Word: musharraf
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Musharraf mounted those tigers voluntarily, reversing his own military's pre-9/11 support for the Taliban and the insurgency in Kashmir. These moves strengthened his international support?but hardened opposition to his government both regionally and within Pakistan. "There are forces in India not interested in peace," says Muhammad Ali Durrani, a pro-Musharraf senator. "Forces in Afghanistan who don't want stability in the region, and forces in Pakistan who are not interested in a progressive, Muslim democracy?all of these are linking together to hit Musharraf." The Dec. 14 attackers used powerful explosives, which, combined with...
...from al-Qaeda and the Taliban was expected, especially as many of them are believed to be hiding out in remote tribal areas of Pakistan itself. With his crackdown on the militants?many of whom Pakistan had previously trained and helped sneak into the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir?Musharraf has been playing a perilously nuanced game. To satisfy both the U.S. and India, he closed the offices and training camps of militant organizations, but has yet to dismantle them. For his efforts, he's been branded a traitor by supporters of the Kashmiris' fight for independence from India...
...scariest scenario is that Musharraf's fellow military officers are plotting against him. (Musharraf could cede control of the military in months; under the agreement with legislators legitimizing his presidency, he promised to step down as army Chief of Staff by 2005.) Many in the military are more Islamic-minded than the President; others are angered by his abandonment of the Taliban, which the Pakistani armed forces helped create, and of Kashmiri jihadis, whom they aided. The circumstances of the December attacks suggest inside help. The plotters apparently knew the President's route and schedule and, in the Christmas attack...
...including soldiers brandishing machine guns at key intersections in Islamabad, descended on the capital in preparation for the regional South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference. And last week's oath-taking by Nazim Hussain Siddiqi, the new Chief Justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, was held at Musharraf's Rawalpindi residence rather than the grand presidential palace in Islamabad, the customary venue. "That's like having your Chief Justice sworn in at the Pentagon," says Aitzaz Ahsan, an opposition parliamentarian...
...Some U.S. officials view the President's heightened vulnerability as a perverse kind of proof that they're backing the right man. "Frankly, the assassination attempts are another indication that Musharraf is going in the direction that we'd like him to," confides a Bush Administration official. "These are people who in the past thought they could get him to do what they wanted," the Administration official continues. "They now feel that the only course open to them is violence. That, I hope, is a sign of desperation and not of strength." And the murder attempts might backfire...