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Pakistan’s Murree Brewery Thrives Despite Muslim Laws

Laura Lynch — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:50:29 +0000

Pakistan can be a land of contradictions. And here’s one that has some of the nation’s Muslims crying into their beer.

Well, they might be if they were allowed to drink beer. Pakistan bans alcohol for Muslims – who represent 97 percent of the population.

But get this. There’s a brewery and distillery not far from the capital of Islamabad. A brewery that’s doing a booming business.

To get there, you have to navigate the checkpoints in the city of Rawalpindi, a place better known for its mix of mosques and military installations. First, you can smell it – the unmistakably yeasty scent of brewing hops.

Then you hear it. Rattling and clinking along the production line, it’s bottle after bottle of beer, here in a country where booze is banned for all but a very few.

But Murree beer has time and history on its side.

Murree Brewery started business way back in 1860 at a brewery in the resort town of Murree, in the foothills of the Western Himalayas. British colonialists built it to brew ales for thirsty soldiers. But when Pakistan gained independence, the Bhandara family took over.

“It’s more than a business, it’s been in the family since 1947, seven decades now. It’s not only me, it’s not only my family that’s associated with this company. There are grandchildren of people whose grandparents worked here,” said Isphanyar Bandara, the third generation CEO to take on the challenge of running Murree.

Business was good until 1977.

That’s when Pakistan’s then leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto banned alcohol as a way to court the support of conservative Muslims.

Today, the Rawalpindi brewery sounds as old as it looks as I enter the brew house. The Victorian era buildings haven’t changed much – and beer is made pretty much the old fashioned way, according to Murree employee Sabih-ur-Rehman.

“We add hops for flavor and bitterness and we also add yeast.”

As a Muslim, ur-Rehman isn’t allowed to taste this product nor any of the gin, rum, vodka or 21-year-old whisky.

Neither are the several hundred employees of the plant.

Under the law, only non-Muslim Pakistanis and foreigners are allowed to purchase alcohol. And they’re only able to buy it in a handful of gloomy bars that are hidden away in the corners of five star hotels.

It’s just one of the rules that more than frustrates CEO Isphanyar Bhandara given the amount of bootlegged booze that enters the country.

“Imported alcohol – I mean beer and spirits – is coming into Pakistan being smuggled into Pakistan free of duty,” he said. “The government does not earning a penny. That is coming and no one is making hue and cry.”

Bhandara is also prohibited from advertising. But what he finds most infuriating is the government’s refusal to allow him to sell his products abroad.

“If we start exporting, Pakistan I think, will be taken in a positive sense, I think more than as a fundamentalist state. Today Pakistan has a very bad image in the world exporting terrorism and suicide bombers and such a like but today if Pakistan was to export it will give a good image to our tarnished image.”

Despite Bhandara’s loud complaints, despite persistent lobbying by his late father, who was a well-connected politician in addition to being a brewmaster, the laws are not about to change. Indeed, as conservative Islam has gained influence in Pakistan, the number of legal liquor outlets has shrunk.

As a forklift operator steers another shipment of beer towards a truck, it’s undeniable that business is good. So what explains the boom in sales?

Well, it’s an open secret really. Many Muslims will swill a beer or sip a whisky, though only in private. When I put the proposition to Bhandara, a sly smile spreads across his face – do Muslims in Pakistan drink?

“Is the sky blue? Is the sky blue?” he asked with a laugh.

Bhandara may laugh, but he knows his brewery presents a troubling paradox for Pakistan. So he tries to keep a low profile inside the country.

“You didn’t see any bodyguards outside my office, I’m a nobody so we don’t give interviews to the local media but we try not discuss religion.”

It’s those kind of compromises and quiet understandings that have allowed the beer to continue to rattle down the bottling lines inside the brewery, quenching the thirst of so many in a nation that’s officially dry.

Obama Defends US Drone Strikes in Pakistan

Laura Lynch — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:00:06 +0000

President Barack Obama has defended the use of unmanned drone aircraft to kill suspected militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

In unusually candid remarks, Mr Obama said the strikes targeted “people who are on a list of active terrorists”.

Pakistan says drone raids violate its sovereignty, although it is believed to have given them its tacit support.

The US government does not routinely speak publicly about drone operations, which have killed hundreds in recent years.

Mr Obama made his comments during an hour-long video “hangout” on Google’s social network, Google+, which was also streamed live on YouTube.

Laura Lynch reports from Pakistan.

Pakistan ‘Memogate’: Haqqani Travel Ban Lifted

The World — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:50:55 +0000

The former Pakistani ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, is free to return to his family in the United States.

He spent the past three months in Pakistan under order not to leave the country while being investigated for his alleged involvement in a controversial memo asking the Pentagon to help curb the Pakistani Army.

Anchor Marco Werman gets details from New York Times reporter Declan Walsh in Pakistan.

The Political Comeback of Pervez Musharraf

Fahad Desmukh — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:40:44 +0000

Former general and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, has announced that after three years in self-imposed exile, he wants to return home to run for office. Gen. Musharraf, who now leads his own political faction, the All Pakistan Muslim League, addressed a rally by video link from Dubai.

Fireworks were set off when Musharraf announced that he promised to return to Pakistan some time between the 27th and 30th of January.

He was addressing a rally of about 8,000 supporters in Karachi, via a video-link from Dubai.

Musharraf ruled Pakistan as a military dictator from 1999 to 2007 and then as a civilian president for another nine months. He finally stepped down from office in August 2008 to avoid impeachment proceedings against him.

Since then he has lived in exile in London and Dubai spending much of his time on the global lecture circuit. But recently he has expressed an interest in returning to Pakistan to contest parliamentary elections as a constitutional leader.

In 2010, he set up the All-Pakistan Muslim League, a new political party that he leads.

The only problem is that there are arrest warrants out for him in Pakistan in connection to the killings of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Baloch nationalist leader Akbar Bugti.

His opponents are also threatening to push for him to be tried for high treason for his 1999 military coup. But Musharraf remains defiant.

“There are many who are trying to scare me, but I am not scared,” Musharraf said during the rally. “I have fought wars. I have seen threats. I don’t fear, and I will come to Pakistan. These cases against me have no basis. I will face them in the courts.”

And while Musharraf has no shortage of opponents, he does also have supporters – as was evident yesterday in Karachi.

“I’m here to support Musharraf because I think we are a beneficiary of his era between 2000 – 2007,” said businessman Waquas Haider. “Haven’t seen a better time in Pakistan than that.”

Haider is part of a class of entrepreneurs and white-collar professionals that arguably prospered the most during Musharraf’s rule.

The former general’s supporters overwhelmingly refer to economic growth under Musharraf as his most important credential. Haider said businessmen like himself could count on growth back then – and they want that certainty back.

“And that’s what has been missing since he’s been gone, certainty. In a business environment that’s what we need,” Haider said.

Musharraf’s supporters are convinced he can bring back prosperity. They also don’t think the former general did anything wrong back in 1999, when he overthrew an elected government in a coup.

According to Ali Naqvi, an office-holder in Musharraf’s new political party, it was a legitimate act by Musharraf.

“I don’t call it unconstitutional,” Naqvi said. “At that time the situation was very grave. Pakistan was being declared a failed state. It was high time, he did a right thing. People supported it. People were distributing cakes and sweets. Especially in the urban areas. People were on the streets and dancing. How can you call it unconstitutional?”

That’s not how Musharraf’s foes see it. Which is why his most immediate challenge – before campaigning for parliament — is how to return to Pakistan without getting arrested.

Why Direct Negotiations Between Afghanistan and Pakistan are Needed for Peace

The World — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:00:30 +0000

Author and former Pentagon staffer Sarah Chayes tells host Lisa Mullins that bringing peace to Afghanistan will require direct negotiations between Kabul and Islamabad.

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Lisa Mullins: I am Lisa Mullins and this is The World, the co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. A top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan had tough words for Pakistan today. Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti said the Pakistan troops simply look the other way when insurgents fire rockets from Pakistan against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He also said the cross-border communications with the Pakistanis remained difficult or non-existent. For some time now, U.S. officials have been charging Pakistan with aiding the Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan. Sarah Chayes served as a special assistant to Admiral Mike Mullen. Admiral Mullen recently stepped down as Chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Chayes says that efforts to broker peace in Afghanistan through negotiations with the Taliban are misguided. She says that’s because the Taliban are essentially a proxy force of Pakistan and its military intelligence agency.

Sarah Chayes: When we talk about insurgencies and via negotiations, the presumption in that kind of statement is that you’re talking to a genuinely indigenous group or force. Whereas, the leadership of the Taliban and Haqqani network are essentially proxies of the Pakistani Military Intelligence Agency. So, what you are going to arrive at by negotiating in this route – and this is exactly what the Military Intelligence Agency wants – is for them to determine the outcome of these negotiations.

Mullins: But also, do we even know what Afghanistan wants?

Chayes: There is such an effort to try to accommodate Pakistan, and how can we get Pakistan on board with the peace process, that we are forgetting that most Afghans do not want to be back under the heel of Pakistan. And a lot of those Afghans are busily re-arming and re-positioning themselves to fight against this. So, if you bend over too far backwards to accommodate Pakistan in some kind of a negotiated settlement, you are going to get civil war.

Mullins: Yes, but at the same time, how can you deal with the Taliban or anti-American forces in Afghanistan and not deal with the ISI and the Pakistani government? I mean, it’s really a duel tracks.

Chayes: It is. Yes, a dual track is how I would do it. I would say, “Look, negotiating with the Taliban in this context is really negotiating with the ISI by proxies.

Mullins: This is the Intelligence Service in Pakistan.

Chayes: That’s right, the Military Intelligence Service. Negotiating with Taliban or Haqqani leadership is in effect negotiating with Pakistani leadership by proxies. So let’s do it directly. Let’s have state-to-state negotiations between Kabul and Islamabad that would be facilitated either by a U.S. facilitator or another international kind of “babysitter” and let’s really lay out on the table what is it that Pakistan wants out of Afghanistan. And instead of them going through this tortuous, indirect route to obtain what they want, let’s get it out on the table. What can they reasonably request or aspire to from their neighbor and what is actually unreasonable?

Mullins: Sarah, you have worked with some of the highest ranking U.S. officials at the U.S. military including General David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal. You’ve been working with them, helping to advise them about what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan, what’s going on with Pakistan. What do you see as the transformation of thinking, say over the past 10 years, both about the U.S. role in Afghanistan and the relationship with Pakistan and that “Af-Pak” as Richard Holbrooke called that link itself?

Chayes: In the early years I saw the military as being much more switched on about Pakistan’s role, particularly military officers that I encountered in the field who were watching it. They were watching in 2003, 2004, 2005.

Mullins: When you were in Afghanistan.

Chayes: Correct. I remember hearing an officer say, “If it were to invade Pakistan, I would sign up for another tour of duty tomorrow.” There was a great deal of frustration on the part of military officers on the ground who were watching the facilitating role that the Pakistani military was playing with the insurgency. As you move higher up in the ranks and you are not as exposed to that reality, it’s quite hard for people to believe that this is actually going on and you are hearing that Pakistan is an ally. I would say, on the side of the State Department even more so, that the State Department is kind of hardwired to interact positively with its counterparts. So, it’s very hard to ask State Department officials to think critically about their counterparts, particularly a country that is being described as a vital ally.

Mullins: Thank you Sarah Chayes.

Chayes: Thank you.

Mullins: Sarah Chayes is author of “The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban.”

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The Role of Transgenders Changes in Pakistan

The World — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:50:37 +0000

It is not uncommon in Pakistan that you walk through a market, or stand in a corner and encounter a beggar – a transgender beggar.

The transgenders in Pakistan tend to stand out from the crowd. They dress in colorful female clothes with stuffed bras and wear bright make-up and shiny jewelry.

And transgender beggars are playful and provocative calling their male targets “darling” or “prince.”

In general transgenders have an odd place in Pakistani society.

Once valued for their blessing and feared for their curse, they ae increasingly being sidelined.

Reporter Fahad Desmukh looks at the tight-knit community in Karachi, Pakistan and reports that transgenders are completely serious about who they are.

CIA ‘Ran Fake Vaccine Program’ to Get Bin Laden

The World — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:50:09 +0000

The CIA ran a fake vaccine program in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad to try to get a DNA sample from the family of Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, media reports say. The Guardian newspaper says CIA agents recruited a Pakistani doctor there to organize the vaccination drive. The paper says he has since been arrested. The CIA has refused to comment on the report, which comes as tensions run high between Islamabad and Washington. Bin Laden was killed in a US commando raid on his compound in May. Anchor Marco Werman talks with Heidi Larson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine about the effect on public confidence in immunization programs.

Marco Werman: A raid in Afghanistan’s southern neighbor, Pakistan, killed Osama Bin Laden in May. The CIA suspected that the al-Qaeda chief was hiding in Abbottabad. Today the British newspaper, The Guardian, reported on one way the agency was trying to prove Bin Laden was there. The strategy involved a phony vaccination program to obtain DNA evidence from members of Bin Laden’s family. It sounds like a clever idea, but Heidi Larson at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says it could have unfortunate consequences. She studies the issue of public confidence in vaccination programs. Um, now this happened in Pakistan. Will this kind of operation undermine wider confidence in real vaccination program elsewhere, do you think?

Heidi Larson: If indeed a public health program was faked and something so essential that saves lives like vaccines was used as an entry point for this effort as important as it was it really was not, is not an appropriate way. It has huge ethical implications. It has huge, um, public trust implications. Just put yourself in the shoes of a family with very young children in some parts of the world and think about the next time someone knocks on the door and says I’m here to vaccinate your children. I don’t think it takes, um, any kind of extensive research to understand that it would definitely create a thinking twice and concern.

Werman: Elaborate for me what the most serious ethical implication is of this kind of operation.

Larson: I think it raises a huge amount of questions. The fundamental issue is about public trust and the relationship between the person getting a vaccine and the provider and the person who’s making the policies. So many of the issues around vaccine trust are about the specifics of the safety of the vaccine, but frankly, the bigger issue is about the contract, the social contract, between the government and the provider of health intervention that is saving people’s lives.

Werman: How do vaccination campaigns’ impact typically unfold? And if this story is true, would a vaccination campaign have been an obvious ruse for the CIA to grab hold of?

Larson: Normally, vaccination campaigns or vaccination programs are managed through the Ministry of Health. Vaccines can also be procured privately if they’ve passed their regulations and you can have private doctors that have them available. When it comes to a nation wide vaccination program, it’s government that regulates, manages, and often provides.

Werman: What do you expect is going to happen with vaccination campaigns in Pakistan over the coming year? Do you think there will be an immediate kind of discouraging effect from this incident?

Larson: For people going to a local clinic and going through the more normal approach to taking your child, or even if it’s for an adult, to go to their clinic and get their vaccination. When they decide to do it, it may raise concerns there, but I think the more likely context where it might have some negative impact will be on the house to house campaigns. I think in a more macro level it’s exacerbating an already difficult relationship between Pakistan and the US, but also with international vaccination programs. And I think we’ll have some potential implications there.

Werman: Heidi Larson is a senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Larson leads a team studying issues around public trust in vaccines. Thanks very much for your time.

Larson: Thanks.

Alleged Bin Laden Raid Informants Arrested in Pakistan

The World — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:00:54 +0000

Pakistan has arrested five alleged informants for the CIA who helped in the US raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in northern Pakistan in May, the New York Times reported. Among those reportedly held by the intelligence agency, the ISI, was the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to watch Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Abbottabad, the town where Bin Laden was killed.

Marco Werman: I am Marco Werman, this is The World. The killing of Osama Bin Laden last month was a triumph for U.S. counter terrorism, but fallout from the incident continues to strain relations between the U.S. and Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed. Today it’s reported that five Pakistanis who helped the CIA plan the Bin Laden operation have been detained by Pakistan’s military. That’s the same institution that failed to apprehend the al-Qaeda leader or to detect the U.S. raid on his hiding place. The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool is in the town where Bin Laden was killed, Abbottabad. Aleem, who has been taken in for questioning and why?

Aleem Maqbool: Well most of the information we’re getting about the actual people who have been detained is coming from Western officials who have been briefing here. Now they say, among these five people who have been arrested in the last few days includes one man who owned the building from which the CIA observed the Bin Laden compound. And the second they say an army major, a Pakistani army major who apparently kept records of who was coming and going to the compound and past that information on to the CIA. Now, the Pakistani army has acknowledged that there have been arrests of people suspected of informing the CIA, but they say there have been many arrests, dozens of arrests across the country over the last six weeks. But they strongly deny that anyone from within their own ranks has been detained.

Werman: And, are these individuals being accused of any crime?

Maqbool: Well, of informing a foreign spy agency, even though that spy agency, the CIA, is one which the Pakistanis are committed to working with. But this time round, certainly the Army says that the CIA went too far, the Americans went too far. They should have informed them of this operation, and that’s why they’re so angry. But there is another side to this as well, and that of course is the humiliation that that operation caused. The public here, the politicians here, the media have really had it out for the leaders of the Pakistan military. Even within the military, a lot of people have called for heads to roll.

Werman: So do Pakistanis interpret these arrests as kind of an anti-humiliation campaign?

Maqbool: Yes, I mean it’s something that they were asking for. Really, I mean it is curious Marco, that since this operation took place on the 2nd of May here in Abbottabad, that most of the discussion has not been focused on why Osama Bin Laden was here, who was supporting him; although, apparently there are investigations going on. But much more, the debate has been focused on how the Americans could have carried out this operation without Pakistani knowledge. And really lots of Pakistanis asking, because of it, for a reassessment of the relationship between Pakistan and the United States.

Werman: Now, these people who were rounded up helped make the Bin Laden operation possible. What is the U.S. doing to help those arrested?

Maqbool: Well Leon Panetta, of course, was here just a few days ago; the Director of the CIA, he was here. Apparently in those meetings, we just can’t verify it, but there are sources who say that he raised the issue. The Pakistanis apparently gave some assurances. We really don’t know, these are sources that can’t be verified. But apparently they have raised the case. And more so, they also want some answers on the other side as to why Bin Laden was here. There are, at the last count, four different official investigations to that end, here in Pakistan, but nothing is reported back so far. And we aren’t hearing really of many arrests when it comes to those who aided and abetted Osama Bin Laden.

Werman: The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Abbottabad. Thank you.

Maqbool: No problem.

Pakistan military base attack over

Madiha Tahir — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:25:29 +0000

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The battle for a naval base in Karachi, Pakistan, is over. And the Pakistani military is back in control there.

But the questions about the country’s ability to protect its military installations are just starting. The deadly attack on the base was reportedly carried out by just six Taliban fighters.

It was the worst attack on a Pakistani military installation since 2009. Explosions and heavy gunfire could be heard throughout the night.

Security personnel engaged in heavy firefights with the militants for hours in an attempt to retake the naval base. They fired automatic weapons and rocket launchers, destroying $2 million airplanes supplied by the US.

Local television channels showed flames from the burning aircraft. Then, the attackers opened fire, killing 12 security personnel. One of the attackers blew himself up, and three others were killed. The Pakistani Taliban say that they carried out the attack in retaliation for the killing of al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden.

This is the most significant attack on the Pakistani military facility since 2009 when attackers raided Army headquarters in Rawalpindi, a garrison town near Islamabad.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Rehman Malik placed the blame on the country’s allies for failing to help.

“If this region is destabilised, the whole world will be affected, therefore the capacity building of Pakistan is very important,” Malik said. “Despite that, we are not getting that kind of support which we wanted from the friends, but see, the Prime Minister of Pakistan has cut the budget, the development budget, and we have diverted our funds for the capacity building of our police.”

Aid from the United States

The US has largely focused on Pakistan’s military, giving billions of dollars in aid to the army to secure the country’s nuclear weapons and to contain Islamists. American officials question whether Pakistan is committed to fighting the war on terror. But Pakistani analyst Mosharraf Zaidi said that’s the wrong question.

“At one level, it’s clear that Pakistan is not doing enough because it’s not winning. On the other hand the fact that 30,000 have died demonstrates that Pakistan is engaged in a bloody conflict and the last thing that Pakistanis need to hear is the constant indignity that Pakistan isn’t doing enough,” Zaidi said.

But Zaidi said regardless of who’s ultimately to blame for Monday’s attack, it does raise serious questions.

“It demonstrates yet one more time that the Pakistani security infrastructure doesn’t have the capability to do what it’s supposed to which is defend this country,” Zaidi said. “When the military hardware of this country and the men and women in uniform are open to attack in the way they were attacked, then serious questions need to be raised.”

But, for Pakistanis like Interior Minister Malik, the raid is a reminder that it is they who are bearing the brunt of a war fueled by the US.

“Pakistan is suffering,” Malik said. “Pakistan is the victim. And, inshallah (god willing), we have the courage, we have the resole to fight. And we will keep on fighting until the demise of these terrorists.”

Some in Pakistan question whether the country should continue to work with the US. Malik says now is not the time for a rush to judgement.

US-Pakistan relations remain tense

The World — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:25:44 +0000

The United States was not going to win any popularity contests in Pakistan, even before May 2nd. Then, US Navy Seals conducted a raid in Abbottabad that killed al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden. The operation heightened tensions between Washington and Islamabad. Still, the US has continued to launch drone attacks on Pakistani soil. On Tuesday, missiles killed three alleged Arab militants in a tribal region along the Afghan border. Marco Werman talks with The Guardian’s correspondent for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Declan Walsh.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman; this is The World. The United States was not going to win any popularity contests in Pakistan, even before May 2nd. Then, U.S. Navy Seals conducted a raid in Abbottabad that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. The operation heightened tensions between Washington and Islamabad. Still, the U.S. has continued to launch drone attacks on Pakistani soil. Today, missiles killed three alleged Arab militants in a tribal region along the Afghan border. Declan Walsh is the Guardian newspaper’s correspondent for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Declan, since the killing of bin Laden, how has public reaction changed to the continued U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan?

Declan Walsh: To be honest, public opinion has been so consumed with the whole issue of bin Laden that these drone strikes are definitely a secondary issue. Pakistanis are really focused on this whole issue of who knew what in the Pakistani government with relation to the bin Laden raid. They want to know how the American helicopters with the special forces on board managed to penetrate their radar defenses and cross the border to carry out that raid.

Werman: And what about reaction at the official level?

Walsh: There seems to be a continuation of the policy that’s been going on unspoken for the last two or three years, where basically Pakistani officials in public denounce these drone strikes. They say that they shouldn’t be tolerated. But behind the scenes Pakistani officials are in many cases in agreement with these strikes. So, there’s a great ambivalence, really, between the public and private positions of the Pakistani government.

Werman: It almost seems like this private/public dual attitude of the Pakistani government is driving the handling of U.S. access to Osama bin Laden’s wives, the three women who were found in his compound when he was killed. Pakistan is said to be interrogating them and reportedly says it has yet to receive a formal request from the U.S. for access to them. What’s going on?

Walsh: The issue of access to bin Laden’s three wives, all of whom have been named at this point, has become a sort of flashpoint in this ongoing row. As you say, the Pakistanis are holding these people. They are speaking to them and they are releasing to the media a sort of steady drip of information. Either about the circumstances of bin Laden’s death, or in one case, they are carrying a report from one of these women, saying that not only did they live in Abbottabad for six years, they also lived in another town with bin Laden for two years before that. So that means that he’s been here at least since 2003. On the other hand, the Pakistanis have been saying that no, they’re not going to give access to the U.S. in public. In private, there seems to be a different message coming out, particularly through Washington. So I think we can expect at least for some days to come, to see Pakistani officials acting tough in public but perhaps being more conciliatory to the U.S. in private.

Werman: Right, well that brings us precisely to the heart of your article in today’s Guardian about a secret deal between the U.S. and Pakistan that actually gave the U.S. permission to carry out a raid on Pakistani soil to kill Osama bin Laden. A deal, your sources say, was struck between George W. Bush and a former Pakistani leader, Pervez Musharraf.

Walsh: Yeah, this deal was struck back in November 2001. As I understand it there were meetings between President Bush and President Musharraf, where there was a sort of informal agreement whereby the U.S. would be allowed to enter Pakistan in pursuit of either Osama bin laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, or the number three in al-Qaida. And under this agreement, the Pakistanis would protest vigorously in public, but crucially, they wouldn’t stop the Americans from coming into the country. As I understand it, this is a deal that has basically held quite possibly until now. And it may offer some clues into understanding what actually went down when the American helicopters entered Pakistan, and how these helicopters entered the country without any challenge from the Pakistani forces. Because there may have been some people within the military who had at least some prior knowledge of the assault.

Werman: Declan Walsh, the Guardian’s correspondent for Pakistan and Afghanistan, speaking with us from Islamabad. Thanks very much, Declan.

Walsh: Thank you.

Read tweets about Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan

‘There goes the neighborhood’

The World — Fri, 06 May 2011 20:25:21 +0000

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by Marco Werman

Sohaib Athar @reallyvirtual

Sohaib Athar is the man who tweeted his annoyance about helicopters buzzing loudly over the town of Abbottabad late last Sunday. He continued his Twitter notes on what was happening, and before he knew it, he was live-blogging the entire US raid and killing of Osama Bin Laden.

When he realized Bin Laden was dead, he ended his inadvertent coverage with this line: “There goes the neighborhood.” I wondered what he meant.

Earlier this week, I messaged Athar and asked him. He’s a guy who moved to Abbottabad to get away from crazy city life and curious people like me. So I wasn’t surprised he’s been mute most of the week ever since his instant celebrity. So, allow me take a stab at a few interpretations of his line.

“There goes the neighborhood” is a phrase with racist overtones. Just ask rapper Ice T. His angry metal-rock-meets-rap tune “There Goes the Neighborhood,” recorded with his 1990s outfit Body Count, gives you a sense of just what a lightning rod the phrase was. Recall that in the 1960s in the US, white families began heading out of the cities to the suburbs. Relatively affluent African-American families followed. But a black family arriving on one of those suburban streets sometimes provoked residents to utter “there goes the neighborhood.” Racist economics concluded that as more blacks moved in, property values would decrease.

That’s not what Athar meant about Abbottabad. Or is it? “That’s true. Property values are going down since that thing in Abbottabad.” So says a real estate agent I contacted yesterday in Abbottabad. The city has grown popular in recent years, he told me, with property investors and second-home buyers looking to get out of Islamabad. But that all changed Monday he says, referring to the raid on Bin Laden as “that thing.”

“Believe me, since that thing happened here in Abbottabad, prices went down. They didn’t go up. And a lot of people are scared to invest any more in Abbottabad.”

I asked the agent whether property owners in Abbottabad have, since Monday, already begun listing their homes, and preparing to move.

He explained that most of the investors in Abbottabad are from all over Pakistan. “People come over here, buy properties or a house. But since that thing happened over here, all the investors, they’ve stop spending their money in Abbottabad.”

Maybe investors’ fear is rooted in a worry that sleepy Abbottabad could become a shrine for Al Qaeda. I put that to Declan Walsh, the Guardian newspaper’s man in Pakistan. His answer: “It’s certainly highly plausible that supporters or simply the curious would flock to this house. But my guess is that the Pakistani government, its military and intelligence services would probably want to destroy this house. They don’t want it to turn into some sort of shrine, that it’s going to attract either the curious or Bin Laden sympathizers over the years.”

Fair enough. But maybe “there goes the neighborhood” means that, now with this successful US raid, the Americans will actually increase their presence in Pakistan. Declan Walsh doesn’t think so. He says it’ll probably remain the same, with the US continuing its already ongoing operations, “most notably the drone strikes in the tribal belt.”

The White House has said it wants to prevent a safe-haven for terrorism from growing in Pakistan. It doesn’t want the Taliban anywhere near the halls of government in Islamabad. That would be really bad, says Ron Rosenbaum. He’s written a new book with the ominous title “How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War Three.”

“When (Athar) said ‘there goes the neighborhood,’ explains Rosenbaum, “I thought you know ‘there go a lot of neighborhoods possibly.’” In his book, Rosenbaum walks the reader through the likeliest war scenarios that could lead to nuclear annihilation. And he says the biggest concern, the most likely flashpoint right now, is Pakistan.

“What happens if a Taliban-friendly, Qaeda friendly takes over Pakistan?” puts forth Rosenbaum. “They’re taking over a minimum of 90 nuclear warheads. Are the people in Washington going to be happy about the fact that al Qaeda suddenly has the fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world under its influence? I don’t think so. I’ve heard people talk about war games in which just this possibility is played out. What do we do if we think the Taliban get nuclear weapons? Well, one plan, and it doesn’t seem like one that’s very practical or one that’s very likely to succeed, is that we try to take custody of the nuclear weapons.”

If that’s the scenario, then the definition of the “neighborhood” would include the entire planet. This morning, Sohaib Athar, the tweeter in Abbottabad, finally posted answers to questions his new followers have put to him this week. As for the meaning of “There Goes the Neighborhood”? Athar wrote: “Abbottabad has never attracted a lot of attention from either the terrorists or the media. The event was certainly going to change all that.”

To say the least.

Athar’s tweets:

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US drone attack in Pakistan heightens tensions

The World — Fri, 06 May 2011 20:00:32 +0000

US tensions with Pakistan rose further Friday after Pakistani officials said a new US drone attack killed several people in Waziristan. Relations between Washington and Islamabad were already frayed after the death of Osama Bin Laden in a Pakistani city. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with the BBC’s Lyse Doucet in Islamabad. Download MP3

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. A statement believed to be from al Qaeda acknowledging Osama Bin Laden’s death was posted online today. That statement appeared on a website that’s been used by the terrorists before. Also, today, Pakistani officials said that a U.S. drone attack killed a dozen people in the country’s northwest. Such attacks usually draw anger in Pakistan and this one comes in a week of especially high tension between Washington and Islamabad, after the death of Bin Laden. The BBC’s Lyse Doucet is in Islamabad. She says there were scattered street demonstrations throughout Pakistan today to protest Bin Laden’s killing.

Lyse Doucet: The biggest protest was in the southern city of Karachi where thousands of Pakistanis, many of them linked to the more militant Islamic groups, including groups that had some links to al Qaeda, people taking to the streets with banners saying long live Osama Bin Laden. But aside from the other cities, they were more in the hundreds rather than in larger numbers. But the response on the streets comes a day after we had the first official statement from the Army Chief of Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, warning the Americans that if there was a similar violation of national sovereignty again that Pakistan would have to reconsider its cooperation with the Americans. So up and down Pakistani society at all levels, this seems to be the main issue.

Mullins: Lyse, I wonder with the acknowledgement by al Qaeda today, that Osama Bin Laden was indeed killed in that U.S. raid, if that has changed the tenor at all among Pakistanis or among the government there.

Doucet: We’ll have to see the impact it has. I know from talking to people in recent days, so many Pakistanis said to me, ‘I don’t believe Osama Bin Laden is dead. Why doesn’t President Obama release the photographs?’ And you say to them, ‘Well, the photographs are gruesome. He was shot in the face.’ They say, ‘Listen, other photographs have been released in the past which were gruesome; why is he holding back the photographs? We need proof. And similarly today when we spoke to people after Friday prayers asking about the reports now coming in that the intelligence gathered at the compound where Osama Bin Laden was living, indicated he may have been planning new attacks in the United States, people here said, ‘We need to see the evidence. We’re not going to trust the United States unless we see the evidence ourselves.’ So will they now say that the statement on the Jihadist website comes from al Qaeda, will they say that Osama Bin Laden is dead? Some people in the society are willing to accept that, but I think the talk of conspiracies and doubts will go on for a long time to come.

Mullins: And what about the latest from Abbottabad? Has the Pakistani government offered any other information about how Bin Laden as able to live under their nose in this garrison community for so long?

Doucet: Well, this is the mystery and the Pakistan military yesterday gave its first briefing for senior Pakistani journalists, in which they admitted there was an intelligence failure, but said they didn’t have the knowledge. They had given the Americans, several years ago they said, some information that things were going on in that house. They reported in April a telephone call which had gone from that house to Saudi Arabia talking about finances. But the official word is that Pakistan itself did not know Osama Bin Laden was there. Many Pakistanis are asking whether that can really be true. And we are now getting more details from what they’re getting from having talked to members of Osama Bin Laden’s family, including his youngest wife, Amal, a Yemeni woman, who says that she lived in that room where Osama Bin Laden was found for five years and that during that time Osama Bin Laden was with her; which is rather interesting if indeed it is true that he was there for five years. It really does indicate what a major security lapse this was.

Mullins: The BBC’s Lyse Doucet in Islamabad, Pakistan. Thank you very much.

Doucet: Thank you.

What did Pakistan know?

The World — Wed, 04 May 2011 20:20:07 +0000

Bin Laden's compound (BBC video)

Pakistanis are now debating what their military authorities really knew about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. The army claims not to have known that America’s most wanted terrorist was living less than a half mile from Pakistan’s country’s main military academy. Madiha Tahir reports from Karachi.

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Osama Bin Laden’s hideout

The World — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:25:15 +0000

Two days after the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s fortified compound, questions are being asked over how he was able to live in Pakistan without being detected by security forces. Bin Laden resided, unnoticed until last weekend, just a few streets from an army garrison and a military academy. Host Lisa Mullins talks with BBC correspondent Aleem Maqbool who has been at the compound where Bin Laden was killed by American special forces. Download MP3

Aleem Maqbool’s video report
Timeline of mission to kill Osama Bin Laden

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this The World. We know more now about what happened during the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden at his compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. For one thing, the White House said today that the al Qaeda leader was not armed, but that he did resist the attempt to capture him. Earlier, President Obama’s counterterrorism advisor said that the raid netted potentially crucial al Qaeda records. They include computer hard drives, DVDs, and documents. The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool was at the compound in Abbottabad this afternoon.

Aleem Maqbool: There were hundreds of people that have been streaming to the site. They’re there with their families. There were also lots of teenage boys taking lots of footage with their mobile phones. You know, it’s become very much a tourist attraction here. But on to the compound itself, the thing that strikes you first is how large it is. And it isn’t on the edge of town, it’s in the middle of it. There are villas all around it. And the other thing that strikes you is the amount of security around it; the large wall that’s been built around the compound.

Mullins: And was there any evidence then from that vantage point of hat life was life for Osama Bin Laden and his family there?

Maqbool: Well, certainly, I mean, one person I spoke to said you know, we had no idea he was living there. Why would he want to live in a jail like this because that is something of what the place looked like you know; it had huge barriers all the way around it, it had barbed wire all the way along that barrier. We heard some of the neighbors talking about some children would leave the compound occasionally. They would shop, but they shops close by. There was one young boy, a 12-year old, who said that he’d met two women inside, we presume two wives of Osama Bin Laden. He said one was Arabic speaking. One spoke a local language, Urdu. And that there were three children living inside, and that they have rabbits, and that they gave him a couple of the rabbits.

Mullins: Well, that’s the evidence of how Bin Laden and his family may have lived. How about how Bin Laden died, what evidence there was of the raid that happened?

Maqbool: You know, from the outside there was some structural damage. The latest footage we’ve seen is from bedrooms on the first floor with large bloodstains on the floors. One of those bedrooms looks like it has a child’s bed next to perhaps a mother’s bed. And then also footage from the top bedroom, a master bedroom with a rug inside and again, large bloodstains. But very few details coming from here, remember, because it was conducted of course, by American forces. And so a lot of the information about the operation actually unfolded is coming from there.

Mullins: And given the fact that this was an American raid, I wonder what the people who are there in the neighborhood now, who are gathering, as you said it’s a bit of a tourist site right now, what they’re saying about what happened?

Maqbool: Yes, some sense of embarrassment. There was a little bit of confusion actually. We spoke to somebody who lived right next door to the compound. He said he was wakened in the middle of the night of course, by the sound of the helicopters and then firing. He said a lot of people ran outside. But those people who were coming down from the helicopters shouted at them in the local language, ‘Get back inside!’ And they all were repeating that. But of course, the question remains that this is a compound that was close not only to Pakistan’s military academy, but also intelligence services offices on the other side as well. And for a building like his to be in proximity of those kind of installations, and in a place where if you want to rent a house anywhere in Abbottabad, you have to go through the security clearances. I mean, a lot of questions remain as to how Pakistani security forces were not aware of a compound like this and of who was inside.

Mullins: That again was the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama Bin Laden was killed Sunday Night.

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Many in Pakistan suspicious of US

The World — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:05:41 +0000

Karachi street scene (flickr image: megabeth)

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By Madiha Tahir

US officials say they’re 100 percent certain that the man killed during the raid in Pakistan was in fact Osama Bin Laden. They say they used DNA samples and face recognition techniques to make that determination.

But the US announcement that Bin Laden’s body was buried at sea has sparked some skepticism about that around the globe. And so far, no photos of the corpse have been released.

While much of the west is uniform in its belief that, as President Obama has said, “justice has been served,” Pakistanis are more ambivalent. Bin Laden was once an American ally working to build the mujahedeen against the Soviets during the Cold War.

Seher Naqvi, a young woman sitting near a newspaper stall Monday afternoon in Pakistan’s bustling port city of Karachi, woke to find out that the most hunted militant in the world had been killed during the night.

“When we woke up today, we heard the news that Osama has been killed,” Naqvi said. “It was really a shocking news.”

And news that she’s skeptical about.

Where’s the picture

“Actually I think it’s a fake news and I don’t think it’s real that Osama has been killed,” Naqvi said. “I can’t believe it until I see his picture like he’s dead.”

Naqvi is not alone. Many Pakistanis today were reluctant to believe that Bin Laden had been killed. That isn’t because they support him. It’s because, as one street vendor wryly said, “we’ve heard that before.”

“He’s died before,” the vendor said. “Now he’s died again but it isn’t really confirmed whether it’s him or someone else; that’s why I’m skeptical.”

Tora Bora

The last time the world heard that Bin Laden had been killed was in December 2001. Then, he was hiding in Tora Bora, a mountain range in Afghanistan. Despite heavy US bombing, he escaped.

Many believed he’d shifted to the forbidding mountainous territory of Pakistan’s northern tribal areas. But on Sunday night, Bin Laden was ultimately found – and killed – not in the tribal areas, but near a Pakistani military academy in a garrison town called Abbottabad.

Pakistanis didn’t seem especially concerned whether or not their government had any knowledge of the raid.

That’s because many feel they are simply caught in the middle of what was has been the negative consequences of American intervention in the region.

“Well we are used to it (the war in Pakistan),” a Karachi banker said. “This isn’t a change for us. We are hopeless and we’re helpless and there’s nothing we can do.”

And he, like many Pakistanis, assumes that the game will go on.

“What I feel is something that it’s not very important to us whether he’s alive or dead. Al-Qaeda is there,” the banker continued. “Al-Qaeda is a strong organization and they will carry out their activities whether Ayman al-Zawahiri is there or not. I don’t think it’s a blow on the al-Qaeda network.”

Osama Bin Laden’s fortified compound was located on the outskirts of Abbottabad in north-west Pakistan. The compound is a few hundred yards from the Pakistan Military Academy, an elite military training center, which is being described as Pakistan’s equivalent to the US Army’s West Point Academy.

Abbottabad: Bin Laden’s final home
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