Islamabad, Pakistan
By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
NBC News Mushtaq Yusufzai is the first recipient of the Agence France Press Kate Webb Award which was set up to honor one of the news agency’s top foreign correspondents who died in 2007.
Yusufzai, 32, won the prize for his in-depth reporting and analysis on the complex situation in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
His daily reports for "The News," one of Pakistan’s leading English language daily newspapers and his blogs for msnbc.com were cited as exceptional work in dangerous and difficult circumstances.
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| NBC News |
| Faqir Mohammed, left, speaks with NBC News Mushtaq Yusufzai, center, at his remote mountain top stronghold near the Pakistan/ Afghanistan border while Faqir's bodyguards stand by in rear. |
In pursuit of the story, Yusufzai has been wounded by the Taliban, caught in cross-fire between Taliban militants and Pakistan’s security forces, dodged U.S. predator drone attacks, and was arrested and harassed by Pakistan’s intelligence agents – all while on assignment for NBC News.
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Taliban cleric Faqir Mohammed is tall, thin, very serious and very religious. His eyes are hard and he speaks slowly. He never smiles.
And when you hear what he has to say, you won’t be smiling either.
"If we get hold of nuclear weapons – which we hope to get very soon – then we will safeguard them until Allah Almighty guides us when and against whom to use them," he told NBC News in an interview at his mountain hideout.
These days, the 38-year-old cleric prefers to be called "Commander Faqir." He thinks it befits his new role as deputy leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the umbrella organization that was formed last December to try and unite Pakistani militants.
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| NBC News |
| Faqir Mohammed, left, speaks with NBC News Mushtaq Yusufzai, center, at his remote mountain top stronghold near the Pakistan/ Afghanistan border while Faqir's bodyguards standby in the rear. |
Faqir is considered by many to be equal in importance, if not even more important, than Baitullah Mehsud, the top Taliban commander in Pakistan, who has been linked to the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto last December.
Remote mountain top meeting
Maulvi Omar is Faqir's spokesman and a seasoned Taliban fighter who goes by several names. He is now in charge of the Taliban's media machine. Omar arranged for NBC News’ Mushtaq Yusufzai to meet Faqir to discuss the ongoing attempts between the Pakistani government and the local Taliban militants to negotiate a peace deal. The newly elected democratic government in Islamabad is trying to kick start those negotiations by offering separate peace deals to different tribes and factions in hopes of bringing an end to hostilities in the tribal areas.
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – "I am not Taliban," Kamran Khan told me. He could not have been more emphatic. "I am not a fundamentalist, I am not a terrorist, I am not an extremist," he said with a seriousness that belies his years.
The 25-year-old Khan is the newly elected parliamentary representative from North Waziristan – the area believed to be the command and control center of al-Qaida along the remote and rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Just last month a U.S. military strike on a safe house in the area killed one of Osama bin Laden’s top commanders, Abu Laith al Libi. The house was being used as a training camp to plan attacks on U.S. forces across the border in Afghanistan.
According to Khan, only one percent of the local population supports the militants. The local people are fed up with the violence, the beheadings, and the daily fear. They want to live in peace, he said. They want to see an improvement in their lives.
But the reality is much more complex. The Northwest Frontier and the tribal areas are polarized. On one side are the new young leaders like Khan, who want to bring an end to the violence, and on the other are the hard line militants who want to establish an orthodox Islamic state inside Pakistan.
A secular moderate supported by Taliban
In Pakistan’s Feb. 18 parliamentary elections, Khan ran as a secular candidate on an independent ticket – and won.
He defeated his opponent – a hard-line religious cleric – in a region where the Islamic militants hold sway, by calling for change. And even more surprising, the Taliban supported Khan.
"My first priority in the parliament is development," said Khan. "We have no hospitals, no roads, no drinking water." He also said he wants to tackle issues like the inequality of women. "There is no education," he said. "I want our women to be educated. They should become doctors and teachers."
With such an ambitious social program, I said that it sounded like he was calling for a rebellion.
His response was that, "Militancy will go away with jobs."
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
For those who think the election campaign is suspenseful in the United States, come visit Pakistan.
In the United States, it may be a close contest among the Democrats – and the ultimate outcome on Nov. 4 is still hard to predict. Here the elections are full of intrigue, poll rigging and death threats.
The Pakistani elections scheduled for Monday are parliamentary elections for a new national assembly.
SLIDESHOW: Pakistan prepares for vote
President Pervez Musharraf isn't running. He already got himself elected as president for another five years last October in a somewhat shady procedure thanks to a parliament crammed with his supporters. And then he declared martial law to quell the outcry.
Yet, at the same time, these elections are all about Musharraf and whether he will be able to maintain his grip on power.
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By NBC News' Iqbal Sapand in Kabul, Afghanistan and Carol Grisanti in Islamabad, Pakistan
Malalai Ishaqzai was anxious to tell her story.
"The Taliban kidnapped my 21-year-old son Mustafa," she said. "They demanded a ransom of $200,000 or else they said they would kill him," she told NBC News. "Then they ordered me to give up my job."
Ishaqzai, 36, is the mother of seven and, as a member of the Afghan parliament, one of the few female politicians in this male-dominated society. She is a prominent figure and well-known in the Afghan capital.
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| Iqbal Sapand / NBC News |
| Mustafa, after having survived being kidnapped by the Taliban, safely back at home with his mother, Malalai Ishaqzai, in Kabul. |
News of the kidnapping recently surfaced and had become a hot conversation topic in Kabul.
NBC News went to visit Ishaqzai at her home in an upscale Kabul neighborhood. The family lives well, at least by Afghan standards. An antique red Bokhara carpet covered the entire length of the living room in their fourth floor apartment. It was bitter cold outside, but it had finally stopped snowing, and it was warm inside thanks to a gas heater.
A houseboy brought tea and Ishaqzai began to tell her story.
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By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News Correspondent
Since Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and well before, Pakistan has been a nation battered by all sides. The frequent scene of suicide bombings, it has also been suffering under its worst energy crisis ever, often enduring blackouts in its major cities, frequent unrest on its streets and a worrisome shortage of flour and basics.
For all of its problems, it is a beautiful country, the people especially.
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| Michelle Kosinski/ NBC News |
| One of the many colorful trucks rolling down Pakistan's streets. |
If there is one image that seems to keep returning to mind whenever I think about Pakistan, it is something that is utterly unique to this place, in a world where such peculiarities are ever more rare: the eye-popping, elaborately painted trucks that suddenly jump out from the dusty brown roads like exotic birds in the sand.
The trucks are riotous explosions of color, motoring along drab city streets.
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
It was only a few months ago that Maulana Fazlullah, a 33 year-old firebrand Muslim cleric, was galloping through the villages and over the hills of Pakistan’s scenic Swat Valley in the Northwest Frontier Province.
Astride a white horse, sporting his trademark black turban and a black beard which engulfed the entire lower half of his face, he seemed to some at first, more of a modern day Zorro, than a deadly terrorist. But that was then. Today, the Pakistan army is at war with Fazlullah, and he is in hiding.
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| Maulana Fazlullah, seen in a photo exclusively obtained by NBC News. |
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NBC News has received this photo; the first picture of Fazlullah that revealed a clear image of the face of one of Pakistan’s most wanted terrorists.
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
It was just three days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto that her husband, Asif Ali Zardari announced that Bhutto, in her last will and testament, had appointed him to lead her party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
At least that is Zardari's version of Bhutto's last wishes.
Zardari then added, contrary to his late wife's wishes, he wanted to pass her mantle on to their oldest son, 19-year-old, Bilawal Zardari. In keeping with the burden of blood and dynasty, the younger Zardari quickly added his grandfather's name, calling himself Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. His grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People’s Party. The name change was symbolic. Bilawal was now a Bhutto; he had asserted his birthright to lead the party.
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| Naeem Ul Haq / EPA |
| Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, right, the son of Benazir Bhutto, carries his mother's portrait as his father Asif Zardari talks with journalists during a press conference at the Bhutto residence on Sunday. |
The elder Zardari would manage the party for his son until he finishes university; in effect he would become "prince regent." He would be the kingmaker.
He also said that Bhutto’s will would not be made public.
My immediate reaction upon listening to the Zardari was, Why not make Bhutto's will public?
I asked around and many Pakistanis felt the same as I did. Some doubt there even was a will.
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By Michelle Kosinski, NBC News Correspondent
To fly over the majestic, jagged peaks of Afghanistan and Pakistan just at dawn, I felt that sense of expansive peace that seeing the world at a distance endows-- if only for a few moments.
It took just that long to snap the last threads of sleep and consider the trouble that lay imperceptibly below. The struggle of this country that, in its short modern history, has never seen a democratically elected head of state serve out his or her full term; has never seen a thriving economy; has survived shaky periods of military rule and sectarian murder.
Those same breathtaking mountains, are also believed to harbor Taliban and Al-Qaida militants -- and Osama bin Laden.
On the ground, in the capital Islamabad, the only sign that things were amiss was the silence of the streets. Shops closed, people indoors, few cars on the usually-jammed highways. It didn't know whether to be reassuring or ominous, on a warm sunny day. We passed the occasional corner-lot cricket match, and clusters of children in their long tunics chasing kites.
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf turned Pakistan from pariah state to partner after the 9/11 attacks. Take a look at the leader that won the United States trust against many odds.
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