Pakistan

With the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in what appears to be a covert American operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistanis are  in a state of deja vu.  While the international community is caught in a state of disbelief that the world’s most wanted terrorist was hiding inside Pakistan, a country […]

Yesterday, May 3rd, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani went on Charlie Rose to defend his government’s inaction on the set of circumstances and events surrounding the near capture and, ultimately, targeted killing of Osama bin Laden. It was a revelatory chat.  For, during that time in one move Ambassador Haqqani tried to quelch […]

Bin Ladin is dead. Again. In the last ten years he has been reported “killed” at least four times. The only difference this time was that the President of the United States announced the death of the number one terrorist in the world. Above all, this time he was killed not in Tora Bora, not […]

Zainab Jeewanjee comments on America’s killing of Osama bin Laden. She describes a resilient, rejuvenated United States that has an opportunity to foster new relationships with our allies, namely Pakistan.

President Obama is about to address the nation and declare that U.S troops have killed Osama Bin Laden, and that the U.S military is in possession of his body. The most wanted man in the world, responsible for the attacks on American soil on September 11, 2001 is now dead.  The man whose actions led […]

General David Petraeus’ appointment at the new Director of Central Intelligence has been a well-regarded move within Washington D.C.’s political establishment. Islamabad, however has shrunk away from President Obama’s national security reshuffle that has now churned up the highest ranks of the Pentagon’s civilian and military leadership, as well as that of the nation’s top […]

It is abundantly clear that the Pakistani military intends to use the recent Raymond Davis affair as a bargaining chip that it hopes will keep rolling back to the negotiating table. Raymond Davis, a 36 year old man revealed to be a CIA contractor fatally shot two Pakistani men on the streets of Lahore earlier […]

The somewhat plodding resolution of the Raymond Davis affair last week was good news.  Strategic and coordinative relations between the U.S and Pakistan were on the mend.  But the recent drone attack that killed nearly 40 people has cut short that much needed  re-engagement and amity.   Relations have deteriorated so much so that Islamabad […]

In a statement released this morning, on the terrible occasion of at least 34 dead, 45 and more wounded at a funeral for the wife of a leading anti-Taliban leader, Kala Khan, in Peshawar, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani “reiterated the government’s resolve to root out the cancer of terrorism from every nook and corner […]

Is it likely that the government of Pakistan is trying to delay the onset of proceedings against Raymond A. Davis, the man accused of allegedly killing two motorists on the streets of Lahore?  This in order to buy time as back-channel negotiations run up against public sentiment, the natural political deadline in these circumstances? Yes. […]

Tehrik-e-Taliban, Pakistan’s contagion across the Kush, is bent on taking down the government in Islamabad by destroying the foundational liberal and multicultural bases that it had long promised to cherish.  Militants have shot and killed the minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, a man who had for some time challenged the fundamentally intolerant and morally insecure and […]

Zainab Jeewanjee discusses CNN coverage of Libya’s Gaddafi and recent uprisings. She weaves that story into a larger discussion of enemy, but rational world figures operating against American interests and how understanding their political objectives is key to an effective counterterrorism strategy post 9/11, specifically in Afghanistan and Pakistan.