Q1 - 2008
| S. No. | Title | Author | Description | Link | Link |
| 001 | Hostile Hills and Dry Canals |
Since the partition of British-India in 1947, the new Dominions of Pakistan and India were involved in a heated battle, on the field and inside the diplomatic chambers, over the Princely State of Kashmir. By mid-August 2007, each of the two nations will be celebrating sixty years of independence. |
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| 002 | Pakistan: The Post-Bhutto PPP |
STRATFOR | STRATFOR has published multiple reports over the last 3 days. Here are a few samples of our analysis of the situation and the forecast of what could unfold in the weeks and months ahead. |
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| 003 | Comparative Study of Election Manifestoes |
PILDAT | Pakistani and some U.S. officials argue that Islamabad has taken a number ofsteps to prevent further proliferation... | |
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| 004 | Benazir Bhutto medical report | - | Mediacal Report provided by the doctors who provided final medical care to Ms Benazir Bhutto | |
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| 005 | PEW Survey on Pakistan - View from Pakistan | Richard Wike , Senior Researcher, Pew Global Attitudes Project | View from Pakistan: Before Bhutto's Assination, Public Opinion Was Increasingly Opposed to Terrorism | |
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| 006 | Waziristan: the hub of al-Qaida operations | Guardian Unlimited | involving the imposition of strict social edicts at gunpoint - first took root here, and the president, Pervez Musharraf, has identified a prominent local commander, Baitullah Mehsud... | |
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| 007 | Spearhead Research Report 3 /Pakistan: The unfolding scenario | Spearhead Research | The bomb blasts in Lahore and Karachi underscore the point that there are forces that seek the destabilization of Pakistan. Actions to achieve this goal can take many forms. | |
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| 008 | A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan | CTC - Combating Terrorism Center By Hassan Abbas | The organizational strength, military strategy and leadership quality of the Taliban in Pakistan's tribal territories has qualitatively improved during the last few years... | |
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| 009 | A Spearhead Research Report 4 / Pakistan: Getting the Facts Straight | Spearhead Research | The IAEA Chief Mohammed El Baradei recently said,’I fear that chaos—or an extremist regime could take root in that country ( Pakistan ) which has 30-40 warheads.’ There has been no comment on his estimation of the number of warheads. | |
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| 010 | A Spearhead Research Report-5/ Stabilizing Pakistan's West | Spearhead Research | Pakistan must also consider whether a destabilized Afghanistan is in its interest or will it lead to far bigger problems. | |
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| 011 | Pakistan: Washington Opens The Doors For Overt Operations | STRATFOR | U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Jan. 24 that the United States is “ready, willing and able” to conduct joint counter jihadist combat operations with Pakistani troops in northwestern Pakistan if Islamabad agrees to such an arrangement. | |
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| 012 | Insurrection in Pakistan's Tribal Areas | Brian Cloughley / PSRU | The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) are by contemporary standards anomalous and reactionary in terms of governance and social development. | |
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| 013 | ISI and Terrorism: Behind the Accusations | Eben Kaplan / Council on Foreign Relations | Pakistan‟s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has long faced accusations of meddling in the affairs of its neighbors. A range of officials inside and outside Pakistan have stepped up suggestions of links between the ISI and terrorist groups in recent years. | |
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| 014 | After Iraq | Jeffery Goldberg / State of Union - Jan / Feb 2008 / THE Atlantic.com | Envisioning what the Middle East might look like five or 10 or 50 years from now is by definition a speculative exercise. But precisely because of the scope of the transformation that‘s under way, imagining the future of the region | |
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| 015 | Afghanistan; No Sign of End to Instability | ORF Discourse / ORF | A round-table discussion on Afghanistan was organized by Observer Research Foundation recently. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Vikram Sood, former Secretary, Research and Analysis Wing, ... | |
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| 016 | The Jihadist Insurgency in Pakistan | Kamran Bokhari / STRATFOR | The increasing crisis of governance in Pakistan over the past several months has triggered many queries from Stratfor readers, most wanting to know how events will ultimately play out. Would a collapse of the Musharraf regime lead to a jihadist takeover? | |
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| 017 | Pakistan: Adjusting Relations with the Taliban Under U.S. Pressure | STRATFOR | Mansour Dadullah, a top Taliban commander, and several of his comrades were captured Feb. 11 in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Conflicting reports say that either Dadullah died in the attack, or he died from injuries later, or he was critically wounded but still alive | |
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| 018 | Pakistan: The political challenges ahead | CITI | President Musharraf needs a friendly parliament to remain president and also to endorse his decision to dismiss the judiciary |
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| 019 | Elections on schedule? | Zahid U Karamat | Due to the near and long term dangers it presents and its nexus with stability in Afghanistan, Pakistan has leapt to the top of the global security agenda. The unraveling of the country is by no means a foregone conclusion, but its current course must change to prevent catastrophe. The greatest threat posed by an unstable Pakistan is, of course, to its own population. |
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| 020 | As Pakistan Election Nears, Citizens Fan Out to Combat Vote Rigging |
By PETER WONACOTT / Wall Street Journals | An Islamist insurgency, rising food prices, power outages and the Dec. 27 assassination of popular former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto have fueled unrest in this nation of 165 million | |
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| 021 | Pakistani Public Opinion on Democracy, Islamist Militancy, and Relations with the U.S. |
C. CHRISTINE FAIR CLAY RAMSAY STEVE KULL |
This report is based on the results of a survey conducted from Sept. 12-18, just before President Pervez Musharraf declared a six-week state of emergency and before the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The sample included 907 Pakistani urban adults, selected using multi-stage probability sampling, who were interviewed at home in 19 cities. | |
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| 022 | US Policy Options Toward Pakistan: A Principled and Realistic Approach |
Owen Bennett-Jones | Think long term. With so many crises, of which the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is just the latest, there is a risk that the urgent will crowd out the important. The country’s problems are so deep-seated that only long-term policies will help bring Pakistan out of its current cycle of authoritarian rule, instability, and underdevelopment. |
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| 023 | The Oil Factor In Kosovo Independence |
Abdus Sattar Ghazali | On February 17, Kosovo broke away from Serbia and declared its independence. Not surprisingly it was instantly recognized as a state by the U.S., Germany, Britain and France. With 4203 square miles area, Kosovo may be a tiny territory but in the great game of oil politics it holds great importance which is in inverse proportion to its size. | |
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| 024 | Terrorist Activity in pakistan 2004-2007 | GeoCritical | Map based on analysis of open-sources US-Government data collected on terrorist attack from 2004 -2007 | |
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| 025 | An Inconvenient Truth |
M P Bhandara | Various expressions such as 'massive victory', 'crushing defeat', 'a clean sweep of President Musharraf's allies', 'the nation rejects previous rulers' and a slew of chest-thumping slogans have been used by the victors and the media to celebrate the electoral success | |
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| 026 | THE MYTH OF PASHTUNISTAN | Brigd Saad Muhammad | The so called Pashtunistan issue has been a problem that has marred relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the time of creation of Pakistan in August 1947. Rather Afghanistan opposed the admission of Pakistan into the United Nations (UN) on the grounds that the new State comprised areas on which Afghanistan had a claim. This soured relations between the two neighbors at the outset and no Afghan administration has recognized the Durand Line as an international boundary. This has complicated relationships leading to borders skirmishes, stopping of transit trade and breakdown of diplomatic relations. An attempt is being made to analyze this issue which has led to poor relations between the two neighbors despite the identity of religion, culture and economic interests. | |
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| 027 | India and Pakistan in Afghanistan: Hostile Sports | South Asia Monitor | India and Pakistan share deep cultural and historic ties with Afghanistan but have for decades had competing strategic agendas there. For India, Afghanistan was an important albeit passive geopolitical constraint on Pakistan, as well as the gateway to Central Asia. Pakistan saw Afghanistan as part of a threatening Indian pincer movement, a source of fuel for Pashtun separatism inside Pakistan, and during the Taliban years, a source of “strategic depth” against the Indian threat. These mutual suspicions make it difficult to get Afghanistan’s neighbors to pull together in stabilizing the country. |
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| 028 | India’s Engagement with the African Indian Ocean Rim States |
Alex Vines and Bereni Oruitemekai | Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to government or to any political body. It does not hold opinions of its own; the views expressed in this text are the responsibility of the author(s)/speaker(s). This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication/event. |
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| 029 | The Cat’s Paw in Nimroz |
Kanchan Lakshman | Two Indian nationals, M.P. Singh and C. Govindaswamy, personnel of the Indian Army’s Border Roads Organisation (BRO), were killed and seven persons, including five BRO personnel, sustained injuries in a suicide-bomber attack in the southwest province of Nimroz in Afghanistan on April 12, 2008. The BRO team was working on a highway project, when the vehicle-borne suicide bomber struck, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson disclosed at New Delhi. An unconfirmed report from Herat in Afghanistan indicated that the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack. |
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| 030 | Military Operations In WaziristanFrom a Historical Perspective(1849-1947) |
Colonel Yahya Effendi | After 60 years of peace, Waziristan is again seething in unrest. The British spent decades in developing a system to deal with the extremely truculent and xenophobic Wazir and Mashud tribesmen, to keep them in check and a state of good order. They were not entirely successful in their pacification ventures; but despite the many impediments they had to face they still had a modicum of success. The political and military bureaucracy involved in maintaining some semblance of peace in Waziristan were experts in managing the tribal people: | |
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| 031 | US/PAKISTAN: New counter-terror strategy is emerging |
Haider Mullick |
Pakistan's new parliament will review the country's participation in the 'war on terror’; former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday told visiting US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher. | |
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| 032 | COMBATING TERRORISM | Government Accountability Office The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no cost is through GAO’s Web site (www.gao.gov). Each weekday, GAO posts newly released reports, testimony, and correspondence on its Web site. |
The United States has not met its national security goals to destroy terrorist threats and close the safe haven in Pakistan’s FATA. Since 2002, the United States relied principally on the Pakistan military to address U.S. national security goals. Of the approximately $5.8 billion the United States provided for efforts in the FATA and border region from 2002 through 2007, about 96 percent reimbursed Pakistan for military operations there. According to the Department of State, Pakistan deployed 120,000 military and paramilitary forces in the FATA and helped kill and capture hundreds of suspected al Qaeda operatives; these efforts cost the lives of approximately 1,400 members of Pakistan’s security forces. However, GAO found broad agreement, as documented in the National Intelligence Estimate, State, and embassy documents, as well as Defense officials in Pakistan, that al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven in Pakistan’s FATA. | |
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| 033 | Meeting the Nuclear Security Challenge in Pakistan | Michelle Marchesano | On February 21-22, 2008, government officials from the U.S. and Pakistan and non-governmental experts gathered in Washington, D.C. for a workshop organized by the Partnership for Global Security (PGS), titled Meeting the Nuclear Security Challenge in Pakistan. The event was organized in cooperation with Brig. Gen. (ret.) Naeem Salik, South Asia Visiting Scholar at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and supported by the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). | |
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| 034 | Pakistan – United States of America Relations since 1947 till 2008 | Compiled By Faraz J Karamat Information sourced from |
The Indian subcontinent, which has been fought over for centuries, is the largest colony of the British Empire between 1858 and 1947. In August 1947, Britain relinquishes its claim after a long nationalist struggle and colonial India is partitioned into two states: India and Pakistan, the latter bisected by Indian territory. Created as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims, Pakistan is formed from parts of two colonial territories—Punjab in the west and Bengal in the east. The partition leads to at least half a million deaths and massive population transfers. Both countries claim the territory of Kashmir, a Hindu-ruled state with a Muslim majority. Kashmir’s ruler eventually decides to accede to India, planting a seed that sows a harvest of war and terrorism for decades. | |