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“I apologise for the misunderstanding that might have hurt Altaf Bhai,”’ said Malik without elaborating on the nature of the misunderstanding that caused the MQM to leave the coalition in both the federal and Sindh governments.

Malik said that he had telephoned MQM parliamentary leader Farooq Sattar to discuss the elections for the two seats representing the Kashmiri diaspora in Karachi in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir legislature. The MQM parted ways with the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party after Malik reportedly asked them not to contest one of the seats, both of which had been won by the MQM in 2006.

The interior minister did not confirm nor deny such reports. “Political parties talk with each other on various issues and if something has created misunderstanding with MQM, it would be removed,” said Malik.

Malik denied that the government had any role in postponing the elections in Kashmir, claiming the decision was made by the AJK Election Commission.

The charm offensive by the PPP was not limited to just the interior minister, however. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, long used to playing the role of political mediator, referred to the MQM as “an old friend” of the PPP during remarks he gave to the press after attending the graduation ceremony of the Civil Service Academy in Lahore.

The reconciliation efforts by the PPP leadership came in the wake of reports that several opposition parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) were interested in forming a coalition with the MQM and might form a joint opposition whose sole aim would be to call for early elections.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2011.

WASHINGTON: The US Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly confirmed General David Petraeus, who won wide acclaim as commander of war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Lawmakers voted 94-0 to approve the nomination of Petraeus to succeed outgoing CIA director Leon Panetta, whose own confirmation to take over for retiring US Defense Secretary Robert Gates sailed through 100-0 last week.

The two ballots amounted to a strong show of confidence in President Barack Obama’s reshuffling of his national security team, even though Petraeus himself expressed misgivings last week about a coming troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The general told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he disagreed with Obama’s decision and had favored a more modest timeline for the drawdown — but told lawmakers it was his duty to carry out his commander-in-chief’s strategy.

Asked by Democratic Senator Carl Levin if he was prepared to resign over war policy, Petraeus said: “I don’t think it’s the place for the commander to consider that kind of step unless you are in a very, very dire situation.”

“I feel actually quite strongly about this. Our troopers don’t get to quit. And I don’t think commanders should contemplate that as any kind of idle action,” the four-star general said, his voice rising.

Petraeus spoke a day after Obama announced plans to withdraw 33,000 surge troops by the end of September 2012, with the first 10,000 due to depart this year.

In the fierce debate over harsh US interrogation techniques, widely seen as torture, Petraeus said last week “humane” approaches are generally sufficient to gain critical intelligence from captured extremists.

But he told the Senate Intelligence Committee that lawmakers who have banned practices such as the controlled drowning known as waterboarding that they may want to consider tougher measures in so-called “ticking time bomb” situations

“There should be a process if, indeed, there is going to be something more than, again, the normal techniques employed in such a case,” he said.

He also said he hoped the CIA would not be “totally captured” by Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and efforts against Al-Qaeda around the world.

The agency should also focus on “the next developments in the Arab Spring,” emerging cyber threats, China’s rise, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

VATICAN CITY: An investigation into the assassination minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti is on “the right track,” his brother said Thursday.

Shahbaz Bhatti, assasinated in March, campaigned for the rights of Christians before he was gunned down in Islamabad – apparently by extremists.

“The investigations into the homicide of my brother are finally on the right track,” Paul Bhatti, currently an adviser to Pakistan’s government on religious minorities told the Catholic Fides news agency.

“It was committed by the Taliban and fanatics. Now, we are waiting for the capture of the perpetrators, who are in Dubai,” he said.

He claimed investigators have determined that al Qaeda’s “Brigade 313″, led by senior Pakistani Taliban Ilyas Kashmiri, asked a Taliban commander based in Punjab named Asmatullah Mawaia to kill his brother.

There were people who tried to suggest the official was killed by those close to him, but, “the truth has emerged,” Paul Bhatti said.

“We were convinced that he had been killed for his work, for his defence of human rights (and) the rights of Christians. (…) The investigation has proved us right,” he added

Bhatti called for the investigation to be quickly concluded and for the culprits to be arrested, which, he said, “would be a good sign for the rule of law in Pakistan.”

Bhatti was shot as he left his mother’s home in a residential area of Islamabad. Police said the attackers fired at least 25 bullets at his vehicle.

A letter found at the scene, purportedly from supporters of al Qaeda and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the killing.

Bhatti, who left a chilling video prophecy of his assassination, had vowed to fight to the death in defence of Pakistan’s persecuted minorities. He became the second high-profile victim among opponents of the blasphemy law.

Two months before he was killed, Punjab province governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by one of his own police bodyguards, who cited the politician’s opposition to the blasphemy law as justification for the killing.

PESHAWAR: Two people were killed and 13 injured in a blast near Shuba Chowk in Peshawar, police officials said on Thursday.

Police officials said that a cylinder exploding inside a vehicle could be the reason behind the blast. The Bomb Disposal Squad has reached the site and is trying to determine the cause of the blast.

Sources at the Lady Reading Hospital confirmed that two dead bodies and thirteen injured people had been brought in.

Police has cordoned off the area and investigations are underway.

Shuba Chowk is located near Khyber Bazaar and is one of the busiest areas of the provincial capital.

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain telephoned Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) leader Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman to discuss key political issues, on Thursday.

According to sources the telephone call lasted for about twenty minutes wherein the two leaders discussed playing the role of joint opposition in the National Assembly and Senate. Altaf assured Fazal-ur-Rehman that MQM will support Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam in the Senate.

Fazal-ur-Rehman said that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has repeatedly broken its promises made to both the masses and political parties.

Earlier, MQM had boycotted the Azad Jammu and Kashmir elections, blaming the PPP for rigging the election and had filed a petition in the SHC against it. Ministers in the party had tendered their resignation with President Asif Ali Zardari.

QUETTA: The Kharotabad tribunal has held police and Frontier Corps (FC) responsible for the killing of five foreigners in Quetta, an official source with access to the tribunal report said on Thursday.

The report says Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Dawood Junejo and the Lieutenant Colonel of FC had mishandled the situation and recommends that action be taken against them. It also states that Station House Officer (SHO) Kharotabad Fazal Rehman and Assistatant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Raza Khan are also responsible for the incident and calls for strict action against them.

The tribunal also said that even though the foreigners had entered Pakistan illegally, there was no reason to kill them.

The tribunal also recommended that bomb disposal equipment be made available at all police stations.

The chief minister of Balochistan had earlier sent the judicial report to the Balochistan chief secretary and asked him that recommendations be implemented in letter and spirit. He has also directed that the report be made public so that the people of Balochistan are aware of not only the details of the incident but also the findings of the tribunal.

Five foreigners, including three women, were gunned down by Frontier Corps and police personnel on May 17 in Kharotabad, a suburb of Quetta. While security forces officials claimed that those killed were suicide bombers, the police surgeon who conducted autopsies found no indication that the foreigners, four Russians and one Tajik, carried explosives.

The incident was caught on tape by a journalist and, once aired, the video caused public outrage prompting the Balochistan government to form a judicial tribunal to probe the incident. Over a month-long hearing, the tribunal recorded the statements of 28 witnesses and submitted its report, comprising over 80 pages, to the government on Tuesday.

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Thursday issued a notification for the devolution of seven ministries to provinces, with the government retaining a number of employees from the devolved ministries.

The ministries being devolved are women development, minority affairs, sports, environment, health, food and agriculture, and labour and manpower.

The notification says the transfer will come into effect from July 1. It also states that all development projects and relevant staff have been shifted to the provinces.

A number of departments of the transferred ministries will be merged with other ministries and divisions.

The Planning & Development division has been assigned to devise a national policy for environmental pollution and change, ecology, forestry, wildlife, biodiversity and desertification.

The federal cabinet had earlier approved the devolution of seven ministries to the provinces but had decided to retain the ministers in an apparent move to keep the ruling coalition intact. The devolution marks the third and final phase of the implementation of the 18th amendment and brings the total number of devolved ministries to 17.

Ten federal ministries were earlier devolved to the provinces in two separate phases on the recommendation of a high-powered parliamentary commission to ensure the implementation of the 18th amendment that envisaged more administrative and financial autonomy for the federating units.

Lahore:A group of young independent filmmakers has undertaken the initiative of producing an independent feature film called Kaptaan, based on Imran Khan’s high-profile life following the end of his cricket career.
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The Pakistan Army barred the entry of militants from Afghanistan on Thursday as it gained control of areas near the Pak-Afghan border after the three-day operation in Mohmand Agency.

The clashes that took place during the operation between the security forces and the militants left around 40 militants dead, said sources.

Brigadier Aftab Ahmad told AFP by telephone that his forces had destroyed 17 militant hideouts in the Baizai region under his command in the lawless tribal area of Mohmand.

“Militants were regularly attacking our posts on the Afghanistan border at Shonkari and Mithai and also targeting goods vehicles going to Afghanistan,” he said.

“An operation was launched three days ago with the support of army aviation aircraft, helicopters and fighter jets. We killed at least 40 militants,” Ahmad said.

Maqsood Hussain, a government official in Baizai, confirmed the raids and casualties, but it was not immediately clear how the Pakistani officials reached the body count of 40.

Also, one soldier was killed and several others were injured in a land mine explosion near the Pak-Afghan border during the operation.

At least two top leaders of the PML-N told The Express Tribune on Wednesday that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif would soon establish ‘direct contact’ with the MQM hierarchy, including its London-based chief, Altaf Hussain. They did not, however, specify when or how any such contact would be established.

Simultaneously, some other associates of Sharif had been tasked to approach the rightwing opponents of President Asif Ali Zardari’s government, including the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) of Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Both the MQM and the JUI-F walked away from an alliance with the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Officials in the PML-N said the decision to go all out to dislodge the government was taken during a recent meeting of top party leaders in Lahore chaired by Nawaz Sharif.

They added that the resignation by MQM members from both federal and provincial cabinets to join the opposition had lured the PML-N into thinking that it might be the right time for gathering their support against the government.

“We believe it is the best time to go in for a kill … it looks like the iron is hot and now is the time that we can hit it as hard as possible,” said a PML-N official, who attended the meeting.

A spokesperson of the party also confirmed that the PML-N was looking forward to working with the MQM as a more “coordinated opposition” and both groups could explore “common ground” against the government.

However, MNA Ahsan Iqbal denied that a high level contact was being established with the MQM or that the PML-N was hoping for a formal alliance with the party.

“We are not strangers to each other … we know each other and have been maintaining a shared stance on various issues recently and I think we can work together in the future. But this does not necessarily mean we can become partners,” Iqbal said.

He added that the alleged rigging in the recent Kashmir elections, unbridled corruption in government departments and the poor rule of law were the issues that could bring the two groups together.

A close associate of Sharif, Zulfikar Khosa, also told the media in Lahore that there were prospects of the PML-N and the MQM working together in the days to come.

According to officials, the PML-N chief had barred his party leaders from issuing hostile statements against the MQM and Altaf Hussain, an issue that has been keeping both parties away from each other in recent years.

According to the plans, the PML-N would hit the streets with its campaign to dislodge the government immediately after the month of Ramadan that ends early September.

Before that, Iqbal said, the group would complete its lingering reorganisation campaign by the end of next month.

The Express Tribune tried to seek comments from a few MQM leaders but none of them was available.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

Earlier, the Balochistan government had announced that the report will not be released to the public.

The chief minister has sent the judicial report to the Balochistan chief secretary and asked him that recommendations be implemented in letter and spirit. He has also directed that the report be made public so that the people of Balochistan are aware of not only the details of the incident but also the findings of the tribunal.

Five foreigners, including three women, were gunned down by Frontier Corps and police personnel on May 17 in Kharotabad, a suburb of Quetta. While security forces officials claimed that those killed were suicide bombers, the police surgeon who conducted autopsies found no indication that the foreigners, four Russians and one Tajik, carried explosives.

The incident was caught on tape by a journalist and, once aired, the video caused public outrage prompting the Balochistan government to form a judicial tribunal to probe the incident. Over a month-long hearing, the tribunal recorded the statements of 28 witnesses and submitted its report, comprising over 80 pages, to the government on Tuesday.

According to official sources, the tribunal has clearly mentioned in the report that law enforcement personnel opened fire at the foreigners.

“There are few chances that the report will be made public because its findings go against government functionaries. However, after directives of the chief minister, it might be made public,” a senior official said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights further directed the defence ministry to address all cases of compensation for family members of the Air Blue crash victims.

The committee that met under its chairman Riaz Fatyana on Wednesday directed that the Air Blue administration be taken onboard for the report and the responsibility and cause of the crash be presented before the committee.

The defence secretary informed the committee that the report would be sent to the prime minister and upon approval it would be sent to other concerned departments. He added that according to the law the party concerned would have to wait for 60 days for the process to be completed, which is why the report would be submitted in three months.

A report submitted before the committee by the Director-General Civil Aviation Authority claimed that Rs5 million had been paid to the 136 legal heirs of each victim of the crash. Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, addressing a press briefing, said that officials were aware of the reasons behind the Air Blue crash, but details could not be made public at this time.

Kharotabad incident

In regard to the five people killed in Kharotabad, the committee expressed dissatisfaction with police statements.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

Advocate SM Zafar submitted a statement/reply to the court and found there was no specific instances cited in the presidential reference, relatable to the violation of Article 4 (1) & (2) (a), 8, 9, 10A, 14 and 25.  Earlier, the court had suggested Advocate Babar Awan to redraft the reference since it was lacking questions of law.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

The shortfall comes despite the fact that the government had already introduced several measures in March to increase its revenues by up to Rs53 billion and has given retroactive effect to next year’s tax measures to begin from June 3, the day the budget was presented, rather than July 1, the start of the new financial year.

The government has even suspended payments of Rs16 billion to victims of the flood just so it can show the 2011 budget deficit to be below the targeted Rs1,068 billion or more than 6% of the total size of the economy.

Sources at the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) told The Express Tribune that the government had collected Rs1,478 billion in taxes as of June 28, higher by 16% compared to last year but still short of the Rs1,588 target by Rs110 billion.

As the FBR gets desperate, it has activated Plan B: dispatching Additional Secretary Asrar Rauf to Karachi to arrange for advance tax payments from banks, said sources privy to the development.

However, one of the major commercial banks has reportedly refused to oblige the government’s request, forcing the FBR to turn to the only major state-owned bank: the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP). Last year the government had obtained a Rs25 billion advance from the NBP to cover a part of the shortfall.

This is the second attempt by the government to shake money out of the banks. The FBR had previously tried to raise Rs30 billion in revenues by accusing banks of not paying enough in withholding taxes. About Rs20 billion of that tax bill was from the NBP alone, which contested the demand, at which point the FBR revised the figure down to Rs8.6 billion.

Another sign of the government’s desperation is the fact that it has asked for a $160 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). Islamabad usually avoids taking loans from the IDB due to the short repayment period and much higher interest rates compared to loans from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The government had hoped to raise $500 million through an exchangeable bond back by shares in the state-owned Oil & Gas Development Corporation, the largest public company in Pakistan. However, it was advised by its investment bankers to delay such an offering owing to unfavourable conditions as global financial markets struggle with the debt crisis in Greece and the United States

Rana Assad, the finance ministry spokesperson, insisted the government would be able to meet its deficit targets. He said the government would delay its next tranche of payments to flood victims until after the close of the fiscal year on June 30.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

Interior Secretary Qamar Zaman constituted a three-member subcommittee comprising Commandant National Police Academy (NPA), IGP Gilgit-Baltistan and IGP Azad Kashmir to prepare terms of reference regarding illegalities in the land deal as well as registration of a criminal case against the accused for colluding to deprive the foundation of land for a housing society it had paid for in full.

Zaman directed Qureshi to present a report on the scam to the subcommittee. The committee will meet again on July 2.

Qureshi wrote to the IGP Islamabad to register an FIR against Khan and the police officials who collaborated with him in line with the Supreme Court orders, but the Islamabad police have so far refused to cooperate.

Since it is a high profile case, ‘senior most officers who enjoy a good reputation may please be directed to supervise the investigation personally,’ stated the letter. A copy of the letter was also sent to the SC Registrar.

The names of the accused have been placed on the ECL on Qureshi’s request, according to sources.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

Request for details of Musharraf’s property was forwarded to the members of boards of revenue of all the four provinces by the counter-terrorism wing of the FIA which had asked that the information be compiled on a priority basis.

The ATC had given the FIA until June 25 to comply with its orders and seize the former president’s property.

The FIA prosecutors had requested the court to issue orders to confiscate Musharraf’s moveable and immovable property after he failed to appear before the court on the previous hearing.

The ATC special judge had directed the SHO City, Rawalpindi and collector, Islamabad, to submit the record.

Investigators have alleged that the Musharraf regime had failed to provide adequate security to former premier Benazir Bhutto upon her return to Pakistan from self-exile. She was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack minutes after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, on December 27, 2007.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

US military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan have served to “severely cripple al Qaeda’s capacities,” Obama said at a White House press conference. “Osama bin Laden got the most attention, but before that we decimated some of the upper ranks of al Qaeda,” he said.

The terror group is “having a great deal of difficulty operating and financing themselves. We’ll keep the pressure on,” Obama said.

He stressed that it was in the US national interest “to make sure that you did not have a collapse of Afghanistan in which extremists elements could flood the zone once again.”

US troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan “in a responsible way that will allow Afghanistan to defend itself and will give us the operational capacity to continue to put pressure on al Qaeda until that network is defeated,” he said.

Obama insisted that Kabul is ‘much safer than it was’ but said he expected attacks like the one on the Intercontinental Hotel to continue for ‘some time.’

Nine Taliban militants, some in suicide vests, stormed the hotel late Tuesday, sparking a ferocious battle with Afghan commandos and a Nato helicopter gunship that left at least 21 dead including the attackers.

The brazen attack was seen as a direct rebuttal from the Taliban to Obama’s claims of progress as he seeks to wind up the 10-year-old war.

It came only days after Obama announced the ‘beginning of the end’ of the conflict in Afghanistan.

In his first public comments on the Intercontinental attack, Obama insisted that the Afghan forces who are responsible for security in Kabul are doing ‘a reasonably good job’ and their capacity is increasing.

“Keep in mind, the drawdown has not begun, so we understand that Afghanistan is a dangerous place, and the Taliban is still active and there will be events like this on occasion,”` he said. “Kabul is much safer than it was, and Afghan forces in Kabul are much more capable than they were,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

An official at the Finance Ministry said that the decision to create the two commissions was taken during a recent cabinet meeting that also approved the federal budget for 2012. A formal announcement is expected after Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh returns from a private visit to the United States.

The first commission is expected to review the functions of senior government officials and identify possible redundancies to the government. It will be given six months to complete its task.

In addition, the government will introduce a quarterly monitoring mechanism that will require senior bureaucrats to justify their budgets every three months. While the monitoring mechanism was also introduced last year, it was not conducted on a quarterly basis. A source said that senior civil servants complained bitterly about the new system.

The second commission, meanwhile, will seek reforms in the pay structure of civil servants. It is not the first time the government has examined the issue. During the Musharraf administration, the government created the National Commission for Government Reforms, headed by former State Bank Governor Ishrat Hussain, which also worked on civil service pay.

However, the current government appears to be seeking more than what its predecessors recommended.

“The work done by previous commissions cannot be ignored but at the same time the past reports cannot be implemented,” said Nadeemul Haq, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and the most vocal advocate of civil service reform. Haq said that governance reforms need three to five years to implement.

The move comes despite the fact that the government delayed the implementation of the first step of its civil service reforms agenda: removing the car privileges of senior bureaucrats and replacing it with a cash allowance. The delay is seen as a sign of bureaucratic resistance to reform.

The measure had been scheduled to be implemented by July 1, but has now been delayed. It had been designed to monetise all benefits for senior civil servants in order to save the government billions of rupees on administering those privileges in addition to making civil service jobs more attractive for qualified private sector professionals.

The government had decided to withdraw cars for officers in the three highest grades of the Civil Service of Pakistan and offer them allowances of Rs40,000 to Rs70,000 instead. The move was expected to save the government Rs1.6 billion.

“The Cabinet Committee could not meet due to other pressing engagements and the government would now move a summary to the Cabinet for some more time to implement the decision,” said Finance Ministry spokesman Rana Assad Ameen.

The delay in implementation of the decision does not come as a surprise. It was widely expected that the bureaucracy would offer resistance to any such move, as many federal secretaries entitled to use only one car are using as many as five, according to government auditors.

The Federal Director General Audit in a recent meeting of the parliamentary public accounts committee said that 14,000 of the 18,000 cars in 296 government departments are being misused.

The government spends an average of Rs530,000 per month on every grade 22 officer, an amount that does not include cost of privileges such as land and membership to elite social clubs. The Planning Commission has proposed that the monetisation of perks and privileges would significantly reduce the government’s costs.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

The reduction in petrol prices comes as international oil prices had declined over the past month. The government has deregulated prices of oil, allowing for more flexibility in pricing to various oil marketing companies, though the import prices of the government-owned Pakistan State Oil (PSO) will serve as the benchmark against which pricing decisions will be monitored by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra).

According to the breakup of new prices made available to The Express Tribune, the price of petroleum is expected to decline by 4.5% to reach Rs82.81 per litre. For kerosene, the expected decline is 2% to Rs82.93 per litre. Light diesel prices are expected to decline by 1.2% to Rs81.50 per litre while high-speed diesel prices are to go down by 4.1% to Rs90.25 per litre.

The new prices are expected to be effective from July 1.

Oil marketing companies (OMCs) had demanded an increase in their profit margins – which are determined by the government’s regulators – but the newly notified prices do not include any increases in their margins.

OMCs will continue to make profits of Rs1.5 per litre on petrol, Rs1.58 per litre on kerosene oil, Rs1.61 per litre on light diesel and Rs1.35 per litre on high speed diesel.

The reduction in oil prices is also likely to affect the sales tax collections. Officials estimate that revenues from sales taxes may go down by 9% on petrol, 7% on kerosene oil, 6% on light diesel and 9% on high speed diesel.

Meanwhile, the government’s plan to begin deregulating gas prices and bring them closer to oil prices is expected to move forward on Thursday (today), when the petroleum ministry will request permission from the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet to increase gas prices by between 10% and 100% for various categories of consumers.

Petroleum Minister Asim Hussain told The Express Tribune that his ministry plans to seek approval for up to a 15% increase in gas prices for domestic consumers, up to 20% for industrial users of gas and as much as a 100% increase in the prices of gas paid by the fertiliser sector, which needs natural gas as its raw material.

The petroleum ministry will also seek approval to bring the price of compressed natural gas (CNG) to 65% of petroleum prices, from the current 50%.

Ogra had already decided on a tariff increase of Rs5.08 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) for customers of the state-owned Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and Rs7.54 per mmbtu for customers of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGP).

The price increase was meant to go into effect on July 1, but the government was sued by the utility companies, which means that the new prices cannot go into effect until a court rules on the case.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.

Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar’s statement confirming that the US had been told to leave the Shamsi airbase is the latest indication of the simmering tensions between the key war-on-terror allies.

The minister told a group of journalists in Islamabad on Wednesday that it was time to review the anti-terror cooperation with the US.

“We have told them [US officials] to leave the airbase,” APP quoted Mukhtar as saying.

Pakistan first asked the CIA to vacate the airbase early this year when the two countries negotiated to redefine their cooperation after an American contactor shot at and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore.

Islamabad pressed its demand harder after last month’s overnight-raid by US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad that killed former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

The move by the security establishment was part of its efforts to reduce US footprints on Pakistani soil.

It is still unclear whether at all, or when, the Americans would abandon the facility they have been using since former president Pervez Musharraf first allowed them to operate from it back in 2006.

Meanwhile, there were more signs of escalating tensions between Washington and Islamabad as the Pakistani military hit back at US generals accusing it of being lax on militants.

A statement by the military’s public relations wing rebuked a statement by top US generals in a testimony before the Senate’s arms service committee.

“We reject allegations leveled by senior US military officials as reported in a section of the press casting aspersions on the desire and capability of the Pakistan army to fight militancy,” said the statement by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR).

Lieutenant General John Allen, named the next commander in Afghanistan, suggested Pakistan was keeping its options open by allowing Haqqani fighters to operate within its borders.

“It’s a function, probably, of capacity. But it might also be a function of their hedging, whether they have determined that the US is going to remain in Afghanistan and whether our strategy will be successful or not,” Allen told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

But Pakistani military rejected the comments terming them “uncalled for”.

“Our concerns and constraints must be taken into consideration before making any statement questioning our commitment to fighting militancy,” the ISPR statement added.

The reaction by the Pakistani military appeared to be indicating that both countries were facing a severe trust deficit in terms of who should spearhead a so-called reconciliation process in Afghanistan.

Mukhtar also admitted that the level of trust deficit was the highest in 10 years, but suggested it could be reduced through constant engagement.

“This trust deficit could be reduced by sitting together and taking joint actions,” he told the media.

On Tuesday, US vice admiral William McRaven, who oversaw the Bin Laden raid, said the US military believes that Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar is in Pakistan and had asked the Pakistani army to locate him.

Asked about Omar, Mukhtar said: “Even if he was in Pakistan, he would have left the country after the Abbottabad incident.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.