Murtaza Haider at Afpak blog writes: The Sunni Tehreek (Sunni Movement), a non-political religious organization that represents the moderate (Barelwi) Sunnis in Pakistan, has finally decided to join the political arena. This is a welcome change. One hopes that the Sunni Tehreek's political Wing, Pakistan Inqalabi Tehreek, will be able to offer an alternative to religious Pakistanis, majority of whom are peace loving moderates.
The Sunni Tehreek rejects violence, which has become the hallmark of the Taliban-style Islam in Pakistan. Referring to the violent struggle by the Taliban for enforcing Shariah in Swat, Sarwat Aijaz Qadri, who heads the Sunni Tehreek, said: "We condemn the implementation of Shariat on gunpoint." For standing up to the Taliban and other extremists in Pakistan, the Sunni Tehreek has paid dearly. In April 2006, the Tehreek's entire leadership was obliterated in a bomb attack, which killed more than 56 people, in Nishtar Park, Karachi. Earlier in May 2001, another batch of Tehreek's leadership was assassinated.
The vacuum created by the absence of a moderate Sunni leadership drove Pakistani Sunnis into the hands of hardliners and extremists. Since the beginning of the Afghan war in mid-seventies, the mainstream Sunnis in Pakistan have suffered a great deal. They were sidelined, marginalised, and religiously disenfranchised by the Wahabi/Deobandi version of Islam that was jointly funded by the Americo-Saudi alliance to radicalize a people to fight against the Russian army in Afghanistan.
It started with the mushroom growth of Deobandi madrassahs in Pakistan in mid-to-late seventies. The prayer leaders (imams) in most mosques were systematically replaced by hardliners who urged their followers to leave for Afghanistan and fight the Red Army. The result was a takeover of the religious enterprise in Pakistan by the Deobandi leaning clerics.
"Pakistani madrasas brainwash students and teach them religious extremism, armed Jihad and hatred against the government in Afghanistan and the West," said Gulab Mangal, Helmand's governor.
Pakistani madrassas in 2006.
LASHKARGAH, 17 February 2009 (IRIN) - The closure of schools and continuing attacks on students in the southern Helmand Province forced Abdul Wakil's parents to send him to a madrasa (Islamic school) in neighbouring Pakistan.
Almost two months later, Abdul Wakil [not his real name] quit the school outside Quetta, capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan Province, and returned home.
"In the madrasa we were taught to sacrifice ourselves for Jihad in Afghanistan and were told to do suicide attacks," the 14-year-old told IRIN in Lashkargah, centre of Afghanistan's insurgency-torn Helmand Province.
"I don't want to be a suicide attacker, because it's forbidden in Islam, so I secretly quit the madrasa and returned home," the teenager said.
Abdul's parents are happy to have their son safe but are extremely concerned about his security.
"If the Taliban find out about him, they will kill him," said his father, who requested anonymity. "We are also concerned about his education and his future," he said.
His concerns are not unique in the volatile south, where attacks by insurgent groups have closed more than 630 schools, depriving 300,000 students of an education, according to the Ministry of Education (MoE).
Poor literacy rates
More than two decades of war have severely damaged education in Afghanistan, resulting in very low literacy rates: 12.6 percent among females and 43.1 percent among males, an average of 28.1 percent nationwide, according to aid agencies.
The insurgents' anti-education activities - armed attacks, intimidation and negative propaganda - seek to shut down schools and deny students - girls and boys - a formal education that mixes modern scientific subjects with Islamic studies.
From January to October 2008, 256 school-related security incidents, with 30 deaths, were reported, against 213 incidents in the same period in 2007, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
As a result, going to school has become increasingly dangerous for students and teachers.
However, the insurgents have tacitly encouraged parents to send their sons to religious schools in neighbouring Pakistan for Islamic studies.
"Pakistani madrasas brainwash students and teach them religious extremism, armed Jihad and hatred against the government in Afghanistan and the West," said Gulab Mangal, Helmand's governor.
Almost all Taliban leaders, including their reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, were trained in Pakistani madrasas.
Madrasas not only offer immunity from Taliban attacks but also provide free board and lodging to students and are thus more attractive to poor families than modern schools.
Tens of thousands of Afghan citizens are enrolled in Pakistani madrasas, MoE officials estimate.
Tuba's parents are proud of their daughter and say they are not afraid even when she speaks out publicly against the Taliban. Her mother says she is "worth more than seven sons and seven daughters."
Islamabad, 19 Feb. (AKI) - Tuba Sahaab is taking on the Taliban. But the 11-year-old Pakistani girl is no militant and her weapons are simply her words. She lives on the outskirts of Islamabad and writes poems about the pain and suffering of children in her country despite personal threats from hardline Islamic militants.
"If they kill me, do not worry," she says. "I want everyone in Pakistan to be equal."
The young poet has been interviewed by US network, CNN, and now regularly appears in the media. She is not afraid to express her views and is famous in Pakistan.
"I want to give peace to my nation," she tells CNN (photo). "I will fight for it."
Tuba is strongly opposed to hardliners who have tried to restrict girls from going to school in certain parts of the country.
Before a peace agreement announced in the volatile Swat Valley in the country's northwest on Monday, the Taliban was forcing girls out of the classroom and destroying schools.
"This is very shocking to hear that girls can't go to school, they are taking us back to the Stone Age," Tuba says.
For the past 18 months, militants have beheaded opponents and burned scores of girls' schools in Swat, which lies next to Pakistan's tribal regions close to the Afghan border.
Monday's peace deal allows for the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in the former tourist region and surrounding districts in exchange for an end to the Taliban insurgency which has killed hundreds and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.
Tuba refuses to remain silent despite threats on her life - by letter and telephone. "Stop it or we will kill you," they say.
Tuba's parents are proud of their daughter and say they are not afraid even when she speaks out publicly against the Taliban. Her mother says she is "worth more than seven sons and seven daughters."
Tuba is inspired by US president Barack Obama and his recent election. She tells CNN she prayed for his election and dreams of meeting him Obama one day.
"I want to go the White House and show him my poems, show him what is happening and ask him to come to Pakistan and control it because he is a super power."
In her playground at school, Tuba dances and laughs with her friends. She loves writing her short stories and has already published a book.
Tuba also has a personal dream to be an astronaut and one day lead her country.
"This means you have surrendered to a handful of extremists," said Athar Minallah, a leader of a lawyers' movement that has campaigned for an independent judiciary. "The state is under attack; instead of dealing with them as aggressors, the government has abdicated."
Mullah Maulana Qazi Fazlullah leads the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat vallley.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The government announced Monday that it would accept a system of Islamic law in the Swat valley and agreed to a truce, effectively conceding the area as a Taliban sanctuary and suspending a faltering effort by the army to crush the insurgents.
The concessions to the militants, who now control about 70 percent of the region just 100 miles from the capital, were criticized by Pakistani analysts as a capitulation by a government desperate to stop Taliban abuses and a military embarrassed at losing ground after more than a year of intermittent fighting. About 3,000 Taliban militants have kept 12,000 government troops at bay and terrorized the local population with floggings and the burning of schools.
The accord came less than a week before the first official visit to Washington of the Pakistani army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to meet Obama administration officials and discuss how Pakistan could improve its tactics against what the American military is now calling an industrial-strength insurgency there of Al Qaeda and the Taliban militants.
The militants have also made deep gains in neighboring Afghanistan, where the United States is sending more troops.
Pakistani government officials insisted the truce with the Taliban and the switch to the Shariah, the Islamic legal code, were consistent with the Constitution and presented no threat to the integrity of the nation.
But the truce offered by the Taliban, and accepted by the authorities, rebuffed American demands for the Pakistani civilian and military authorities to stick with the fight against the militants, not make deals with them.
Under the terms of the accord, the chief minister of the province, Amir Haider Khan Hoti, said that Pakistani troops would now go on "reactive mode" and fight only in retaliation for an attack.
Announced by the government of the North-West Frontier Province after consultation with President Asif Ali Zardari, the pact echoed previous government accords with the militants across Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas in North and South Waziristan.
Those regions have since become a mini-state for Qaeda and Taliban militants, who are now the focus of missile strikes by remotely piloted American aircraft. On Monday, what was thought to be a drone strike in Kurram, a separate area close to the Afghan border, killed 31 people, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
Analysts are now suggesting that the drone strikes may be pushing the Taliban, and even some Qaeda elements, out of the tribal belt and into Swat, making the valley more important to the Taliban.
Speaking in India on the last leg of his trip to Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, the Obama administration's special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, did not address the truce directly but said the turmoil in Swat served as a reminder that the United States, Pakistan and India faced an "enemy which poses direct threats to our leadership, our capitals, and our people."
Pakistani legal experts and other analysts warned that the decision by the authorities would embolden militants in other parts of the country.
"This means you have surrendered to a handful of extremists," said Athar Minallah, a leader of a lawyers' movement that has campaigned for an independent judiciary. "The state is under attack; instead of dealing with them as aggressors, the government has abdicated."
Shuja Nawaz, the author of "Crossed Swords," a book on the Pakistani military, said that with the accord, "the government is ceding a great deal of space" to the militants.
Is Pakistan trying to force rape victim Mukhtaran Mai to drop her case? Fatima Bhutto reports on a campaign of intimidation.
Mukhtaran Mai, right, is pictured with co-founder of Muslims for Progressive Values Ani Zonneveld, center, and another woman at a gathering of Muslim feminists in 2006.
Fatima Bhutto writes: In 2002, an illiterate woman named Mukhtaran Mai was punished for something her brother did. He committed the unforgivable crime of falling in love with a young woman outside his tribe. So, in accordance with tribal tradition, a local council of elders decided that instead of punishing him directly, his sister Mai would be gang raped and paraded across her small village of Meerwala half naked.
Five days after this rape occurred, Mai did the unthinkable: She pressed charges.
Her defiance of custom-reporting the rape instead of silently accepting it-made headlines worldwide. Nicholas Kristof and Time magazine championed her case. Glamour magazine declared Mai "Woman of the Year." But now, the Pakistan government has shown that it holds her in considerably lower esteem.
A few days ago, Mai announced that Pakistan has been quietly pressuring her to drop her case against the men who raped her. Qayyum Jatoi, the Federal Minister of State for Defense Production (ignore the silly title, we have 60-odd redundant ministers in our bloated cabinet) wants Mai to quit her six-year battle, now in the Supreme Court. According to Mai, the minister telephoned her uncle and warned him that should she persist, the ministry would ensure that the court rules against her. Minister Jatoi has denounced Mai's allegations as a ploy by her to garner "cheap popularity" in the media. He denies pressuring Mai to drop the case, of course. The trial is scheduled to start today.
Given Pakistan's recent history, I'd give Mai the benefit of the doubt. This is a government that has only grown more sinister when it comes to the cause of women. The Pakistan People's Party, of which Minister Jatoi is a member, has twice put a female prime minister in office, Benazir Bhutto, and still has fully never repealed the anti-women Hudood Ordinances, which were reformed by President Pervez Musharraf but still allow women to be imprisoned for crimes like adultery and premarital sex.
Responding to the government's pressure, Mai said in a statement to The News, one of Pakistan's leading English newspapers, that it was ironic this injustice was being meted out to her by Benazir's party. But it's not so ironic. In fact, for the PPP, it's par for the course.
Sardar Israullah Zehri, a tribal leader and senator from Balochistan and a member of the PPP, took to the floor of parliament this past August to defend violence against women. Five women in his province had been buried alive for staining their family's honor. (Reports from various human-rights groups indicate the number of women buried may actually be as high as ten.) No one knows who the women were; we have snippets-a first name here, a date of birth there-but they've been murdered terribly well, erased from public record.
Experts believe that Denmark is a top terror target primarily due to the Mohammed cartoon affair of 2005.
A US report has concluded that Muslim residents in Europe who train as terrorists in Pakistan are the most likely agents of terror for the continent.
Al-Qaeda is preparing for a new attack in Europe and Denmark is at the top of its list, according to the head of US National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair.
In his department's 2008 annual threat assessment report, Blair indicated that Muslim extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Sunni affiliates who go to Pakistan for terrorist training and return constituted the main threat to European security.
Blair's report suggested that the integration of Western Europe's 15 to 20 million Muslims is 'progressing slowly', but that opportunities for extremist propagandists and recruiters are ripe. His belief that Denmark is a top terror target supports the assessment of Denmark's own intelligence agency, PET.
'Al-Qaeda has used Europe as a launching point for external operations against the US on several occasions since 9/11, and we believe that the group continues to view Europe as a viable launching point,' the report stated.
'Al-Qaeda most recently targeted Denmark and the UK and we assess that these countries remain viable targets.'
The report stated that the groups would likely go after leading politicians and economic and infrastructure targets. It also said that attacks would be carried out in a 'dramatic' fashion and would seek to instil as much fear as possible amongst the general population.
Although Blair indicated that little information is known about any specific upcoming Al-Qaeda attacks or targets, he stated in the report that Al-Qaeda leadership has been weakened over the past year.
Experts believe that Denmark is a top terror target primarily due to the Mohammed cartoon affair of 2005.
"They control everything through the radio," said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. "Everyone waits for the broadcast."
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Every night around 8 o'clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan's most important cities, crowd around their radios.
They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing - or a beheading.
Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed "un-Islamic" activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees - and those they plan to kill.
"They control everything through the radio," said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. "Everyone waits for the broadcast."
International attention remains fixed on the Taliban's hold on Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they carry out attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating.
Unlike the fringe tribal areas, Swat, which has 1.3 million residents and a rich cultural history, is part of Pakistan proper, within 160 kilometers of Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the capital.
After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants' farthest advance eastward into Pakistan's so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.
With the increasing consolidation of their power, the Taliban have taken a sizable bite out of the nation. And they are enforcing a strict interpretation of Islam with cruelty, bringing public beheadings, assassinations, social and cultural repression and persecution of women to what was once an independent, relatively secular region, dotted with ski resorts and fruit orchards and known for its dancing girls.
Last year, 70 police officers were beheaded, shot or otherwise slain in Swat, and 150 were wounded, said Malik Naveed Khan, the police inspector general for North-West Frontier Province.
The police have become so afraid that many officers have put advertisements in newspapers renouncing their jobs so the Taliban will not kill them.
Shabana's body was found slumped on the ground, strewn with bank notes, CDs of her dance performances and pictures from her photo album.
Shabana.
The bullet-ridden body of Shabana in the centre of Mingora's Green Square sent two clear messages to the locals in the Swat Valley's largest town: "un-Islamic vices" will no longer be tolerated, and the Taliban is now effectively in control.
Shabana's body was found slumped on the ground, strewn with bank notes, CDs of her dance performances and pictures from her photo album. In case anyone had not grasped the message the local Taliban commander Maulana Shah Dauran broadcast a warning on one of its FM radio stations in the valley: his men had killed her and if any other girls were found performing in the city's Banr Bazaar they would be killed "one by one".
This weekend the last of the bazaar's dancing girls, many of whom had trained under Shabana's wing and lived in her house, were seen loading their belongings on to trucks and fleeing to the relative safety of Karachi and Lahore, where their talents remain in great demand.
The banishment marks a key turning point in the battle for the Swat Valley between Taliban militants and the Pakistan Army. It followed recent orders to close down girls' schools in the valley, shut shops selling music CDs and films, and edicts on barbers to stop shaving beards.
The performances of the dancing girls in Banr Bazaar had been one of the city's last "vices", but in the narrow street where, until last week, they plied their trade, signs were posted on doors stating: "We have stopped dancing, please do not knock on the door." The street now closes at 8pm and only those who live there can leave or enter.
More than 1,000 girls have now fled, though some who remained told The Daily Telegraph that Shabana had paid the price for publicly defying the Taliban's radio mullahs and that she had ignored personal warnings to stop the performances and the training of young dancers in her home.
"On the eve of January 2, some men knocked at the door and asked for a dance party," said Shabana's father Qamar Gul. "She instantly agreed and opened the room and asked the men to wait while she prepared herself." When she returned the four men said: "Let us start." They seized her at gunpoint and told her they were going to slit her throat.
Shabana begged repeatedly while crying for help but they dragged her out of the house, took her to the Green Square and shot her.
Fayaz, a Banr Bazaar resident, said he had now moved to a safer part of the city, and only arranges dance events for selected known clients.
He said dancing could earn about 50,000 rupees (£415) a night, but the business was now finished. The Taliban had denounced the dancing as prostitution, he said, but only 1 per cent of the community was involved.
Farzana, a Banr Bazaar dancer who has moved to Peshawar, said: "We are here for a temporary period. We entertain only selected people and not everyone because we are threatened even in Peshawar. Several of our colleagues have already shifted to Lahore and Karachi, but Banr Street is where we opened our eyes, passed our youth and have acquaintances and fans."
She tearfully broke into verse: "This street, this house, don't come here again - now I have left the place, so there is no one for you."
Yousafzai said the militants had destroyed 170 schools in the valley where about 55,000 girls and boys were enrolled in government-run institutions.
MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban insurgents blew up four schools in the northwestern Swat region Monday hours after a cabinet minister vowed that the government would reopen schools in the violence-plagued valley.
The scenic Swat Valley was until recently one of Pakistan's prime tourist destinations but Islamist militants aiming to impose a harsh form of Islamic law began battling security forces in 2007.
Residents say the militants are now virtually in complete control of the valley, which is 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad and not on the Afghan border, including its main town of Mingora, where the schools were destroyed early Monday.
"Militants blew up two girls schools and two boys schools," a top government official in the valley, Shaukat Yousafzai, told Reuters. "Attacks on troops are understandable but why are they destroying schools?"
Schools are closed for a winter break and no one was hurt in the attacks.
As with Afghanistan's Taliban, their Pakistani counterparts oppose education for girls and they recently banned female education in Swat altogether.
The militants also see schools as symbols of government authority and they say the army posts soldiers in them.
Yousafzai said the militants had destroyed 170 schools in the valley where about 55,000 girls and boys were enrolled in government-run institutions.
'Girls, their parents, teachers and even drivers transporting students to and from schools are frightened while the owners of buildings have also asked us to vacate their property in view of fear of damage due to bombing.'
Some 200 Taliban fighters used electric drills to vandalize the face of a massive 7th century Buddha sculpture, according to locals in Pakistan's Swat Valley. (John Moore/Getty Images)
PESHAWAR: About 400 private schools in Swat have announced to abandon girls' education in their institutes in the wake of the deadline (Jan 15) given by the militants to discontinue the practice, depriving more than 40,000 students of their basic right to get education.
In addition, 84,248 girl students of state-run schools are unlikely to attend schools due to the fear of militants despite the resolve by the local administration to reopen the schools on March 1.
Maulana Fazlullah-led militants had asked all the government and private schools on December 24 to stop imparting female education by January 15. The announcement triggered an outcry from all and sundry, prompting the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's central spokesman, Maulvi Omar, to distance his movement from the decision of the Swat militants and said they would ask them to withdraw the threat.
Also, the private schools' management appealed to the militants in black and white to take back their decision in the interest of thousands of girl students and hundreds of female teachers, most of them lone breadwinners of their families.
The Swat TTP reviewed the decision a couple of weeks ago at a meeting held at its headquarters in Peuchar with Maulana Fazlullah in the chair. They did not withdraw their threat, but softened their stance and allowed girls to attain education up to the fourth grade. However, the chief of the terrorists renewed the threat of bombing educational institutions if any school continued higher education for girls.
The expiry of the deadline would have no immediate repercussions due to the winter vacations at present. However, the private schools' management, a body of 400 educational institutions including 20 colleges, has decided to discontinue the female education after the vacation despite assurances from the administration to provide security to their schools.
"The district coordination officer offered security to our schools during our meeting with him but we think it will not work," the owner of a chain of institutes told The News. He said that security to schools could not ensure female education until complete peace was restored to the valley, now almost under the control of the militants, who have also entrenched in Barikot, a militant-free Tehsil. "Girls, their parents, teachers and even drivers transporting students to and from schools are frightened while the owners of buildings have also asked us to vacate their property in view of fear of damage due to bombing.
"Thus, posting a few personnel at schools is of no use. So, we have decided to close female sections in private institutes to avoid the militants' wrath," he said and hastened to add that they would restart female education only after the militants allowed them to do so.
The Americans are believed to have given Pakistan a taped conversation Lakhvi allegedly had with gunmen involved in attacks on Mumbai on November 26.
Pakistan is under "tremendous pressure" from the US to extradite Lashker-e-Taiba operations commander Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks, to India, a media report said on Wednesday.
The Americans are believed to have given Pakistan a taped conversation Lakhvi allegedly had with gunmen involved in attacks on Mumbai on November 26.
American audio experts had checked the tape and concluded it was genuine and that the speaker was Lakhvi, the Dawn newspaper quoted US and diplomatic sources as saying.
Though Indian officials had been saying for some time that Lakhvi should be handed over to India, US officials had not taken a clear stand on this issue until this week. Lakhvi's conversation with the gunmen appeared to have changed their minds, the report said.
Diplomatic sources in Washington told the newspaper that the Americans were now "urging Pakistan to hand over Lakhvi to New Delhi".
Lakhvi was detained along with over 20 other LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawah activists during a crackdown by Pakistani security forces near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistanoccupied Kashmir, on December 7.
In mid-December, Taliban fighters killed a young member of a Sufi-influenced Muslim group who had tried to raise a militia against them. The militants later dug up Pir Samiullah's corpse and hung it for two days in a village square _ partly to prove to his followers that he was not a superhuman saint, a security official said on condition of anonymity.
On Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said thousands of troops were being shifted toward the border with India, which blames Pakistani militants for terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month that killed 164 people. But there has been no sign yet of a major buildup near India.
"The terrorists' aim in Mumbai was precisely this _ to get the Pakistani army to withdraw from the western border and mount operations on the east," said Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and author who has written extensively about militancy in the region.
"The terrorists are not going to be sitting still. They are not going to be adhering to any sort of cease-fire while the army takes on the Indian threat. They are going to occupy the vacuum the army will create."
Residents and officials from the Swat Valley were critical of the army offensive there, saying troops appeared to be confined to their posts and often killed civilians when firing artillery at suspected militant targets.
The military has deployed some 100,000 troops through the northwest.
A government official familiar with security issues estimated that some 10,000 paramilitary and army troops had killed 300 to 400 militants in Swat since 2007, while about 130 troops were killed. Authorities have not released details of civilian casualties, and it was unclear if they were even being tallied.
The official, who insisted on anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, disputed assertions that militants had overrun the valley, but said a spotty supply line was hampering operations. He said the army had to man some Swat police stations because the police force there had been decimated by desertions and militant killings.
A Swat militant boasted that "we are doing our activities wherever we want, and the army is confined to their living places."
"They cannot move independently like us," said the man, who was reached over the phone and gave his name as Muzaffarul Haq. He claimed the Swat militants had no al-Qaida or foreign connections, but that they supported all groups that shared the goal of imposing Islamic law.
"With the grace of Allah, there is no dearth of funds, weapons or rations," he said. "Our women are providing cooked food for those who are struggling in Allah's path. Our children are getting prepared for jihad."
Salaam writes: What is being generated by the Indian media is probably being pretty heavily spun for propaganda purposes at this point, so take anything that follows in this Times of India report with great scepticism.
NEW DELHI: India on Friday warned its citizens against travelling to Pakistan, in a step designed to thwart dirty tricks from Pakistan which on Wednesday had tried to blame a blast in Lahore on an alleged Indian spy.
The alert was sounded even as Islamabad's Lahore frame-up came unstuck with a little-known Taliban outfit based in North Waziristan, Ansar Wa Mohajir, stepping up to claim responsibility for the December 24 blast.
India's foreign ministry said the warning was a fallout of reports in the Pakistani media that several Indians in Lahore and Multan had been arrested and branded terrorists by Pakistani authorities. It had been widely reported in the Pakistani media earlier that intelligence agencies had arrested four Indians for the same blast.
The flaw in this set-up was that the local police seemed to be unaware of the arrests. This further strengthened the Indian suspicion that it was a deliberate ploy on the part of Pakistani authorities to obfuscate the real issue of Pakistan's refusal to act against the perpetrators of 26/11.
"There have been reports in the Pakistani media that several Indian nationals have been arrested over the last two days in Lahore and Multan, and are being accused of being terrorists. Since it has also been reported in the Pakistani media that the senior police officer in Lahore was unaware of the arrest in his city, it seems that this is the work of other agencies in Pakistan that operate outside the law and civilian control. Indian citizens are, therefore, advised that it would be unsafe for them to travel or be in Pakistan," read the statement issued by the foreign ministry.
An official clarified that the decision wasn't a case of one-upmanship but based on facts which suggest that Indian nationals are being subjected to harassment in Pakistan.
The troops headed to the Indian border were being diverted away from tribal areas near Afghanistan, officials said, and the move was expected to frustrate the United States.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan began moving thousands of troops to the Indian border Friday, intelligence officials said, sharply raising tensions triggered by the Mumbai terror attacks.
India is blaming Pakistani-based militants for last month's siege on its financial capital, which killed 164 people and has provoked an increasingly bitter war of words between nuclear-armed neighbors that have fought three wars in 60 years.
The troops headed to the Indian border were being diverted away from tribal areas near Afghanistan, officials said, and the move was expected to frustrate the United States which has been pushing Pakistan to step up its fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.
Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to the towns of Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said that all troop leave had been canceled.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
A spokesman for India's Defense Ministry offered no immediate response.
Earlier, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Friday with the chiefs of the army, navy and air force to discuss "the prevailing security situation," according to an official statement.
An Associated Press reporter in Dera Ismail Khan, a district that borders Pakistan's militant-infested South Waziristan tribal area, said he saw around 40 trucks loaded with soldiers heading away from the Afghan border.
Taliban leaders in Pakistan's troubled northwest Swat valley have banned girls from attending school, threatening to kill any female student, officials said Thursday.
The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local officials told AFP.
"You have until Jan. 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls," one official quoted the commander as saying.
"We also warn schools not to enroll any female students; otherwise, their buildings will be blown up."
