Word: islamabad
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Pakistani authorities have pledged to investigate Friday's bombing in the capital, Islamabad - the second apparent suicide bombing in a week - but no official inquiry is needed to tell Pakistanis that their country is in the middle of a fast-escalating crisis. Hanging in the balance: the presidency of Pervez Musharraf and the future of Pakistan itself. "We always have one or two crises on our hands [in Pakistan], but this is critical," says I.A. Rehman, chairman of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, a non-governmental group...
When General Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999, he promised to bring law and order to Pakistan. Yet the country has been anything but orderly of late, with controversy in its Supreme Court and a deadly raid on Islamabad's pro-Taliban Red Mosque. The White House is pressing Musharraf, a longtime ally, to take a more forceful stand against al-Qaeda strongholds. Here are the four key players...
...Pakistan, the military has always held power, even when civilians are nominally in charge. And as former State Department official Daniel Markey notes in Foreign Affairs, many Pakistani officers distrust the U.S. because we cut off aid in the 1990s. Threatening to do so again would probably push Islamabad into the arms of its other big ally, China, and make it even less helpful in the struggle against the Taliban and al-Qaeda...
...indications are that Musharraf will accept today's decision rather than fight it. His Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, told the state media that the government will honor the Supreme Court ruling, a point Musharraf has made several times over the past weeks. Humayun Gohar, editor-in-chief of the Islamabad based business magazine Blue Chip, says the ruling will "weaken Musharraf" but believes it could also be a blessing in disguise for the government. They "are fighting on several fronts and now one front is closed. If the government is sensible, it will accept the decision," says Gohar...
Until the court reengages Musharraf on that issue, the President can deal with the other, hotter front in his battle to remain in charge of Pakistan. In the two weeks since Musharraf ordered the army into Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, to arrest Islamic extremists - an order that resulted in the deaths of dozens of militants and ten soldiers - Pakistan's Islamist extremists have retaliated with a series of attacks that have killed more than 180 people, most of them soldiers and police. A U.S. intelligence report this week concluded that Pakistan's policy of non-engagement...