Islamabad, Pakistan
As the number of people fleeing fighting in Pakistan's northwestern Swat valley reaches nearly 2 million, the race to help those displaced by the worsening war may prove crucial in determining the outcome of the battle. NBC News' Ian Williams reports.
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By NBC News’ Mushtaq Yusufzai
MARDAN, Pakistan – Shaista, a terrified 11-year-old girl from the Swat Valley, was lying in a hospital bed in Mardan’s ill-equipped health center on Friday.
She suffered severe injuries to her legs when an artillery shell, reportedly fired by Pakistani troops, hit her family’s small house Thursday night in Mingora.
The traumatized Shaista said the mortar shell struck a room where she was sleeping. Her voice choking, Shaista said her mother, two sisters and brother were killed in the incident – and then she became lost in deep despair.
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| Mushtaq Yusufzai / NBC |
| Shaista, 11, in her hospital bed in Marden. |
A doctor treating the girl said she seems to lose her memory when speaking and starts to suddenly cry – apparently because of deep shock she suffered.
Children have proved to be some of the hardest-hit victims among the estimated one million people displaced by the ongoing fighting between Pakistan’s armed forces and Taliban militants in the northern districts of Buner and Swat.
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By NBC News’ Carol Grisanti and Mushtaq Yusufzai
ISLAMABAD – After weeks of consolidating their control over large areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, the Taliban are in retreat.
On Friday, Maulana Fazullah, the firebrand Taliban boss in the Swat Valley, ordered his most trusted military chief, Commander Fateh, to leave Buner, a neighboring valley that Fateh seized on Monday.
The Pakistani authorities warned the militants on Thursday that they were ready to remove them by force if they did not lay down their arms and abide by a peace agreement hammered out in February.
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| Mohammad Sajjad / AP |
| Taliban militants hold their weapons outside a mosque in Daggar, Buner's main town on Thursday. |
According to the deal, the government ceded power to the Taliban in the Swat Valley and allowed them to impose Islamic law in the area in return for a cease-fire – ending two years of on and off military operations there.
But last weekend at a large gathering of supporters in the valley, the Taliban announced they would not lay down their arms and openly challenged the state. They declared that democracy was un-Islamic and called for harsh Islamic laws, known as sharia, to replace Pakistan’s constitution.
The next day, they began their advance into Buner. That valley’s proximity to the capital, Islamabad, just 70 miles and a five-hour drive away, sounded alarm bells in Washington.
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By NBC News’ Carol Grisanti and Mushtaq Yusufzai
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – "I was given $122 to drop chips wrapped in cigarette paper at al-Qaida and Taliban houses," confessed 19-year-old Habibur Rehman, just before the Taliban shot him dead for spying for the United States. "If I was successful, I was told, I would be given thousands of dollars," he said.
In a video released last week by the Taliban as a warning to other would-be spies, Rehman recounted how he was recruited to spy on the Taliban in North Waziristan and drop small transmitter chips on specific targets to call in CIA pilotless drone aircraft.
"I thought this was a very easy job," Rehman said in the video before he was killed. "The money was good so I started throwing the chips all over. I knew people were dying because of what I was doing, but I needed the money."
The chips transmit a signal to a satellite overhead. The drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, are controlled and remotely piloted by the CIA in the United States, according to Pakistani and western military analysts. Once the signal is received, the drone takes off from Shamsi air base in southwestern Pakistan and collects data and intelligence to attack the chosen Taliban and al-Qaida target.
A U.S. official, who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity about the Taliban allegation said, "People should recognize this for what it is … extremist propaganda."
President Barack Obama has stated that he considers the drone program an effective tool to target al-Qaida sanctuaries in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the mountainous border with Afghanistan. Nine out of 20 wanted al-Qaida operatives, who were on a list drawn up by U.S. official last year, have been killed by drones using intelligence provided from chips planted by Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen working as spies.
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By NBC News’ Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Afghan intelligence agents are sharing information with militants about U.S. and NATO troop movements, a top Taliban commander told NBC News.
"The people of Afghanistan are with us," said Sirajuddin Haqqani, in an exclusive interview. "The Afghan intelligence officials are sympathetic to the Taliban and they communicate the movements of the occupying forces [U.S. and NATO] to us."
There was no way to confirm Haqqani's claims, but nearly eight years after the attacks of 9/11, the United States has struggled to oust the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies from parts of Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
On March 27, President Barack Obama pledged a fresh infusion of U.S. troops to the region. "If the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged," Obama said, "that country will again be a base for terrorists."
The United States also has hinted at possible negotiations with some elements of the Taliban. On March 31, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Taliban members in Afghanistan who abandoned extremism must be granted an "honorable form of reconciliation" while Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted that a similar rapprochement worked in Iraq.
However, the Taliban commander – who has a $5 million bounty on his head – dismissed U.S. efforts. Haqqani said that, contrary to comments from U.S. officials, there are no moderate Taliban willing to talk to America. As for other negotiations, Haqqani said that rumors of Saudi Arabia brokering peace negotiations with the Taliban leadership were just that – rumors.
Haqqani said Taliban fighters are now more resourceful than in the past. "We have acquired the modern technology that we were lacking and we have mastered new and innovative methods of making bombs and explosives," he explained.
The commander said he travels freely around Afghanistan because most people don’t know what he looks like. The 29-year-old said he keeps a low profile by travelling alone or just with one companion.
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
ISLAMABAD – Perhaps the $5 million bounty recently put on him by the United States has gone to his head.
Baitullah Mehsud, the notoriously reclusive chief of the Pakistani Taliban, suddenly thrust himself into the media spotlight last week by telephoning local journalists to claim responsibility for a recent series of brazen terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
And then came another surprise (this one fantastical): On Saturday he called back to brag that he was behind the attack on an immigration center by a lone Vietnamese gunman in Binghamton, N.Y., saying that the attacks were in revenge for the ongoing missile strikes on Pakistan’s tribal areas by unmanned United States drone aircraft.
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| EPA file |
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Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud (left with brown cap) speaks to journalists in South-Waziristan in a file photo from May 2008. |
But information coming out of the tribal areas and from intelligence officials in Islamabad suggests that Mehsud’s bravado might just be his way of jockeying for power among the various militant groups seeking sanctuary along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It seems that Mehsud, who has recently deepened his ties with al-Qaida, is trying to assert himself as commander in chief of the entire jihadist network in Pakistan.
"There is an internal power struggle going on now," explained a former ISI station chief in Peshawar who spoke on condition of anonymity. "When [Mehsud] thinks that someone new is coming up and could overshadow him, he kills him," said the official.
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By NBC News Shahid Qazi and Carol Grisanti
QUETTA, Pakistan – The 11-year-old girl blushed as she walked into the car dealer’s showroom on Quetta’s Adalat Road in southwest Pakistan. Her 17-year-old cousin, eyes fixed to the ground, followed her. When the younger girl asked the owner for five rupees (6 cents), he pointed to the back room and told both girls to follow him.
A stocky man in his mid-forties with sallow skin and puffy eyes, he told the girls to lift their shirts – he wanted to see. "Very nice," the owner said. "They are getting bigger," he told the 17-year-old as he touched her.
The 11-year-old was excited as she told us the story; we had followed them inside the showroom pretending to be customers interested in renting one of the Land Cruisers parked inside. The owner had given them 10 rupees (12 cents), the girls told us, more money than they had asked for. Then, giggling, they ran away.
It’s dangerous to be seen following these girls – some of their clients are wealthy feudal land barons and powerful politicians, others are ordinary shopkeepers who will give money to the poor, but want to get something in return.
The girls are part of an alarming problem that gets little attention in Pakistan.
"Prostitution is rampant in all the big cities throughout the country," said Senior Superintendent of Police, Raja Shahid, who heads the police investigation unit in Rawalpindi, a city close to the capital Islamabad.
"There are loopholes in the laws that need to be changed. For example, in order to nab the culprits, we need to conduct a raid – but we cannot conduct a raid without permission from a magistrate. By the time we get the permission we have missed our chance," he said.
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By NBC News Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – "I am Khadija Abdul Qahaar. I am a convert to Islam. I have been advised to make this video. I am going to be killed at anytime." So began a chilling video released on Wednesday by Taliban militants who are holding Qahaar, a Canadian woman, hostage somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Qahaar, whose former name is Beverly Giesbrecht, converted to Islam after 9/11. A 55-year-old journalist from Vancouver, she tried to travel into North Waziristan – one of the most dangerous areas in the world – last November with two Pakistani reporting assistants.
She wanted to interview survivors of the first ever U.S. drone attack in Bannu, a town in the Northwest Frontier Province, and then travel on to Miranshah, the main city of North Waziristan.
But Taliban militants, who patrol the Bannu-Miranshah road, intercepted Qahaar's taxi and dragged her and her two Pakistani companions out of their vehicle at gunpoint.
The video released Wednesday shows Qahaar sitting in a dark room with a dagger pointing at her as she makes a desperate plea for help.
"The time is very short now and my life is going to end, so I need someone to help me – either the Pakistani government or my own country. I want to go home," she said.
She pointed to the dagger and said that the Taliban were likely to behead her – as they did to Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak in February – if a ransom of $2 million was not paid by the end of March.
"These people are serious. Please help me," she said.
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By NBC News' Carol Grisanti and Fakhar Rehman in Islamabad
The Pakistan government bowed to the will of the people on Monday and agreed to reinstate the deposed chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, two years after he was dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf.
As news of the deal leaked out in Islamabad, the capital, jubliant crowds rushed to the popular Chaudhry's house clapping, cheering and chanting slogans of victory in what has come to symbolize the peoples' struggle for the rule of law in the country.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators joined lawyers, civil rights activists and party members of opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif at a rally in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday, determined to march to Islamabad and stage an indefinite sit-in until Chaudhry was restored.
Rahat Dar / EPA |
Flames rise from a police bus that was set on fire
Sunday by demonstrators in Lahore, Pakistan,
during a rally calling for the restoration of deposed
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
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The rally had briefly turned violent as police fired tear gas and used batons on the crowds but as their numbers swelled, the police pulled back to allow the procession to proceed. The pictures of anti-government protesters clashing with police, broadcast continually on 24-hour news channels, has raised alarm in the United States about the stability of a nuclear-armed Pakistan, already under threat from a growing internal Islamic insurgency.
Sharif, who had been put under house arrest at his Lahore home to prevent him from joining the march, challenged the arrest order and came out to lead the procession. The Lahore police had defied the orders from the government in Islamabad to thwart the march.
“No one can stop us now,” said Athar Minallah, a Supreme Court lawyer and spokesman for Pakistan’s deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who was dismissed by President Musharraf in 2007. “We have succeeded and now the ultimate goal is the supremacy of the constitution and the independence of the judiciary.”
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By NBC News' Fakhar Rehman
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- "Most countries were already too frightened to come to Pakistan," Abbas Ali, a 14-year-old high school student in Islamabad said when asked about this week's ambush on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. "Now after this incident I doubt there will ever be another international sporting event here," Ali said. "It was very bad."
Thirteen-year-old Irtiza Abbas agreed. "This was a shameful act," he said. "We were all waiting for the 2011 World Cup to take place in Pakistan, now I don't know what will happen." Abbas said he was praying his country would still be able to host it. "I would rather play cricket than eat," he added, sadly.
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| Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images |
People gather as police officer Rana Abid, right, shows photographs of his best friend, Tanveer Iqbaal, who was killed in the terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, during a tribute to the victims in Lahore on March 4. Six Pakistani police guards were killed in the attack.
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Pakistan is scheduled to co-host the World Cup along with India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, but the International Cricket Council (ICC) could strip Pakistan of hosting rights following the attacks. The ICC said it would give the country more time before making a decision, but many in Pakistan fear the worst.
"This was a major shock," former Pakistan cricket captain Wasim Akram said. "I'm sure this will end the game for us for the next couple of years. There is no way they will allow us to host the World Cup now," he said.
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