The Daily PakistanPolitics Feb 16-28, 2017

• Feb28-2017--Given the perky nature of pakistani governance the PMLn regime has announced that all retired CJ's will be given bullet proof cars...as they have been unable to get back the car given to iftikhar chaudhry...!everyone gets bullet proof security apart from the people...many suggest that is might be one of the perks to buy a panama judgement...!
  
• Feb28-2017--The PMLn government decides to hold the meaningless PSL final in lahore..while the tribals have really not been able to mount a terrorist assault the few attacks have left their mark...The government aims to isolate the stadium and the players and check everyone entering biometrically with walk in gates...!...even though the stadium can be protected it would look odd as the streets would be empty...creating a security cordon isolates the government and the people who enter the stadium are taking more of a chance than the players and government...rumours abound that one hundred suicide bombers are on their way to lahore for the one hundred killed by the army on indian orders...!while that is impossible to do it is still taking a chance...even if one suicide bomber gets thru somehow the government will be left with egg all over its face...The Rangers takeover also is rumoured to provide security to senior army officials rather than the people as army officers had started to feel uneasy even travelling to lahore even though the motorway is under their control too...!The Rangers seem to have been fending off an imaginary threat which is usually well hidden in punjabs teeming populace...with pukhtuns literally all over the place there is little or no real information unless an action takes place...! facilitators and supporters of terrorism are all over the place and can hide themselves in real life...!The police limited to their offices and the Rangers only acting on some sort of tipoffs...!while trouble can be created by just blowing up a power pylon in New garden Town...!many are rumouring that guarantees have been provided by none other than Shahid afridi and some lesser know people such as Kamran akmal and Inzamamul Haq of the religious/terrorist lobbies...while shahid afridi might be a tribal one doubts he has any real linkages to terrorist groups...!he has been known in the past to gaurantee the indians that they would win a world t20 cup...!Anyway the most damaging gaurantee has apparently come from terrorists themselves that they will hold off until they hold the final...!Peshawar zalmi still has a realistic chance even though spot fixing seems to rule the roost..So if something happens shahid afridi will probably spend teh rest of his life in jail...!apparently sarfraz has been picking up wickets by suggesting that he will drop them from the team...!
  
• Feb27-2017--asfandyar Khan threatens punjabis in KP if terror prone pukhtuns are profiled in the punjab...most of the pukhtuns have literally been running their own terror war against punjabis by supporting the terrorists
  
• Feb27-2017--The Pakistan Steel Mills land is apparently up for grabs...Nawaz Sharif wants to loot 1500 acres for an industrial park...Sindh Board of Revenue looted 1770 acres at 1 rupee per sq yard...157 acres looted by Port Qasim authority...930 acres leased by shaukat aziz government for an industrial park free..a 220 acre plot given to al tawriqi steel mills who pledged it to a bank and fled...there is also a 300MW power plant which alone could have been profitable in current circumstances...!
  
• Feb27-2017--There have been slim pickings for the Rangers in Punjab...most of the targets have been criminal type outposts
  based on police hit lists...in rawalpindi police shot dead two brothers working in the atomic energy/agricultural bank as they raided a car thief...!The Rangers have also advertised contact numbers so that local troublemakers can be pointed out..
  
• Feb23-2017--On the first day of the Rangers takeover of punjab where they have threatened operations all over the country...a bomb blast occurred in defence 5 phase Z in an under construction building...seven killed...!This is probably the first or second DHA blast...there are already eight DHA's in lahore spread over a wide area...seen widely as a 'Perkistan' for the armies officers where they buy plots at low prices and sell them at a premium!a DHA blast in karachi blew up the house of a karachi police official...!The current punjab operation will probably be directed at the LJ and pukhtun/tribal/afghan type terrorists...the LJ seems to have been the armies favorite target in the last few months...however since bombers emerge at regular intervals there might be operations in larger population centers...the building that got blasted was the site of a police officers restaurant...!while the police said later that the blast was the result of 11 gas cylinders the victims were blown more than a hundred feet away and there was suspiciously no fire...
  
• Feb23-2017--In what many suggest is a comedy of errors..the army chief ordered firing across the afghan border...our fauji cheerleaders interpreted that as a surgical strike...however a day later the army chief decided to work closely with afghanistan and stopped the firing...he than rushed to Bhimber and condemned indian firing across the LOC which had killed three soldiers...! he than rushed to lahore where the Rangers have occupied punjab...many just hope that there will not be another two decades of violence as in the Rangers karachi takeover where they had arrived in 1999 and are still trying to get along...so as they say be prepared for the worst...
  
• Feb22-2017--The Shariat Court okays test tube babies...but declares surrogacy anti islamic!!
  
• Feb22-2017--The COAS who has shown some attitude in shelling afghanistan based militants on the border persists in pathetic oratory while visiting Bhimber where three soldiers were killed recently in indian firing...!many think that the indian firing is not properly understood by the pakistan army...The indians whatever their thinking must be thrashed properly...they could just be firing to cover their own infiltrators...
  
• Feb22-2017--three suicide bombers attempt raid on charsadda courts but run into police...seven plus three bombers killed...!
  
• Feb22-2017--The LHC suspended the government notification giving ministries oversight of regulatory bodies..organizations like Nepra have been running unbridled neither caring for the people or the government and giving ethnic advantages to provincial governments..The country is long past the era when royalties were required and instead of ending them Nepra has been using them for increasing electricity bills without concern for the populaces...!these pathetic regulatory organizations have been loading the people with the losses incurred by utilities based on instructions from IMF and WB...Though the governments interests in regulating the regulators might be in the interests of the chinese they too wanted higher rates...The CCI too has been mired in ethnic concerns rather than any positive attitudes concerning the people
  
• Feb22-2017--The SC seemed pretty anxious to see some compliance from the NAB chief for its urging that he should revisit the cases that he had left in the dustheap and why he had not gone in appeal against a LHC decision which on paper seems quite pathetic...!The judges wanted reopening of the Hudaibia reference on money laundering which was self confessed by none other than the financial genius of the PMLn...!The NAB chief suggested that he would face the wrath of the PMLn and the interior ministry who he apparently termed as his regulators...!
  
• Feb21-2017--Pakistan succumbs to afghan threats and stops firing across the border..The afghans have presented their own list of 36 camps and 85 terrorists and threatened to work for sanctions against pakistan...The pakistan army chief instead of standing his ground said that they were willing to cooperate with afghanistan
  
• Feb21-2017--The SSD the CPEC protection force consists of 15000 men..only a few of them have been visible however CPEC projects have a five kilometer range security by the army force..
  
• Feb21-2017--The SBP warns banks and money changers that they cannot decide to change rates for old style dollar notes and small denomination notes...!money changers have been offering substantially reduced rates for smaller denominations saying they cannot sell them as well as old style dollar notes...eg. a 20 dollar note is bought for 2000 ruppes while old notes have a rate reduced by two rupees per dollar.
  
• Feb21-2017--eight killed in anti terrorist aerial bombings in NWA while a facilitators house blownup in Bajaur while search operations carried out in tank and swabi
  
• Feb21-2017--The Lal Masjid Shuhada foundation(not the same as Rahul Shareef's) has protested the indiscriminate killing of mullahs in karachi and elswhere by the army in response to the Sehwan blast when the perpretrators/originators are afghan...!Sindh on the other hand will resort to hindu style dances and music to stop further terrorist attacks on shrines...!...In Rawalpindi five day polio drive delayed due to Mumtaz Qadri anniversary...!
  
• Feb20-2017--while the new islamabad airport has two runways they are so close that they cannot be used simultaneously..now CAA is acquiring land on the opposite side of the terminal for the third runway..it will obviously need its own terminal building and some say also a seperate airtower...many suggest that both runways can be used one after the other with a small time gap...!
  
• Feb20-2017--While NAP on terrorism is being targeted by politicians there is not much init that will stop terrorism...our intelligence agencies including the ISI are totally ineffective...information they receive is usually vague...while seminaries maybe controlled further most of terror stems from tribal areas...a militant was shot dead in quetta while parliament now is willing to again reinstate military courts
  
• Feb20-2017--40 parks in rawalpindi were shut down due to a security threat while those in the cantonement were not..a door to door checking operation underway in rawalpindi cantt...
  
• Feb20-2017--The punjab government collapsed and called in the army Apex committee and asked for Rangers operations...The Punjab Rangers are not a policing operation and probably not as effective as the Sindh Rangers in karachi who have been at it for two decades
  
• Feb20-2017--The airforce jumped in as well and bombed NWA areas where regrouping of militants was reported while shelling across the border continued
  
• Feb19-2017--In what can at best be declared a change of tactics the army apparently fired 200 shells at JuA and TTP encampments across the afghan border in Lalpur and Sarkano killing over 38 militants...afghanistan has protested and suggested that pakistan work against anti afghan groups onits side of the border. Pakistan has cleared out afghan groups and is mostly concerned with terrorist attackers supposedly coming across from afghanistan...Upto now pakistan army has clearly avoided interfering across the border while the afghans have been firing mortars occasionally...The government onits part is suggesting another amendment to restart the failed military courts...all they actually need to do is get the SC to remove the stay against executions...however whether the executions can now take place without the existence of military courts is questionable...at the moment the pakistan system is working at cross purposes with teh military critising teh government and theprovincial governments working on their own..punjab says it has effectively blocked terrorism while teh occasional bombings continue...The raheel shareef system of apex control committees failed as a system and sone suggest that teh provincial governments heaved a sigh of relief at his leaving office...we are now back to the army doing what it wants to do with the army chief being propagated into another larger than life figure...teh system top heavy as it is is guaranteed to fail and some have suggested the army chief wants teh political government to lead rather than cower under army and political pressure/propaganda...The governments however seem to prefer wrangling with all and sundry rather than effectively focus on work in progress...The appointment of a terrorism with complete control of intelligence, military and judicial processes is probably what is needed since teh government and army are generally believers in halfmeasures..the militants on teh other hand regard themselves as implementers of teh power of God and refuse tobe cowed down and have shown tremendous resistance boomeranging back again and again...!
  
• Feb18-2017--The situation in the country is fast deteriorating in the law and order domain as terrorists attacked on all fronts..the military too has retaliated in kind...many suggest that the low level insurgency could start a civil war between the militants and the army...Others suggest it looks like a 'cold start ' to many...there are some indications that it might be controlled from inside afghanistan or even india...The JuA in its recent video had suggested that an all out attack is imminent in which they had named the military, police, judiciary and those acting against islam as their key targets...they had suggested that public places would not be attacked however the two recent attacks have been at public places...with a variety of terrorist outfits the main two now seem tobe emerging as the JuA and the IS...The military and punjab police has however concentrated its attacks on the LJ which is said tobe part of AQOC...many suggest that shows that the government and army is being run by shiite sympathisers which adds fuel to the militant mind...while the terrorists can not be said tobe very large in numbers but they do seem to have the arsenals to perturb the countries populace...The army while said tobe effective has not been able to eliminate or decrease their stop start fire methodology...in most cases as the army attacks on one front the militants move to another...The Raheel Shareef era seemed to end peacefully but the new army chief also seems to want to go to war...The politicians seem divided on whether a military response against some countries is required...!many others point to the rough edges of the Trump regime and their extreme right wing natures as the cause of the trouble
  
• Feb18-2017--The army in what many see as a response to their own failures in getting the government to do their bidding went on the rampage and according to press reports killed a hundred terrorists all over the country...The militaries earlier methods saw the terrorists move from one area to another without losing any strength or effectiveness as their only weapon was occasional terrorist attacks which all have a similar effect...the army chief has suggested that they are avenging or taking revenge for killings in terrorist attacks...The military had again suggested that they be the only judiciary for terrorists...however the sehwan attack caused there supposed common sense to be severely eroded...many also suspect that the almost continuous attacks in the last few days were too much for the military to tolerate...!The government had been slow in responding to their request for the position of judicial killers in chief and many had suggested that it might be a campaign to set the government straight and allow the military chief to approve terrorist death sentences...The military attacks seem to suggest a deviation from careful planning and attacks after careful study and killing only those that were directly responsible...however press reports again suggest that the attacks were directed mainly at the LJ in karachi and that the military has a weakness in apprehending kalashnikov wielding mullahs or terrorists...No clear information is available on the militaries personal war apart from suggesting that terrorists have been killed all over the country mainly in the countries populous cities...27 were killed by Rangers and police in karachi which has become a center of religious militants who take cover under the ethnic militancy in the area...another 36 were apparently killed in KP while two were killed in Quetta...It seems tobe generally a mindless campaign from both sides...and the new army chief could have succumbed from the pressure of creating an image to match the former army chief's...also in contrast to the former chiefs tolerance for afghan shenanigans the army urged the afghani government /Nato to go after the 76 pakistani militants hiding there...whether the JuA leaders are also hiding in afghanistan is anybodies guess...!In lahore they say that a facilitor of the punjab assembly attack was apprehended thru images from monitoring camera's causing the chief minister to say that they had a busted an afghan managed cell...the chief minister however fell into political rhetoric when Imran Khan suggested that the army carry out a grand operation in punjab...It suggests clearly that PMLn is unnerved by the PTI...! while the punjab police has carried out some say desperate acts against militancy including gunning down the leadership of the LJ... Imran Khan will have to realize that grand operations against an entrenched militancy hardly achieve anything...
  
• Feb18-2017-Imran Khan files an affidavit in the SC that the Sharifs defence is based on suggestions that money laundered thru Qatari's becomes whitened and that a conflict in the ownership of the Nawaz Sharif flats in london exists ...it is obvious that if the SC is to give an honest judgement it will have to give it against the leadership of the Sharif family which is headed by Nawaz Sharif...whether there is a possibility of the political banning of Maryam Nawaz and Hussein Nawaz is at the moment immmaterial..it all seems a scam for the gimmicky grandfather to leave his wealth to Nawaz Sharif which is also besides the point...Nawaz has tried to hide illgotten wealth and its gains and should be directly held responsible...!However an extreme SC judgement could share the blame amongst all the sharif's and give an anti dynasty judgement thus causing the sharifs tobe assigned to the dustheap of history for all eternity...!
  
• Feb18-2017-In further confirmation of the government being literally floored by indian propaganda... the punjab government has named Hafiz Saeed and his key associates in the fourth schedule...The indians have failed to prove anything against Hafiz Saeed...however the government had confiscated a non functional school of Hafiz Saeed in muridke and shutdown some other dispensaries and charity projects...The government had than suggested that the school would have been a conduit for kashmiri liberationists...Dawn suggests that the army which had objected defensively to the move is behind the actions..suggesting a mild change between Raheel Shareef and Qamar Javed...!...The indian army chief on the other hand threatened all kashmiris...The LeJ was thus a key kashmiri liberation organisation but there military group got sidelined in attacking places like the indian parliament...however Hafiz Saeed was not the head of the LeJ but led their education and charity wing...most of their funds came from collection boxes and rich pakistanis...!