By Anwaar Hussain

SitRep is a military acronym for Situation Report.

Following is Pakistan’s SitRep for the past fortnight or so.

Murder and carnage continues unabated in Pakistan. On May 27, Lahore was struck yet again by a suicide bomber. The primary target seemed to be the ISI building but, owing to good defenses, could not be penetrated. The attackers instead hit their secondary target, the police Rescue15 building adjacent to the primary target. Result– twenty-six dead, including fifteen policemen and an ISI colonel, and many hundreds injured.

Just twenty-four hours later the bombers struck with a twin-bomb attack, this time the celebrated Kissa Khwani Bazaar of Peshawar. Casualties– eight dead and over sixty injured. Another explosion in the city of Dera Ismail Khan left three dead and a dozen injured. On June 1, an explosion in Kohat killed two and left seven injured. Continue Reading »

By Anwaar Hussain

To the Inuit we shall come in a moment. COINOPS first.

COINOPS is the military acronym for Counterinsurgency Operations.

It is heartening to note that the Pakistan Army has finally woken up to the call. Gone is the dilly dallying that one saw all these years. Gone also are the excuses that this was counterinsurgency combat and they were not cut out for such an unconventional warfare, and that the enemy were only our own countrymen and blah blah blah.

After having finally realized that the experiment of preparing a witches’ brew by mixing religious zealotry with geostrategic ambitions had gone horribly off beam, that the rats that they had turned into monsters had finally come calling on their own masters, Pakistan Army is now in top battle gear. Terminate, terminate, terminate are the buzzword on every signal dispatch from the higher HQ to the field command. The soldiers are now in Malakand, with their boots on the ground and guns blazing. In stunning actions conducted while on foot patrol, eyeball to eyeball with the unwashed godmen, they are dispatching post haste their strategic assets, their own creations, to less strategic oblivion. Godspeed is what one wishes them of course, and not merely because the scribe had been exhorting the army to adopt these very tactics for a long time now.

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By Kamran Shafi

In the very recent past there has been some sanctimonious, and quite sickening, hectoring in a section of the press to the effect that Pakistanis were not standing behind their army like other people. Such as the Americans tying yellow ribbons in honour of the soldiers fighting ‘wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan.

About the allegation that Pakistanis are not supporting their army like the Americans are theirs, let us for the moment leave aside the fact that before this latest action in Swat and Buner (that came about, let us not kid ourselves, after a massive American kick) the army’s performance was dismal to say the least. And, since the comparison is with the ‘patriotic’ people of the United States let us for now just look at the face the American army shows to its people.

I have been to Fort Myer in Virginia with my chum and course-mate Zafar Kayani who was married to Colonel Jo Ann Kayani, now sadly passed on, good and gracious woman. Jo Ann was commander of Headquarters Company, US Army, stationed at Fort Myer and it was my pleasure to visit not only her spartan office but also the canteen where officers ate alongside privates, carrying their own trays and standing in line waiting their turn. Fort Myer serves the Washington D.C. military district and the senior-most officers serving in the Pentagon live there. I have had the pleasure of seeing Gen Colin Powell, then chief of the joint staff, mow his own lawn in one of a row of houses that housed him and other senior generals including the chief of the army staff. The houses were in typically American suburban style: no walls, with sloping lawns running onto the pavements. Continue Reading »

Continued from part-1

By Anwaar Hussain

Alice’s shriek of terror surprised every one. It rose from the depths of her soul and escaped her throat with a gut-wrenching force. Everyone froze while it echoed eerily in the cave bouncing from wall to wall.

Taking advantage of this brief moment of paralysis, Alice bolted towards the nearest cave opening. But before she could get out of the room, she found herself falling yet again straight down another hole. The fear, the fall and the dangerous uncertainty of her situation overwhelmed her and she lost consciousness. Her last memory was that of the Talib gesticulating wildly to the Taliban group and their long knives flashing in the dim light.

When she came to, she found a kind faced Talib observing her keenly from a distance. Alice abruptly sat upright and looked around in alarm.

“Relax”, said the kind faced Talib. “That was Mad Hater that you met up there. You were supposed to have met me first. Somehow that did not happen. You see Mad Hater cannot stay normal for a very long time. You also didn’t help by your probing questions. The script went horribly wrong actually. It won’t happen now. From now on you are going to be chaperoned by me.” Continue Reading »

By Anwaar Hussain

Can WE hear it? The rumble in the distance? It is getting closer. Perhaps every one can hear it now.

The rumble in the distance, my friends, is that of the advance of the hordes. They are descending from the mountains. And they bring with them tidings from an ancient past long gone by. They want to take us back in time to face the future. And WE sleep–a sleep that will soon be extended into eternity for us if WE don’t wake up. But first it will turn into a nightmare. It already has.

But have WE seen and heard enough? Or is there still some doubt left about the people who mouth sham obeisance to God while being in the service of the devil? Have WE finally seen through their fake religiosity? That it is but a golden shoe with which to beat any one who opposes them? Have WE?

What did you say? It is only a class struggle between haves and have nots? Did I hear you right?

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