NOVANEWS
By Sajjad Shaukat
Since the Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Chief Hakimullah Mehsud was killed by the US
drone strikes on November 1, this year, leaders of the ruling and opposition parties including
prominent figures and Unlmas (Religious scholars) have stared taking the event as a conspiracy
In this regard, Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ahmad Khan said on November 1
that killing of the TTP leader, Hakimullah Mehsud in the US drone strikes is a conspiracy to
sabotage process of peace talk with the Taliban. He pointed out that it had been decided by the
government that a delegation would be sent on November 2 to initiate the process of dialogue
with the Taliban, and the US ambassador had assured him that drone attacks would not be
carried out during the peace talks. He explained that if the US was to kill Hakimullah then there
were number of occasions in the past but they did not do it. He added that the entire perspective
of Pakistan-US relations and cooperation would be reviewed.
However, majority of the political leaders like Munawar Hassan of Jamaat-e-Islami, opposition
leader Khursheed Shah and Imran Khan of Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have termed drone strikes
which targeted Hakimullah Mehsud as a conspiracy to thwart peace dialogue with the militants.
It is mentionable that by setting aside the parliament resolution, the trip of Director General of
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam to America, rallies and processions
of Pakistan’s political and religious parties—even opinion of the experts of international law
that these drone attacks are illegal, unethical and violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty as well as
the UN Charter, while ignoring the recent report of Amnesty International, decision of the All
Parties Conference (APC), and the Pak-US new rapprochement, these strikes have kept on going
While, many political analysts see strikes by the CIA-pilotless aircraft in Pakistan in isolation,
but, there is a co-relationship of other subversive activities which have perennially been taking
place in various regions as part of the US secret strategy against the country.
When in the past, the former government of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had signed the
peace agreement with the TTP; US had opposed it, and had accelerated attacks by the unmanned
aircraft so as to castigate it. Owing to the American policy, Pakistan faced dire consequences
because TTP suspended peace agreement, and also occupied Swat, Dir, Buner and other
adjoining areas. When Pakistan’s armed forces successfully ejected the TTP militants out of
these areas, the leader of the TTP Maulvi Fazlullah who had close connections with Pakistan-
based TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud, had run to Afghanistan. Based in the Afghan provinces
of Kunar and Nuristan, his insurgents intensified subversive activities in Pakistan by sending
suicide bombers and heavily-equipped militants in the country. Pakistan’s civil and military
leadership lodged a strong protest with their counterparts in Afghanistan, but no action was taken
against these terrorists.
In fact, in order to fulfill collective covert designs of India, Israel and US, TTP has been given
a free hand by these countries to continue acts of sabotage in Pakistan because it is the only
nuclear country in the Islamic world. In this regard, Pak-China strategic ties and Pak-Iranian
close friendship also irritate them.
Such American duplicity contains a number of clandestine aims. In the recent months, the fresh
wave of strikes by the spy planes has thwarted the offer of Taliban for peace talks with the
government led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. And, the TTP accelerated subversive activities
Now, by killing the TTP leader, US has not only caused suspension of peace process, but also
provided a pretext to the Taliban outfit to conduct more terror-attacks in the country, which has
almost started. In this context, blaming the Pakistan government for the killing of Hakimullah
Mehsud in the US drone attack, the TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid announced on
November 3 that they would not hold any peace negotiations with the government and threatened
to avenge the killing of their leader.
Besides increasing recruitment of insurgents, these latest strikes are likely to unite the various
Taliban factions, inciting them against Pakistan’s security forces whose checkposts have
been targeted by these insurgents from time to time. Another aim of these aerial strikes is to
create a rift among Pakistan’s armed forces, political and religious parties including general
masses. In this context, central government of PML (N) does not want to stop NATO supply
to Afghanistan; while the PTI Chief Imran Khan threatened on November 4 to cut the NATO
supply lines en-route Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP) after November 20, if drone attacks continued.
The KP assembly also passed a similar resolution.
Some religious segments and majority of general masses have also favoured Imran’s stand.
These differences could be judged from the statement of the PPP leader and, former Prime
Minister, Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani who said on November 3 that the present government was
confused over drone strikes and relations with America—reminding that his government blocked
NATO supply in reaction over Salala check post attack.
The strikes by the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which continued on Pakistan’s tribal areas
since 2004 have intensified under the Obama era, resulting into killing of thousands of innocent
persons than a few militant commanders.
Particularly, a report of the New America Foundation indicated, while killing 10 militants, the
US has murdered more than 1400 Pakistanis, not involved in any terrorist activities. Could it not
imply that it gave birth to another 1400 militants?”
Notably, in the recent past, US State Department had stated that Wali-ur-Rehman, the TTP
second-in-command was killed in a drone attack on a tip off provided by an informer from
Hakimullah Mehsud group. This has been a grave blow to Wali-ur-Rehman’s faction of TTP,
while, the late Hakimullah Mehsud succeeded in eliminating his major opponent in TTP.
The Khan Saeed alias Sajna hailing from Mehsud tribe must realise that their leader has been
eliminated by Hakimullah Mehsud group to get the award of $5million from US. However, TTP
has lost the visionary leader who had supported negotiations with the elected government of
Pakistan to reach a peace accord and bring peace in the country.
Nevertheless, some other sinister designs are also part of the similar plot against Pakistan. In
this respect, recently, tension arose between New Delhi and Islamabad when Indian military
conducted a series of unprovoked firings at the Line of Control (LoC), and international border,
killing a number of soldiers of Pak Army and innocent civilians in wake of war-like diplomacy.
And, while talking about the twin terrorist attacks in the Indian Occupied Kashmir which killed
14 personal of army and police, India’s Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid almost wrecked
the Nawaz-Manmohan talks, held on the sidelines of the annual UN summit, when he blamed
Pakistan’s ISI and the army in this respect. On the other hand, quite opposite to his earlier
statement, Indian PM Manmohan Singh remarked that such attacks by the non-state actors would
not be allowed to derail efforts to find solutions of all problems through peaceful dialogue. In
fact, these terrorist acts were engineered by the Indian fundamentalist opposition party, BJP to
refrain PM Singh from continuing peace process with Pakistan.
But, Indian military high command failed in producing dead bodies of alleged terrorists who had
crossed the LoC from Pakistan to Indian-occupied Kashmir. The ground realities proved that it
was just propaganda against ISI and Pak Army. Meanwhile, on September 29, 2013, Hindustan
Times published an article both in its print and web editions that an upcoming TV channel “The
BOL channel network” was about to be launched, which has a unique backer–Dawood Ibrahim
and was allegedly supported by ISI. The legal notice issued to the Hindustan Times resulted into
an internal investigation by the management and removal of offended article from the website.
The entire allegation fired back uncovering the real face of Indian propagandists.
Moreover, in another event, Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi in his zealous speech blamed
that ISI was providing financial support to Indian students. He was too shameless to feel any
embarrassment on such a baseless allegation when chased by the BJP to provide the list of
students getting financial support from ISI, but he had none. Besides, Indian scholar Jug Suraiya
in her article titled “States & Estates: India should offer to buy Azad Kashmir from Pakistan,”
published in The Times of India on October 29, 2013 awkwardly wrote that she believed that
1000 tons of gold is buried in Unnao, UP, India, as revealed in the dreams of Sadhu Shobhan
Sarkar. Thus, he suggested to the Indian government to make payment to Pakistan through tons
of gold for purchasing Azad Kashmir. So, who can change Indian thoughts and belief system
which carry deep seated animosity against Muslims, Pakistan, Pak Army and ISI? The world
opinion builders must see the collective double game of the US and India which talk in tone of
peace, but in practice, they leave no stone unturned in destabilizing Pakistan.
Returning to our earlier discussion, death of Hakimullah Mehsud in the drone strikes clearly
proved conspiracy against Pakistan.
Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants,
Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations
