Pakistani news and Current Affiars

Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt made the announcement in Lahore confirming Afridi as the country's third test captain in 15 months after Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf were indefinitely suspended by the PCB due to alleged infighting.

However, the selection committee also included Younis in a list of 35 probable players, subject to his pending appeal against the suspension.

After his indefinite ban, Yousuf retired from international cricket. Afridi said he tried unsuccessfully to persuade Yousuf to come out of retirement.

''I talked to him on telephone yesterday and requested him to reconsider his retirement, but he refused to do so,'' said Afridi, who added that Yousuf was now coaching in Canada. ''I still believe Yousuf can play international cricket for two to three more years.''

Afridi has not played a test since taking on England at Manchester in 2006, and is looking forward to making a contribution.

''I have taken up this as a challenge because I feel Pakistan is going through some tough times now and it needs the guidance of senior players,'' he said. ''If we play as a unit, I am hopeful of good results.

''Definitely, there will be the pressure of captaincy on me, but a player can only be judged when he competes under pressure.''

Pakistan is scheduled to play the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka in June before playing two tests against Australia in England in July and four tests against England.

Former captain Shoaib Malik, who was also suspended for one year and fined two million rupees ($23,500) for ill discipline during the series in Australia, was included in the 35 players.

''Both Younis and Malik's inclusions are subject to their outcome of the appeals,'' Butt said.

Selectors picked injury-prone fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar among the 35, but chief selector Mohsin Khan said the players will all have to pass fitness tests before they are picked in the final squads.

The 15-member squad for the Asia Cup will be announcd in the first week of next month after a short training camp at Karachi.

Probables:
Shahid Afridi (captain), Salman Butt, Imran Farhat, Yasir Hameed, Khurram Manzoor, Shahzaib Hasan, Azhar Ali, Azeem Ghumman, Younis Khan, Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Faisal Iqbal, Fawad Alam, Hasan Raza, Azhar Shafiq, Umar Amin, Aamir Sajjad, Mohammad Hafeez, Abdul Razzaq, Yasir Arafat, Umar Gul, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Aamir, Mohammad Sami, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Irfan, Tanveer Ahmed, Ejaz Cheema, Danish Kaneria, Abdul Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Zulfiqar Babar, Kamran Akmal, Zulqarnain Haider.

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Pakistani news and current affiars

President Asif Ali Zardari is immune from prosecution while in office, but the Supreme Court is piling pressure on the government to reopen and prosecute cases after it scrapped an amnesty shielding politicians last December.

A panel of five judges questioned Law Minister Babar Awan in court, giving him two weeks to submit a “concise” report and adjourning until June 10 its case over the collapse of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

“There should be a clear reply as to what steps have been taken in implementing the NRO verdict and whether the government intends to implement the whole order or not,” said Justice Raja Fayyaz.

During the 90-minute hearing, Awan said the government was “meeting day and night” to implement the December 16 verdict.

The five-member panel repeatedly interrupted Awan, asking the law minister about re-opening cases against Zardari in Switzerland and steps being taken to bring back 60 million dollars lying in Swiss banks.

“There is no such amount. This amount is not there. These are only allegations, and wrong and malicious statements,” Awan said, referring to “legal complications” and “grey areas” in approaching the Swiss authorities.

Wearing sunglasses, Awan told reporters after the hearing: “Rumours about a confrontation between the government and the judiciary have died down”.

He said the government “presented its point of view in a respectful manner” and welcomed the court's attitude as “very receptive”, saying the attorney general would represent the government at the next hearing.

Security was tight with police and paramilitary forces deployed outside the building as Awan arrived flanked by around a dozen other cabinet colleagues for the hearing packed with lawyers, former judges and government officials

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ISLAMABAD: Horrific as it was, the brutal killing of an ex-ISI man and pro-Islamist campaigner Khalid Khwaja by members of an Islamist group is also a stark reminder of how the sudden intensification of militancy over the last couple of years, especially by the so-called Punjabi Taliban, is to a large extent a direct reaction to the events of Lal Masjid.

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PESHAWAR: Hakimullah Mehsud, Pakistan's Taliban chief who is seemingly back from the dead, has wielded a ruthless ambition to oversee a dramatic escalation in bloodshed and ally with Al-Qaeda.

After months of silence since his reported killing by a US missile on January 14 in North Waziristan near the Afghan border, Hakimullah has threatened revenge attacks on major US cities in two purported new videos.

Under his leadership, Tehrik-i-Tailban Pakistan (TTP) has been blamed for some of the most audacious attacks in a three-year militant bombing campaign, cementing its reputation as Pakistan's premier national security threat.

Young, energetic and with a penchant for the limelight, he took the helm after winning a bitter leadership struggle when a US drone attack killed the faction's founder, Baitullah Mehsud, in August.

He swore revenge and within weeks, the network claimed a 20-hour siege on Pakistan's army headquarters, a humiliating assault on the most powerful institution in the country.

Since he took command on August 22, 1,240 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan.

The massive escalation in bombings in late 2009, particularly against civilians, drew comparisons with Al-Qaeda tactics and bloodshed in Iraq.

But analysts believe he over-reached himself when he sat next to a Jordanian Al-Qaeda double agent in a video claiming responsibility for a suicide attack on CIA agents across the border in Afghanistan.

US drones fired missile after missile into the mountains of North Waziristan where the warlord with flowing locks and a beard was reputed to be holed up.

For months many believed he was dead. He disappeared and Pakistan saw a marked decline in bomb attacks, which experts attributed to the US drone war and a Pakistani offensive on TTP's powerbase in South Waziristan.

The Pentagon said it was unclear whether Hakimullah was dead or alive, but said he was no longer running the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistani intelligence officials said he had survived, albeit providing no substantive evidence.

But in a video allegedly filmed last month, Hakimullah poured scorn on reports of his death, describing them as an “open lie and propaganda by the kuffar (non-believers)”, and threatened attacks on the United States.

Now believed to be aged about 31, he was born Jamshed Mehsud in the small mountain village of Kotkai in South Waziristan.

His father was a grocer and the young Mehsud helped out in the shop in between his studies at madrassahs, religious schools that are a fertile recruiting ground for the militants fighting US troops in Afghanistan.

Many believe it was after meeting Baitullah Mehsud — who was no relation — that Jamshed decided to embark on militancy as a way of life and abandon his education.

He rose quickly through the ranks, appointed a spokesman for Baitullah in 2004 and in 2008 commander of Orakzai, Khyber and Kurram, three of seven districts in the semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border.

He made a name for himself by staging audacious attacks on convoys supplying Nato troops in Afghanistan, once posing with a US military Humvee vehicle reportedly snatched in a raid.

He switched his nom de guerre to Hakimullah, or “one who has knowledge”.

An AFP reporter who twice met him said Mehsud had a fondness for firearms and theatrics, firing a pistol wildly into the air, laughing mid-interview and challenging journalists to a shooting competition.

Pakistani tribal affairs analyst Rahimullah Yusufzai also believes that Mehsud fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan against US troops.

“We all feared that if he took over there would be more attacks, bigger attacks and there would be no hope of any compromise, no hope that there would be some other solution — that really happened,” said Yusufzai.

Mehsud has two wives, but it is unclear whether he has any children. He is a cousin of Qari Hussein, who trains suicide bombers and is considered by many an even darker and more powerful force within TTP.

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MUMBAI: A Pakistani man who was the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks was convicted on Monday of murder and waging war against India for his role in the deadly siege that left 166 people dead.

Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, 22, was found guilty on almost all of the 86 charges he faced over the 10-man assault on three luxury hotels, a restaurant, Jewish centre and the main Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) station.

“You have been found guilty of waging war against India and killing people at CST, killing government officials and abetting the other nine terrorists,” judge M.L. Tahaliyani told Kasab in Hindi.

The judge said Kasab had been trained in Pakistan to fight a ‘war’ against India and had been directly or jointly responsible for the deaths of 52 people in the train station — the bloodiest episode of the onslaught.

Kasab, in a long white kurta, stood impassively in the dock as the judge took nearly three hours to go through a summary of the 1,522-page verdict in English.

A hearing to decide on sentence is set for Tuesday, with Kasab facing the death penalty for the murder and waging war convictions.

Indian nationals Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, accused of providing logistical support to the gunmen by supplying them with handmade maps of the city, were found not guilty in a major rebuff to the prosecution.

Ahmed’s lawyer, Ejaz Naqvi, said outside the court that they had been ‘framed’ by police and blamed a US-Pakistani national, David Coleman Headley, for scouting out targets for the attacks.

Headley admitted identifying targets and providing intelligence to the gunmen earlier this year.

He is in US custody but Mr Tahaliyani rejected an application for him to give evidence at the trial.

Kasab, a school dropout, was captured in a photograph walking through Mumbai’s train station wearing a backpack and carrying an AK-47 in what has become one of the defining images of the attacks.

The former labourer from Pakistan’s Punjab province initially denied the charges, then pleaded guilty, before reverting to his original stance and claiming that he was set up by the police.

“You got training in Pakistan,” the judge told Kasab on Monday. “All of this has been proven against you.”

The case was also ‘proven’ against LeT founder Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, key operative Zarar Shah and Hafiz Saeed, whose Jamaatud Dawa charity is widely seen as a front for LeT.

Lakhvi and Shah are among seven suspects currently on trial in Rawalpindi.

“The judgment itself is a message to Pakistan that they should not export terror to India,” Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters after the conviction, adding that the process had been a triumph for the country’s legal system.

“If they do, and we apprehend the terrorists, we will be able to bring them to justice and give them exemplary punishment

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KARACHI: Central Secretary of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Jehangir Badar has said that a case will be lodged against Pervez Musharraf by the state in the wake of UN Report on the assassination of Ms Benazir Bhutto.
He was addressing a press conference on the occasion of launching membership campaign of the party in the province. He was accompanied by PPP Sindh President and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah besides other PPP leaders here on Wednesday.
Jehangir Badar said the assassins of Benazir Bhutto’s will not be identified on the basis of personal enmity but by acting within the parameters of justice and rule of law.
In his remarks on the 18th amendment of the Constitution, the PPP’s senior leader said it has now become part of the Constitution and implementation on the same will soon be ensured.
He, however, said although the concurrent list has been abolished the devolution of powers from the Federation to provinces cannot be made overnight.

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