Procrastination

The city of my birth, Wah Cantt, has seen twin suicide bombings today:

At least 63 people have been killed in twin suicide bombings outside a munitions factory in the Pakistani town of Wah, hospital sources say.

The attack is the deadliest on a military site in Pakistan’s history.

The bombs hit the city, 30km (18 miles) north of Islamabad, as workers left. Many people were injured.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban said they had carried out the attacks, which he said were a response to army violence in the country’s north-west.

Correspondents say Wah, in the province of Punjab, is a strategically important town normally under heavy security as it is home to a large industrial complex producing conventional arms and ammunition.

Local police chief Nasir Khan Durrani told the BBC: “Many others have been injured and we expect casualties to rise in the coming hours.

“At least 25 people have been critically injured.”

Mr Durrani said none of the dead was military personnel.

The first blast took place outside the gate of the factory as workers were leaving work during a shift change.

Minutes later, another blast took place at another gate of the same factory.

The two bombings were just outside Main Gate and Aslam Market gate. According to my information, the Main Gate was mostly for workers on bicycles and motorcycles and that’s where most of the casualties were. The other gate is for cars and officers. So the Taliban murdered poor workers.

Wah Cantt is home to Pakistan Ordnance Factories which has a huge campus and is the biggest employer there, employing 25,000 to 30,000 people. The suicide bombings happened at their gates.

Wah Cantt is a somewhat restricted area as any private vehicle going there has to stop at a security checkpost and identify themselves. However, public transport is not stopped.

I am still in shock at these bombings. I lived in Wah Cantt for a total of 15 years. My inlaws still live there. All I can say in response to these killings is: Fuck the Taliban! Fuck Jihad!

POSTSCRIPT: I forgot to mention the suicide bombing of a hospital two days ago.

Thirty-two people, seven policemen and two health officials among them, were killed and 55 others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near the emergency ward of the District Headquarters Hospital [in Dera Ismail Khan] on Tuesday.

[…] The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Inhuman scum!

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The Battle of Algiers is a classic movie about the Algerian War.

The topics — insurgency, bombings, terrorism, counterinsurgency, torture — seem strangely poignant and current.

I rate the movie 8/10.

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Laws giving more power of surveillance to the state are often justified in terms of their use against terrorists, pedophiles and other such criminals, but such laws can and will be used for such purposes as finding deadbeat dads or even checking if families reside in a specific school district.

A council has admitted spying on a family using laws to track criminals and terrorists to find out if they were really living in a school catchment.

A couple and their three children were put under surveillance without their knowledge by Poole Borough Council for more than two weeks.

The council admitted using powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) on six occasions in total.

Three of those were for suspected fraudulent school place applications.

It said two offers of school places were withdrawn as a consequence.

[…] RIPA legislation allows councils to carry out surveillance if it suspects criminal activity.

On its website, the Home Office says: “The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) legislates for using methods of surveillance and information gathering to help the prevention of crime, including terrorism.”

It goes on to say the act allows the interception of communications, carrying out of surveillance and the use of covert human intelligence sources.

Poole council said it used the legislation to watch a family at home and in their daily movements because it wanted to know if they lived in the catchment area for a school, which they wanted their three-year-old daughter to attend.

Also, in the past, these kind of laws have been used against political opponents, as the Church Committee reports show. It is quite probable that they will be used similarly again.

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A Mighty Heart is a movie about the kidnapping and murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl in early 2002. It is based on the book of the same name by Mariane Pearl, Daniel’s wife.

Daniel Pearl doesn’t have much time onscreen here as the movie is about his kidnapping and the ensuing search. The main focus thus are the Pakistani law enforcement, of whom Irfan Khan playing the role of “Captain” did a good job, and Mariane. I was actually surprised to see that Angelina Jolie did some decent acting as Mariane, though there were some accent issues. Will Patton as the US diplomatic security guy looked bad, either intentionally or unintentionally, due to the constant smirk on his face.

I half expected the murder video released by the terrorists to be shown in the movie. However, only a couple of seconds of Danny were shown and not the gory parts of that video, which was a relief.

Overall, it was a decent movie. I rate it 7/10.

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Via Abu Aardvark, I found out about a public opinion poll about US policy, attacks on civilians and al Qaeda in four Muslim countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Morocco. Abu Aardvark focuses on Egypt while I am interested in Pakistan.

Let us look at the full report. But first some information:

The surveys were conducted between December 9, 2006 and February 15, 2007 using in-home interviews. In Morocco (1,000 interviews), Indonesia (1,141 interviews), and Pakistan (1,243 interviews) national probability samples were conducted covering both urban and rural areas. However, Pakistani findings reported here are based only upon urban respondents (611 interviews); rural respondents were unfamiliar with many of the issues in the survey. In Egypt, the sample (1,000 interviews) was an urban sample drawn probabilistically from seven governorates. Sample sizes of 1,000 – 1,141 have confidence intervals of +/- 3 percentage points; a sample size of 611 has a confidence interval of +/-4 percentage points.

So the Pakistani rural population did not have much to opine on these issues and the survey only reports findings from urban areas.

(Urban) Pakistanis have a 15%/67% favorable/unfavorable view of the current US government which is similar to the other countries (except Egypt which is much more unfavorable). 64% of Pakistanis think that nearly all or most of the world events are controlled by the US. 36% of Pakistanis disagreed (while 33% agreed) with the statement that “there have been times in American history where it has helped to promote the welfare of others.” 73% of Pakistanis think that weakening or dividing the Islamic world is a policy goal of the United States and 64% think that spreading Christianity in the Middle East might be a goal. In comparison, 68% of Pakistanis thought that maintaining control over oil resources is a goal of US policy.

On the primary goal of the War on Terror, 42% of Pakistanis think it is to weaken the Islamic world while 26% think it is to militarily and politically dominate the Middle East. Only 12% think the purpose of the war on terror is to protect the US from terror attacks.

While 71% of Pakistanis agree with the goal of getting the US troops to withdraw from Iraq, Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, they disagree about attacks on US troops with about a third approving and similar numbers disapproving.

81% of Pakistanis believe that politically motivated attacks on civilians are not justified, with 72% considering it against Islam. However, only 30% of Pakistanis think that groups that target civilians, such as al Qaeda, are violating the principles of Islam. At the same time, 62% consider suicide bombings by Muslims to be wrong. About two-thirds oppose attacks on civilians in the US and Europe while a slightly less majority opposes attacks on US civilians working in the Muslim world.

9% of (Urban) Pakistanis support al Qaeda attacks on the US and share al Qaeda’s attitude towards the US while 7% oppose the attacks but share the attitude. 17% oppose the attacks and do not share al Qaeda’s attitude towards the US. The rest declined to take a position (which is unusual compared to the other countries surveyed).

Pakistanis have a more positive (27%) view of Osama Bin Laden than negative (15%) with 24% having mixed feelings. Also, only 2% of Pakistanis consider al Qaeda to be behind the September 11, 2001 attacks while 27% think the US did it and 7% blame Israel (62% refused to answer). This is very different from the other countries.

21% of Pakistanis think a conflict between Western and Muslim cultures is inevitable while 43% think it possible to find common ground.

67% of Pakistanis want to keep Western values out of Islamic countries. On the other hand, 65% of Pakistanis consider globalization to be good while only 14% declare it to be bad and 61% consider democracy to be a good way to govern. 71% want to push the US to remove its military forces and bases from the region; 79% want a strict application of shariah law in every Muslim country; and 74% want to unify all Muslim countries into a single state or caliphate.

While 84% of Pakistanis believe people should be free to worship according to their religion, 60% had no problem with proselytizing. About half the Pakistanis have unfavorable views of the freedom of expression in the United States.

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