Tag Archives: Colonel

International, News, Pakistan, Politics, Punjab

Bangladesh hangs Mujib’s killers 30 yrs after his death

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Press Trust of India – Bangladesh has hanged the five ex-Army officers convicted of assassinating the country’s founder, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, almost 35 years after he was killed in a military coup. The five death row convicts were hanged past midnight (local time), hours after the Supreme Court rejected their review plea, jail officials said.

Ex-Lieutenant Colonel Mohiuddin Ahmed (artillery) and ex-Major Bazlul Huda were hanged first as the execution process started late on Wednesday while ex-Lieutenant Colonel Syed Faruq Rahman was the third to be executed minutes later. Ex-lieutenant colonels Shahriar Rashid Khan and AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed (lancer) were the last to walk to the gallows.

The entire execution process took just 40 minutes, though it took 35 years to bring them to justice for the August 15, 1975, assassination of the former president along with most of his family members.

Mujib was killed along with his wife and three sons, including 10-year-old Russel. His daughters, PM Sheikh Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana, survived as they were abroad at the time.

Six others condemned for the killing are still on the run though Bangladesh has launched a diplomatic campaign engaging the Interpol to bring them home.

Jail officials said Dhaka’s district magistrate and deputy commissioner Zillar Rahman, civil surgeon Dr Mushfiqur Rahman and additional district magistrate Avijit Sarkar entered the jail before midnight along with Inspector General of Prisons Brigadier General Ashraful Islam, as their presence were required during the hanging. They said Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikdar and Dhaka’s police commissioner A K M Shahidul Haque also came to the jail just ahead of execution.

Elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) troops, armed police battalion and plainclothesmen took positions around the jail complex reinforcing the regular police.

Witnesses said a police van reached the jail gate carrying five coffins while another van came to the scene with two wooden bedsteads that were likely to be used for ablution of the bodies after the execution.

Hundreds crowded the streets outside the jail with many chanting slogans demanding executions. Witnesses said five ambulances arrived at the scene to carry the bodies. The bodies would be handed over to the relatives of the ex-Army officers.

Courtesy: The Indian Express

http://m.indianexpress.com/news/%22bangladesh-hangs-mujibs-killers-30-yrs-after-his-death%22/572752/

International, News, Politics

Communist Party of Egypt resumes open political activities

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March 24, 2011 — People’s World — On March 15, the Communist Party of Egypt announced that after many years underground because of repression, it will be assuming open, public political activities once more. The announcement came after “an extensive meeting with all of its bodies” and was unanimous.

The original Communist Party of Egypt, the Hizb al Shuvuci al-Misri, had been founded in 1922 when Egypt was still a monarchy and very much under the thumb of British imperialism. The last king of Egypt, Farouk, was overthrown by an uprising of young army officers in 1952. Out of that revolution came the 14-year regime of Colonel Gamel Abdel Nasser, a radical nationalist who worked to break Egypt away from subservience to Western capitalist powers. In 1965, the Communist Party of Egypt merged into Nasser’s own movement, the Arab Socialist Union.

A number of former Communist Party activists dissented from this merger and formed their own independent journal, Al-Inisar (Victory), starting in 1973, which led to their re-founding the Communist Party in 1975. Under the governments of Anwar Al Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, the re-founded Communist Party of Egypt faced repression and was not allowed to run in elections. However, it did not disappear and did not abandon the struggle for democracy and socialism.

When the demonstrations against the Mubarak regime began earlier this year, the Communist Party of Egypt, working in unity with other left-wing dissident groups, quickly gained public visibility as a key voice in the secular opposition. Its February 1, 2011, proclamation read as follows. ….

Read more : Link International

Pakistan, Politics

Losing the battle for Pakistan

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by Sher Ali Khan

A few days ago, the progressive-leaning parliamentarian Shabaz Bhatti was shot down in cold blood for advocating a moderated stance against a draconian law in Pakistan. The changing societal dynamics comes in the backdrop of a struggling democratic government, which is failing to assert itself for Pakistan’s survival.

It was almost a month ago when I wrote a report for the Express Tribune about the Christian community yearning for a ‘more tolerant’ Lahore. After exploring various pockets of the society, it was sad to see that the community had become insolent and rather afraid to even interact with general population.

If one spoke to historians regarding the character of Lahore say not sixty but thirty years ago, one would have found a completely different social structure in Lahore. Though Islam had rapidly become a majority entity, communal activities were not exclusive rather they were inclusive.

The story of Pakistan’s road down the conception of Islamic state has only hardened differences between various communities to the point Pakistanis cannot be considered Pakistanis without obeying to a certain brands of Islam.

For years, the army and the ISI have provided safe havens for militant groups as part of a greater plan to maintain a strategic and military presence in Kashmir and Afghanistan. It is clear with the confirmed death of Colonel Imam, the so-called father of the Taliban that the dynamics of these relationships have changed over time. Increasingly these militant groups have become rouge thus functioning beyond the scope of the state. …

Read more : View Point

International, News, Politics

International Pressure on Qaddafi Intensifies

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Qaddafi’s Army and Jets Strike at Rebels

By KAREEM FAHIM and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

BENGHAZI, Libya — Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces struck back on three fronts on Monday, using fighter jets, special forces units and regular army troops in an escalation of hostilities that brought Libya closer to civil war.

The attacks by the colonel’s troops on an oil refinery in central Libya and on cities on either side of the country unsettled rebel leaders — who earlier had claimed they were close to liberating the country — and showed that despite defections by the military, the government still possessed powerful assets, including fighter pilots willing to bomb Libyan cities.

But the ease with which at least one assault, on the western city of Zawiyah, was repelled by anti-government forces raised questions about the ability of the government to muster a serious challenge to the rebels’ growing power.

An international campaign to force Colonel Qaddafi from power gathered pace on Monday as the Obama administration announced it had seized $30 billion in Libyan assets and the European Union adopted an arms embargo and other sanctions. As the Pentagon began repositioning Navy warships to support a possible humanitarian or military intervention, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly told the Libyan leader to surrender power “now, without further violence or delay.” …

Read more : The New York Times

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, News, Pakistan, Politics, Punjab, Religion

Sources claim colonel Imam killed by his own trained Taliban

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The former ISI officer Colonel (r) Imam known as the ‘godfather of the Taliban’ has been killed by his abductors in North Waziristan, Dunya News reported on Sunday.

Imam was abducted in March, 2010, who said in a video footage released by his captors that his life was in danger unless the authorities meet his kidnappers demand to free a number of prisoners held for terrorism.

Imam, whose real name was Sultan Amir Tarar, worked alongside Afghanistan’s mujahideen to defeat the Soviet occupation. In the mid-1990s, as an ISI agent in the country, he spotted the potential of the then emerging Taliban movement and helped nurture it. After 2001 he was forcibly retired from the ISI after being considers too radical.

Courtesy: ARY News – You Tube

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, News, Pakistan, Politics

Colonel Imam is gone!

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– Body of former ISI official found in North Waziristan

PESHAWAR: The body of former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official Colonel (retired) Imam was found in the Dandi Darpakhel area of Miranshah, officials said on Sunday.

Colonel Sultan Amir Tarar aka known as Colonel Imam was kidnapped with former ISI official Khalid Khwaja and British Journalist Asad Qureshi from Miranshah in March 2010, where they were going to shoot a documentary on the Taliban. Imam had reportedly been kidnapped by the Asian Tigers and had later been handed over to militants from Haqqani network. …

Read more : The Express Tribune

News, Pakistan, Politics, Punjab

Alleged plot to assassinate LHC CJ: ‘Special Branch officials sought to create political rift’

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ISLAMABAD: The three-member judicial commission that probed into the alleged plot to kill Chief Justice Lahore High Court Khwaja Mohammad Sharif, has revealed in its report that the apparent objective of the Special Branch report, authored by additional Inspector General, Colonel Ehsanur Rehman and his deputy Shahid Mahmood, was to malign and defame persons associated with the ruling party and the party itself.

This was done, the Commission said, to pitch the Punjab government of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) against the federal government of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

The Commission also questioned the move by the Special Branch Punjab to send one copy of the source report to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif when he was in Murree. The Commission wondered why the report was sent to Nawaz Sharif, who did not hold any official position in the Punjab government. …

Read more : The Express Tribune

News, Pakistan, Politics

Ex-MI chief, commanders Quetta, Pindi involved

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By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: While Musharraf continues to embarrass Pakistan and its authorities, including the Pakistan Army, an important source has revealed that the General Headquarters (GHQ) and its most vital arm, the Military Operations Directorate, was bypassed by the former dictator, both in the Lal Masjid operation and Bugti killing.

The source said that none of these extremely controversial operations, which sowed the seeds of terrorism in Balochistan and the rest of the country, were the brainchild of the MO Directorate.

The source said that in both these military operations, the GHQ and concerned field command were not directly involved. “In both the cases, General Musharraf bypassed the GHQ and its MO Directorate, and gave direct orders to the relevant field commanders,” said the well-placed and well- informed source.

Ideally and as per the military’s established rules, no such operation could take place without being conceptualised and cleared by the MO Directorate. However, Musharraf, the all powerful dictator that he was, did not engage the MO Directorate.

In the case of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti’s killing, the source said, General Musharraf involved the then Military Intelligence chief Major General Nadeem Ejaz and the top command of 12 Corps.

In a briefing on Balochistan issue by the then DGMO and much before the killing of the Baloch Nawab, General Musharraf once talked about the idea of killing Bugti but the idea was not agreed to by the DGMO, who warned that it would lead to unrest. Later, Musharraf never engaged the GHQ and executed his plot to kill Bugti through the MI and the Commander of the 12 Corps.

After the Bugti killing, some key generals in the GHQ in their in-house interactions expressed their dismay over the Kohlu military operation. The Lal Masjid operation, which killed over a hundred persons and led to the escalation of terrorism cases manifold, was no different from that of the military operation aimed at killing Bugti.

The source said that the planning of the Lal Masjid operation was done by Commander 10 Corps Tariq Majid on the direct instructions of the ousted dictator.

“The GHQ and its MO Directorate were not involved in any such planning,” the source said, adding that a day after Lieutenant Colonel Haroon became the first casualty of the pre-Lal Masjid operation, Musharraf convened a meeting of top political and military authorities and given his mind that a full-fledged operation had to be carried out. …

Read more : The News