In a surprise ruling July 20, Pakistan’s Supreme Court dealt a harsh blow to President Pervez Musharraf, voting unanimously to restore Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry to his post. The court also voted 10-3 to dismiss charges of misconduct that… Read morePakistan: race between jihad and democracy?
Lawyers across Pakistan boycotted courts July 18, the day after a bomb attack on an anti-government rally by attorneys in Islamabad killed 15 people. Gen Musharraf strongly condemned the “terrorist attack” and called for calm, but lawyers called the blast… Read moreLawyers protest Islamabad terror
With more than 70 killed in bombings over the weekend, Pakistan appears to be lurching towards civil war in the aftermath of the Red Mosque attack. A suicide bomber killed at least 26, including six police, and wounded over 50… Read morePakistan: tribal truce called off amid resurgent terror
A suicide bomber targeted a NATO patrol in a marketplace filled with children in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province July 10, killing 13 elementary-school students and at least four other people. Eight Dutch soldiers and at least 35 Afghans were wounded. The… Read moreAfghanistan: the new Iraq?
Gee, just what Musharraf needs—the State Department weighing in for his repression, augmenting the (accurate) perception that he is Washington’s toady. Don’t they have enough sense to keep quiet? This brings Pakistan one step closer to an Islamist coup, which… Read morePakistan: US-approved state terror
From Reporters Without Borders (RSF), via the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), July 6: Reporters Without Borders has condemned the arrests of two journalists by intelligence officers in the past six days. Both Mohammad Asif Nang, editor of the… Read moreAfghanistan: dissident journalists arrested
Security forces arrested Maulana Abdul Aziz, imam of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, as he attempted to escape covered in a burqa with a group of similarly clad women July 4. More than 1,000 of his followers surrendered… Read morePakistan: Red Mosque imam escapes in drag —almost
Ten civilians were killed June 23 inside the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan in a mortar attack from Afghan territory—fired by foreign forces, a local authorities say. “Ten innocent people were reported killed when some mortars hit civilians in… Read moreWaziristan: NATO bombing Pakistani territory?
A NATO air-strike on supposed Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan has killed dozens of civilians, including women, children and a Muslim cleric, Afghan officials charged June 22. The clash began the previous night when Taliban fighters attacked NATO troops in… Read moreAfghanistan: air raid kills civilians —again
Pakistan is nearing completion of a previously unknown plutonium-producing reactor at Khushab, approximately 109 miles south of Islamabad, the third such facility at the complex, a new satellite photo reveals. David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and… Read morePakistan expands plutonium production
Freedom’s on the march. From India’s Zee News, June 19 (emphasis added): KABUL — Forced to wear yellow patches in the days of the Taliban, the homesick Sikhs of Afghanistan still hide in back alleys and yearn for India. In… Read moreAfghanistan: Sikhs still ostracized, terrorized
At least 22 people were killed and 10 wounded when a missile hit a cluster of compounds in Datakhel district of Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, locals said. Taliban leaders said the death toll was as high as 32. Reports… Read moreWaziristan: 22 killed in madrassa missile strike?
