Word: islamabad
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Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried - and, as expected, failed - to get past a line of some 300 riot policemen in Islamabad on Thursday. In what may be a pre-election publicity stunt, Sharif had been trying to visit the deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who has been held under house arrest since President Pervez Musharraf instituted emergency rule on November 3. While hundreds of supporters chanted his name, police turned Sharif back at the concrete and barbed wire barricades. Undeterred, he addressed the crowd, saying, "I have come here to express solidarity with the Chief Justice...
...journalists, and to oust the Supreme Court judges who were about to pronounce his recent re-election as President unconstitutional. (On Nov. 19, a newly reconstituted Supreme Court comprising Musharraf loyalists decreed his re-election lawful.) While the government concentrates on putting out opposition rallies in the capital Islamabad, extremist wildfires are erupting across the land. Since the imposition of emergency rule, the violence has actually gotten worse: sectarian strife on the Afghan border has claimed more than 100 lives, and at least four police and eight frontier-corps soldiers have been beheaded in Swat. "Musharraf's emergency was just...
...Taliban, fleeing the U.S. assault on their bases in Afghanistan, have taken advantage of the porous border between the countries to regroup in the remote, mountainous tribal areas of Waziristan. But Swat is different. The virtual takeover by extremists of a populous, settled area so close to Islamabad marks a significant advance in local militancy. "Swat is a symbol," says a Western military official based in Islamabad. "Mullah Fazlullah's influence is spreading - it doesn't look good...
...Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule, and has refrained from demanding the restoration of democracy. New Delhi is reluctant to denounce the man it has come to reluctantly regard as its best chance for peace with its neighbor, whether fleeting or long-lasting. Indeed, New Delhi's relations with Islamabad have lately been better than ever. A four-year peace process launched under Musharraf has reduced cross-border infiltration by militants onto the Indian side of the Line of Control that divides Kashmir, and has also led to sizable gains in cross-border trade. For the first time...
...political equation is becoming increasingly complex. Musharraf is currently visiting Saudi Arabia, which has long-standing close ties with Islamabad - and is also the exile home of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf overthrew in 1999. While Benazir Bhutto has returned to demanding that Musharraf resign following the breakdown of the political marriage between them brokered by the U.S., Musharraf may be trying to bring Nawaz Sharif over to his side. A Musharraf pact with Sharif would be even stranger than his short-lived alliance with Bhutto. But regardless of the outcome of the political maneuvering, New Delhi will...