the last remaining “high-value” targets of the CIA’s drone campaign against al-Qaeda in Pakistan, U.S. officials said, although lower-level fighters and other insurgent groups remain a focus of Predator surveillance and strikes.
Al-Qaeda’s contraction comes amid indications that the group has considered relocating in recent years but that it ruled out other destinations as either unreachable or offering no greater security than their missile-pocked territory in Pakistan, U.S. officials said.
**The group’s weakened condition has raised questions for the CIA about its deployment of personnel and resources. The agency’s station in Pakistan’s capital remains one of its largest in the world, and the bulk of the CIA’s drone fleet continues to patrol that country’s tribal region, even though U.S. counterterrorism officials now assess al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Yemen as a significantly greater threat.
The CIA has resisted moving operatives, drones or other resources away from Pakistan more than temporarily, largely because CIA Director David H. Petraeus and other senior officials — mindful that al-Qaeda has regrouped in the past — think their unfinished priority is to extinguish the network’s base.
**
“Now is not the time to let up the pressure,” said a U.S. official familiar with drone operations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “We’ve got an opportunity to keep them down, and letting up now could allow them to regenerate.”
U.S. officials stressed that al-Qaeda’s influence extends far beyond its operational reach, meaning that the terrorist group will remain a major security threat for years.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as its Yemen-based arm is known, has carried out a series of plots, including the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day two years ago. The arrest this week of an alleged al-Qaeda sympathizer in New York underscored the group’s ability to inspire “lone wolf” attacks.
Still, U.S. officials who described al-Qaeda as being on the verge of defeat after Osama bin Laden was killed said they have been surprised by the pace and extent of the group’s contraction in the six months since then.
“We have rendered the organization that brought us 9/11 operationally ineffective,” a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said. Asked what exists of al-Qaeda’s leadership group beyond the top two positions, the official said: “Not very much. Not any of the world-class terrorists they once had.”
U.S. officials said that Zawahiri is a more pragmatic leader than his predecessor, with a firmer grasp of the ground-level difficulties faced by the organization’s estimated few hundred remaining followers in Pakistan.
With no merger partners or other prospects for a short-term infusion, Zawahiri appears to have settled on a strategy of buying time. In his latest video message, he appeals to followers for continued loyalty by calling more attention to bin Laden’s magnetism than any of his own leadership attributes.
In the 30-minute recording, titled “Days with the Imam,” Zawahiri — who has been described as an abrasive figure lacking his predecessor’s charisma — recounts his experiences with bin Laden in a message that is more nostalgic than militant in tone.
U.S. officials said the video may reflect Zawahiri’s awareness of his own shortcomings. “If he has an accurate measure of his own popularity, he would realize he’s the wrong man for the job,” said the senior U.S. counterterrorism official. “Most of the organization has complained about him.”
For that reason, much of the pressure of rebuilding may fall to his lieutenant, Libi, who is considered a more dynamic figure, a religious scholar who escaped from U.S. detention before beginning his rapid rise through al-Qaeda’s depleted ranks.
Libi is thought to be in his late 30s and has attracted a following among militants through a series of videos in which he has recounted his escape from the U.S. prison at Bagram air base in 2005, as well as his interpretation of world events.
His latest, issued Oct. 18, urged Algerians to revolt against a government that “opened your country to the *******s of the West to enjoy your resources, and made your honorable children circle the Earth asking people for alms,” according to a translation by the Site Intelligence Group.
Libi spent five years as a religious student in Mauritania in the 1990s, giving him credentials on religious matters that few in al-Qaeda can match. His operational experience includes serving as a field commander for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Because of Libi’s stature and communication skills, Jarret Brachman, a former CIA analyst who is a professor of security studies at North Dakota State University, described him as al-Qaeda’s “last best hope for any global resurgence.”
Although Zawahiri and Libi have long been top targets of the CIA, the agency’s pursuit has intensified as other names have been crossed off the agency’s kill list. Among them was Atiyah abd al-Rahman, who communicated regularly with bin Laden, rose to No. 2 in the organization and served as its day-to-day operational chief until he was killed in an August drone strike.
U.S. officials said that al-Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan still communicate with regional affiliates — including the one in Yemen — but that the franchises often shrug off exhortations that don’t fit into their plans.
Yemen, Iran and remote corners of Afghanistan have been eyed as potential replacements for the endangered haven in Pakistan, officials said. “The guys who are closer to the explosions are thinking about it more than the guys who aren’t,” the senior U.S. counterterrorism official said. “No one thinks Zawahiri would move. He’s too prominent. Too settled. Too old.”
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
Saleem Shahzad’s article written in 2009.](http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH04Df03.html)http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH04Df03.html
US’s $1bn Islamabad home is its castle
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
**ISLAMABAD - The ambitious US$1 billion plan of the United States to expand its presence in Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad underscores Washington’s resolve to consolidate its presence in the region, particularly in pursuit of the endgame in the “war on terror”. **
This marks the beginning of direct American handling of “war and peace” diplomacy in the region, following the forging of a seamless relationship between the Pakistani military establishment and the US military. (See [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Pakistan-US plan falls into place Asia Times Online, July 24, 2009.)
Standing in the way are Pakistan’s restive tribal areas and the seemingly never-ending - and escalating - Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan’s Pashtun provinces.
**According to reports, the US will spend $405 million on thereconstruction and refurbishment of its main embassy building in the diplomatic enclave of the capital; $111 million for a new complex to accommodate 330 personnel; and $197 million to construct about 250 housing units.
For this purpose, the US Embassy has acquired about 7.2 hectares of land at what is widely considered a mark-down price of 1 billion rupees (US$12 million), courtesy of the state-run Capital Development Authority. A Turkish firm has already built a 153-room compound for the embassy. **
**The fortress-like embassy will eventually accommodate close to 1,000 additional personnel being sent to Islamabad as part of the US administration’s decision to significantly raise its profile in the country. The new staffers will augment the current 750-strong American contingent already based in Pakistan; this against a sanctioned strength of 350.
“What appears to be more alarming is that this staff surge will include 350 [US] marines. Additionally, the Americans are pressuring Islamabad to allow the import of hundreds of Dyncorp armored personnel carriers,” reported Pakistan’s largest English-language daily Dawn.
A spokesman for the US Embassy in Islamabad, Richard W Snelsire, told Asia Times Online that the US was “redoing” the embassy compound as it was 40 years old. He said this was also largely because US aid to Pakistan had tripled to US$1.5 billion a year and therefore additional staff were needed. Snelsire dismissed the report of armored vehicles being used at the embassy and also said the notion of 350 marines being stationed there was “fictitious”. **
**The point can’t be denied, though, that the embassy is undergoing massive expansion, and one cannot easily assume all of the new staff will be pencil-pushers.
Indeed, since the last few months of 2008, the Americans have quietly been working on extending their physical footprint in the country.
During this period, about 300 American officials landed at Tarbella, the brigade headquarters of Pakistan’s Special Operation Task Force approximately 20 kilometers from Islamabad. They were officially designated as a “training advisory group”, according to documents seen by Asia Times Online.
Investigations by Asia Times Online indicate that this was no simple training program. According to sources directly handling the project, the US bought a huge plot of land at Tarbella, several square kilometers. Twenty large containers were then sent there. They were handled by the Americans, who did not allow any Pakistani officials to inspect them. Given the size of the containers, sources familiar with such shipments believe they carried special arms and ammunition and even possibly tanks and armored vehicles - and certainly nothing to do with any training program. **
**These developments at Tarbella and now the bigger facility in the heart of Islamabad are reminiscent of American policy in the Middle East, where the Jordanian capital of Amman was turned into a hub for the US’s handling of Iraq, Syria and Palestine.
Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the biggest embassy in the world was built in Baghdad. The facility not only provided logistical support to US troops in Iraq, it helped tackle Palestinian jihadi outfits in Jordan and worked to reduce their influence in Syria and Lebanon. It also helped reduce the influence of Iraqi resistance groups based in Jordan and tried to form closer relationships between Israel and Arab countries. **
In Pakistan, after Islamabad sided with the US following the September 11, 2001, attacks, the US Central Intelligence Agency established low-key facilities in cities such as Islamabad, Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar. In recent years, increasing numbers of unmanned Predator drones have used Pakistan as a base for attacks against militants inside the country and in Afghanistan.
**Contacts close to the top decision-makers in Pakistan tell Asia Times Online that the improved US Embassy will significantly and publicly step up Washington’s involvement in the country and beyond. **
The immediate targets are the Taliban and al-Qaeda. There is talk that once again the idea of peace dialogue will be explored with them in the border areas of Pakistan near the Afghan border.
**Apart from the troubles in Afghanistan, where this month foreign forces are being killed in record numbers, Pakistan’s tribal areas have to be “tamed” if the US is to further its regional aims.
**
In the meantime, infrastructure work necessary to realize these aims is already underway - Pakistan, Afghanistan and some Central Asian republics - notably Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - are building communication links such as roads and railways to enhance regional trade.
It is envisaged that regional economic powerhouse India, at a later stage, will be a part of this trade loop through Pakistan. After some frosty years between Islamabad and Delhi, the US is actively working to get them to resolve their differences, the chief of which is over divided Kashmir.
But first, the war that won’t go away in Afghanistan and which has now taken root in Pakistan.
The US and its allies might be thinking of striking deals with some of the Taliban, but leader Mullah Omar is having none of it. He has ordered that all backchannel talks with the Americans through Saudi Arabia and other contacts be severed and that the war against foreign troops be accelerated.
There has also been a strategic switch in the militant camps of the North Waziristan tribal area where previously Tajik fighters were trained to fight in Afghanistan. They are now returning home, via Turkey, and the Taliban are desperately trying to capture the western Afghan province of Herat to open direct access to the Central Asian states through Turkmenistan.
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has abandoned the jihadi assets it built to take on India by closing training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Many of these fighters are now in the hands of al-Qaeda and there is all likelihood, confirmed by analysts privy to the Pakistani establishment as well as by militants, that if India enters in the grand American game, al-Qaeda will activate these cells for operations in India.
“At the moment, India does not have any direct role in Afghanistan, but if it tries to play one by sending its troops or any other support to the American war, it will be the beginning of Ghazwa-e-Hind [the war on India promised by the Prophet Mohammad as part of the end of the time battles],” retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI, said in a recent television interview.
As much as the US wants to expand its war efforts, inter-connected jihadi and militants groups are already thinking beyond their traditional boundaries to meet the challenge.
*Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online’s Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo .com *
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
[QUOTE]
"At the moment, India does not have any direct role in Afghanistan, but if it tries to play one by sending its troops or any other support to the American war, it will be the *beginning of Ghazwa-e-Hind *[the war on India promised by the Prophet Mohammad as part of the end of the time battles]," retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI, said in a recent television interview.
[/QUOTE]
i don't think this hamid gul is any better than stupid zaid hamid who makes fool of people by describing that in 1965 indo pak war arab wariors and lashkars on horseback were fighting with swords which were emitting green sprkling lights and defeated indian army .
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
A big hunt in recent days.
Iran arrested many CIA agents .
Express News
ایران کا سی آئی اے کے12ایجنٹ گرفتار کرنے کا دعویٰ
سی آئی اے کے پکڑے جانے والے ایجنٹ اسرائیل اور علاقے کی دیگر ایجنسیوں کی مدد سے کام کر رہے تھے۔ انھوں نے کہا کہ سی آئی اے کے نیٹ ورک کا مقصد ایران کی سیکیورٹی، فوج اور جوہری شعبے کو نقصان پہنچانا تھا۔ یہ بیان ایسے وقت سامنے آیا ہے جب امریکی حکام نے اعتراف کیا ہے کہ لبنان اور ایران میں گزشتہ کچھ عرصے کے دوران سی آئی اے کے درجنوں اہلکار پکڑے گئے ہیں۔
Here they work officially under …
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
"Anybody can see after the free movement of americans is contained in Pak, the number of terrorist strikes has gone down quite a bit (Thank God for that)!"
That is not reality.
Americans come in and out of Pakistan at will, Bin Laden raid showed this.
Suicide bombers attack whenever they want. Even military bases are not safe.
The agencies need to become professional's before they reach the standards of CIA,Mossad, MI6, etc
So did you ever really see a lot of foreigners running around Pakistan? I don't know, I haven't been there since just before Bush invaded Iraq. But I will say that in the 5-6 months in 2002-3 that i spent in Lahore and Islamabad, I saw nary a gora/gori. Except in the US Embassy itself. Other than that, out and about - nope. But then I never expect to see any.
Do you just assume that any foreigner in Pakistan has nefarious motives and business?
The suicide bombings do seem to have lessened, though, but is that a coincidence or related? I don't know. I don't put it past arrogant CIA scum to do such things, but it's not like the psycho taliban needany encouragment.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
The Americans dont usually move within Pakistan as ordinary people, they are all diplomats, like Raymond Davis. Every now and then the police has stopped ‘American diplomats’ in sensitive areas of Lahore and travelling between Islamabad and Peshawar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14790457
American diplomats in Pakistan under pressure
The US says that the free movement of its diplomats is being inhibited
**In recent months American diplomats in Pakistan have said that their movements around the country are being unfairly restricted. The BBC’s Haroon Rashid casts light on the diplomatic repercussions of an uneasy relationship.
**
The US describes its treatment as “official harassment”, but Pakistan says it is merely implementing a recognised and established procedure for all diplomatic staff.
Whatever the case, new measures to restrict diplomatic movement inside Pakistan have come at a time of strong anti-American sentiment in the country.
Anti-US feeling has been on the rise because of frequent drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the release and acquittal in March of a CIA contractor who killed two men in Lahore and the shooting dead of Osama Bin Laden by US forces on Pakistani soil in May.
But US officials say that a few recent incidents vividly illustrate how discrimination may also have an official outlet.
**Enforcing the rules Recently, in the north-western city of Peshawar, policemen deployed at a checkpoint stopped a vehicle after noticing four foreigners in it.
**
**The occupants refused to wind their window mirrors down. Local television reporters - no doubt with the Lahore incident prominent in their minds - were rushed in as a stand-off developed.
**
**
Anti-US sentiment has grown increasingly strong in Pakistan in recent months
**
**A bearded white man in the driver’s seat held up a hand-written message for the reporters.
**
“We don’t need a NOC [no objection certificate] for visiting the 11th Corps,” it says. “We’re from the [Peshawar] consulate.”
**But Pakistan’s Foreign Office appeared to take a different view. It says that all diplomats travelling outside the cities of their actual appointment need to have the correct documentation and inform them of their plans in advance.
**
US embassy spokesperson Siobhan Oat-Judge insisted that all officials and all employees of the American mission follow local laws.
“We’re closely engaged with the Pakistani authorities to resolve the NOC issue,” she said.
**But it is clear that after a turbulent few months, the Pakistani authorities suddenly began to enforce restrictions which in less tense times had been allowed to remain dormant.
**
There have been some indications that the mood may be thawing. US media reports recently reported that the two governments had reached an agreement on the movement of diplomats. Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said “operational details” were being worked out.
But these statements come in the context of continued stand-offs.
Several incidents in recent weeks over many parts of the country show just how difficult it can be for American diplomats in Pakistan as they travel from one city to another.
American diplomats say that the new restrictions have slowed them down
Two groups of US diplomats were sent back to Islamabad last month after they failed to prove that they had permission to enter Peshawar, the capital of militancy-hit Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province.
The presence of weapons and sensitive telecommunications equipment in US embassy vehicles has further aroused Pakistani suspicions.
In an earlier incident in May, Matthew Barrett - a 27-year-old American married to a Pakistani woman - was detained by security officials for being close to a sensitive military area.
He was accused of being a CIA spy and was held in a jail before being released and told to leave the country - it is unclear whether he has done so yet.
The official curbs have hit the Americans the hardest. **Some in Islamabad’s diplomatic community suspect that travel pre-conditions have been set as a backlash against what they see as America’s growing influence in the country.
**
****‘Too many Americans’****Another reason for the restrictions, officials say, is the growing number of Americans in Pakistan.
**In the 2009 Kerry-Lugar Act, the US administration promised to provide $7.5bn (£4.6bn) in non-military aid over the next five years. This has led to a huge influx of Americans to work on different development projects.
**
On US demand, the Pakistani embassy in Washington was given special powers to issue visas to US officials without seeking Islamabad’s approval.
**In a sign of the obvious tension between Pakistan’s politicians and its security establishment, intelligence officials complained that this was a decision taken without their input.
**
**In addition a senior intelligence official told the BBC that they were finding it difficult - in terms of the deployment of resources - to keep track of foreigners when about 7,000 visas have been issued to Americans alone over the last year.
**
**“It’s getting beyond our capability,” the official told me.
**
Pakistani officials maintain that the US government, and particularly USAID, needs to clarify its mission and be more transparent about what it is doing.
They say that as long as it is unclear what US objectives are - and how money is being spent to achieve those objectives - development projects and aid workers will continue to be viewed with suspicion throughout the country.
On a lighter note, the preoccupation with American activities in Pakistan has meant that Indians - traditionally the most watched nationals - are having an easier time of it.
An Indian posted in Islamabad recently joked that the intelligence agencies do not follow them nearly as rigorously as they used to.
It could be though that the current tensions are only temporary.
The recent arrest of al-Qaeda suspect Younis al-Mauritani in Quetta has been hailed by both Washington and Islamabad as evidence of the effective working relationship between their respective intelligence agencies.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
When the announcement of billion(s) for embassy was made we knew all along what purpose it would serve, the money was to create shelter/housing for spies who would have diplomatic immunity and do what they desire without any regards for local laws/host country.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
Number of terrorist attacks came down in Pakistan after USA killed OBL. That combined with the open allegations of ISI nexus is what has curtailed the attacks. It is VERY interesting that Hamid Gul is the looney making the statement now.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
Number of terrorist attacks came down in Pakistan after USA killed OBL. That combined with the open allegations of ISI nexus is what has curtailed the attacks. It is VERY interesting that Hamid Gul is the looney making the statement now.
number of terrorists have come down.... that happens every now and then, remember when Raymond Davis was arrested? yeah, its a two way road.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
They are here for our protection my US citizen brothers in Pakistan.
Re: Islamabad has the worlds biggest CIA station- Washington post
The attacks could have come down due to this…
‘Mullah Omar is pushing TTP to reconcile with govt’
By Zia Khan
Published: November 26, 2011
**ISLAMABAD: ****Afghan Taliban supreme commander Mullah Muhammad Omar is pushing Pakistani militants based in the tribal areas to strike a peace deal with the government and has advised the chief of the Haqqani network to mediate between them.
****“We have received a message from Ameerul-Momineen that there should be an end to our activities inside Pakistan …he wants us to make peace with the government and focus on Afghanistan against infidels,” a Taliban associate said.
**
This was confirmed to The Express Tribune over the past week by at least two other members of the terror group based in South Waziristan, as well as a couple of tribal elders privy to the ongoing talks between the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the government.
However, none of them wanted to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
**Meeting between Afghan, Pakistani militants
**
It was not clear when and how the elusive leader of the Afghan Taliban had sent his message.
At least two Taliban affiliates, one in Miramshah, North Waziristan and the other in Wana, South Waziristan, said that communication between representatives of Mullah Omar and Pakistani militants took place in an Arab country this Ramazan.
But a tribal elder, who claimed to be in the know of the ongoing talks, said that the son of a slain Afghan militant leader came to Waziristan as Mullah Omar’s representative.
The young messenger, he added, travelled from Kandahar to South Waziristan, the stronghold of the TTP, immediately after Ramazan and held meetings with members of a powerful shura that takes policy decisions for Pakistani militant groups.
Both the tribal leader and militant group’s insiders were, however, not sure if the representatie of the Afghan Taliban fugitive head also metTTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who has been in hiding for almost a year now.
In the neighbouring North Waziristan agency, Mullah Omar’s message for peace with Pakistan and its security forces has also been making rounds for some time now.
The network’s associates from Mirali town said that the group’s chief, Sirajuddin Haqqani, had been advised by Mullah Omar, whom he called his spiritual leader, to use his influence over the TTP to help broker the peace deal.
**Military, intelligence deny reports of talks
**
It emerged over the last weekend that Pakistan security forces and the homegrown Taliban were holding talks to end an almost a decade old conflict in the country’s tribal areas.
Follow-up reports this week suggested that both sides had already covered ‘significant ground’ and were close to an agreement.
However, the Pakistani military immediately issued a strong denial, with the Taliban also rejecting the claim, although they earlier said that a truce was in place to pave way for talks.
In September, Pakistan’s top political and military leadership expressed desire to open peace talks with its ‘own people’ operating from the country’s tribal areas.
**Since almost half a year now, Pakistani cities have been relatively calm and life is slowly returning to normalcy after years of violent attacks by the homegrown Taliban.
**
Experts like journalist Fida Khan, who has been covering militancy for a Japanese publication for more than a decade now, believes that this calm itself is an indication of something significant happening away from the media limelight.
“But all this will remain fragile for sometime unless something concrete happens and a slight mistake can blow things into a bigger conflict,” Khan feared.
‘Move by the Taliban to voluntarily end war will be welcomed’.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Friday that Pakistan will not initiate a dialogue with the local Taliban unless they lay down their arms and give up terrorism.
A move by the Taliban to voluntarily end war will be welcomed, Malik said at a press briefing along with UK Home Secretary Theresa May.