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The dream of a new start in Pakistan
Wahab Riaz axed from squad for Bangladesh series
PM orders NHA to resume work on Lowari Tunnel
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pakistantoday.com.pk
rs15.00 vol ii no 146 32 pages islamabad — peshawar edition
15 FC personnel killed in Balochistan QUETTA SHaHzada zULfiqar
Suspected Baloch militants killed at least 15 soldiers of the Frontier Corps, including a major, in an ambush in the province’s Musa Khel’s area on Monday. It was one of the deadliest attacks on troops and marked the highest number of military personnel dead in a single incident since March when friendly fire killed 13 soldiers on the northwestern border with Afghanistan. Up to four dozen militants struck before dawn in the Musa Khel district, 400 kilometres southeast of Quetta. The military said the troops were guarding a private coal mine and blamed the attack on Baloch militants, who rose up in 2004 to demand political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the province’s wealth of natural resources. The Baloch Liberation Army accepted responsibility for the attack. “Fourteen paramilitary per-
sonnel, including a major, were killed and several others were wounded. Baloch militants were involved,” an official said. The deceased were identified as Major Amir Shezad, Lance Naik Moqarab, Subedar Baro Khan, Hawaldar Abdul Ghafoor and Sepoys Mera Jan, Ghulam Sarwar, Moibullah, Zubair Ahmad, Abdul Ghani, Mohammad Asif, Hafiz Tauseeq, Zahoor Hussain, Sabir Saeed and Abdul Hameed. Frontier Corps Spokesman Murtaza Baig told reporters that the deceased security personnel belonged to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, adding that their bodies had been flown to their native towns for burial. Security officials said the militants were armed with automatic weapons and that most of the soldiers died from gunshot wounds in the remote area. The BLA claimed that a severe gunbattle between Baloch Sarmachars (fighters) and the security forces led to the killing of 40 security personnel and in-
juries to several. He said around 30 to 35 weapons were taken into possession by the Sarmachars after the gunbattle. ANOTHER ATTACK? He also claimed that in another attack on Monday, Sarmachars attacked FC men in four areas of Hun in Barkhan district, Mawand, Chapi Kachh, Jandaran in Kohlu and killed 11 of them and injured another 18. However, security sources rejected the claim. FC officials told Pakistan Today that the gunbattle lasted several hours and a number of Baloch militants might also have been killed, but did not know the exact number of casualties. On the other hand, the spokesman for the Baloch National Voice, a separatist group said security forces had launched a search operation in Chamalang and its adjacent areas and arrested dozens of innocent people. Official sources said in another incident, militants fired over 30 rockets on security checkposts in the Kohlu area. However, no casualty was reported.
tuesday, 22 november, 2011 zul-haj 25, 1432
HIS SIDE OF THE STORY
Haqqani walks the tightrope g
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Envoy to US to explain his position before president, pM, army chief and iSi DG Former US nSA James Jones says he delivered memo to Mullen ISLAMABAD
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JHELUM: Pakistani and Chinese troops participate in a joint military exercise on Monday. inp
MiaN aBrar
AKISTAN’S Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani will formally appear before President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani today, with Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha also likely in attendance, to face the allegation of conspiring against state institutions with his involvement in the memo controversy. Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, the man who implicated Haqqani in the scandal, has claimed that Haqqani had hinted at President Zardari’s hand in the memo, which warned of and sought assistance against a possible military takeover after Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad in a covert US raid on May 2. “The meeting will take place on Tuesday (today) afternoon,” a source confirmed to Pakistan Today, adding that the prime minister was expected to return to Islamabad from Lahore on Monday night. As speculation about the fate of Haqqani was rife in the federal capital throughout the day and all eyes remained trained on the Presidency to notice any extraordinary movement to and from the Aiwan-e-Sadr, quiet in-house consultations continued for the second day on Monday as President Zardari held several brainstorming sessions with his close aides and legal experts to examine the situation, which has posed a huge challenge for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led coalition government. A source privy to the developments said the president did not attend his office on Monday despite it being the first working day of the week, and rather his scheduled meetings with
two federal ministers, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour and Mir Israrullah Zehri, were rescheduled for the evening. It is interesting to note that Prime Minister Gilani was not involved in the consultation process. Gilani, who spent his day on Monday sitting idle in Lahore without any specific agenda apart from a single meeting, did not travel to the federal capital despite his usual schedule of meeting around half a dozen delegations every day during the National Assembly session. The source said the focus of the deliberations was whether or not to go for legal action against Ijaz for making serious allegations against Haqqani. The source said one of the options under consideration was to take the matter to court once the government got to the bottom of the controversy. GENERAL JONES: The controversy refuses to die down and is taking a new twist with every passing day. On Monday, Former US national security adviser James Jones said he was the intermediary who delivered the controversial memo to former US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen. Continued on page 04
haqqani will sue ijaz if ppp approves | page 04
SC questions government’s protection of nRO ISLAMABAD MaSOOd rEHMaN
Questioning the protection of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), a law enacted by a dictator, by a democratic government, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry observed on Monday that the federation had never accepted this “black law” and parliament had not ratified it. The chief justice was heading a 17member larger bench of the Supreme Court hearing the government’s review petition against the court’s December 16, 2009 verdict declaring the NRO, promulgated by former president Pervez Musharraf, unconstitutional. The court directed the
government to file its written reply by Tuesday (today) over the threats received by the federation’s former counsel Kamal Azfar after he was separated from the NRO case. The court also directed Azfar to appear before it on Tuesday. The government submitted an application to engage Dr Babar Awan as its counsel in the review plea against the NRO verdict. The court directed Awan to argue before the court today on the maintainability of the review petition and held that it would decide later on whether he could argue the case as the federation’s counsel. Awan told the court that various developments had taken place during the time the review plea was pending. He said Latif Khosa, who was engaged as the counsel after Azfar, had since become the gover-
nor of Punjab. The court asked Awan about the reasons behind the separation of Azfar from the case. The court also provided him a letter from Azfar about the threats he had received, and asked him to read it. To a court query, Awan stated that when the review petition was filed in the apex court, Masood Chishti was not a law minister, instead he was a lawyer of the Supreme Court. Justice Mian Saqib Nisar said that meant that Chishti was not competent to file the review petition in the apex court. Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa enquired why the attorney general, being a principal law officer, was not appearing in court to represent the federation and told Awan to explain the reasons by Tuesday. Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali questioned whether
a drama was staged by sidelining Azfar from the NRO case just to delay its hearing. The chief justice remarked that Azfar was a senior lawyer of the apex court who was threatened and later sidelined from the NRO case. “Why did the government fail to protect its lawyer?” the chief justice asked, and told Awan to submit the government’s written reply over the separation of Azfar from the NRO case. Awan said he had met Azfar but he did not talk about any threats. “That means Kamal Azfar has no fear of any threats and can argue [the case] before the court,” Justice Nasirul Mulk said. Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany noted that under the Supreme Court Rules, there was no provision for change of lawyer in the re-
view plea stage. Awan, however, contended that the Supreme Court Rules had no dominance over the constitution, which permitted the government to hire its counsel of choice. “Supreme Court Rules were framed according to the constitution,” Justice Osmany replied. The chief justice said even parliament had not ratified the NRO, and not a single beneficiary of the ordinance had come to the Supreme Court against its judgement. “We don’t know why the democratic government is supporting the law enacted by a dictator,” the chief justice noted, adding that even former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in her book, was critical of the law. The court later adjourned further hearing until Tuesday (today).