The offensive stance of the US foreign policy against the so-called war on terrorism in Afghanistan, lunched by the short-sighted president Bush has become despised even in the US and eventuated into the profound contribution to ruin the economy of the country. According to a survey the sum total cost of war on terrorism is almost US $ 165,905,720,727 (both in Iraq and Afghanistan) has been spent. Now it the time for our FAST FRIEND to wrap up her Afghan venture, keeping in view her sagging economy of possessing less than 100$ billion foreign exchange reserves. The US fight against the terrorists in merely the nuke and corner of Pakistani region is making the people of Pakistan a demoralized party. Oblivious to the high-up of the Pakistani foreign office the US continued the spate of lethal pilot less machines attacks on the FATA region crossing the number of 170.
Pakistan has been gripped by terrorism in recent times. It has been attributed to the government allying itself with the United States in the global war on terror. Currently, the biggest threat to the state and citizens of Pakistan stems from the politically motivated killing of civilians and police officials, possibly attributed to General Zia Ul Haq’s controversial Islamisation policies, the president of the country in the 1980s. On December 2, 1978, General Zia Ul Haq delivered a nationwide address on the occasion of the first day of the Hijra calendar. He did this in order to usher in an Islamic system to Pakistan. In the speech, he accused politicians of exploiting the name of Islam, saying that "many a ruler did what they pleased in the name of Islam." After assuming power the task that the government set to was its public commitment to enforce Nizam-e-Mustafa (Islamic System) a 180 degree turn from Pakistan's predominantly Common Law. As a preliminary measure to establish an Islamic society in Pakistan, General Zia announced the establishment of Sharia Benches. Speaking about the jurisdiction of the Sharia Benches, he remarked, "Every citizen will have the right to present any law enforced by the government before the 'Sharia Bench' and obtain its verdict whether the law is wholly or partly Islamic or un-Islamic." But General Zia did not mention that the Sharia Benches' jurisdiction was curtailed by the following overriding clause: "(Any) law does not include the constitution, Muslim personal law, any law relating to the procedure of any court or tribunal or, until the expiration of three years, any fiscal law, or any law relating to the collection of taxes and fees or insurance practice and procedure." It meant that all important laws which affect each and every individual directly remained outside the purview of the Sharia Benches. However, he did not have a smooth sailing even with the clipped Sharia Benches. The Federal Sharia Bench declared rajm, or stoning, to be un-Islamic; Ziaul Haq reconstituted the court, which then declared rajm as Islamic. His tenure saw Pakistan's exceeding involvement in Soviet-Afghan War, which led to greater influx of ideologically driven Afghan Arabs in the tribal areas and the explosion of Kalashnikov and drugs culture. The history of Arabs in Afghanistan spans over one millennium, from the 7th century Islamic conquest when Arab ghazis arrived with their Islamic mission until recently when others from the Arab world arrived to defend fellow Muslims from the Soviet followed by NATO forces. Most of the early Arabs gradually lost their Arabic hegemony and ultimately mixed with the local population, though they are still considered a cognizably distinct ethnic group according to the Constitution of Afghanistan and the Afghan National Anthem. Afghans who carry Sayyid or Quraishi in their names usually claim Arab ancestry.
The state and its intelligence agency ISI in alliance with the United State and CIA encouraged the "mujahideen" to fight the proxy war against the Soviet Union, most of which were never disarmed after the war. Some of these groups were later activated under the behest of the state in the form of Lashkar I Taiba, Harkat Ul Mujahideen and others were encouraged like Taliban to achieve state's agenda in Kashmir and Afghanistan. At the end of the Afghan War, between 1990 and 1996, the Pakistani establishment continued to organize, support and nurture the Mujahideen groups. The idea was to use these groups for proxy warfare in Indian Kashmir and to support the doctrine of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan through the use of the Taliban. The 9/11 attacks brought this strategy of Pakistan under increased international scrutiny. The September 11 attacks (often referred to as September 11th or 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the US on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airlines. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shankville in rural Pennsylvania after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights. Nearly 3,000 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks. According to the New York State Health Department, 836 responders, including firefighters and police personnel, have died as of June 2009. Among the 2,752 victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center were 343 firefighters and 60 police officers from New York City and the Port Authority. 184 people were killed in the attacks on the Pentagon. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries. In addition, there was at least one secondary death—one person was ruled by a medical examiner to have died from lung disease due to exposure to dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.
The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror, invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists, and enacting the USA PATRIOT Act. Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Some American stock exchanges stayed closed for the rest of the week following the attack, and posted enormous losses upon reopening, especially in the airline and insurance industries. The destruction of billions of dollars' worth of office space caused serious damage to the economy of Lower Manhattah. The damage to the Pentagon was cleared and repaired within a year, and the Pentagon Memorial was built adjacent to the building. The rebuilding process started on the World Trade Center site. In 2006, a new office tower was completed on the site of World Trade Center. The new World Trade Center is currently under construction at the site and, at 1,776 ft (541 m) upon completion in 2013, it will become the tallest building in North America. Three more towers were originally expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site. Ground was broken for the Flight National Memorial on November 8, 2009, and the first phase of construction is expected to be ready for the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2011.
The post-9/11 war on terrorism in Pakistan has had two principal elements: the government's battle with jihad groups banned after 9/11, and the U.S. pursuit of Al-Qaeda, usually (but not always) in coordination with Pakistani forces. In 2004, the Pakistani army launched a mock pursuit of Al-Qaeda members in the mountainous area of Waziristan on the Afghan border which was nothing but eyewash for the rest of the world. Clashes there erupted into a low-level conflict with Islamic militants and local tribesmen, sparking the Waziristan War. A short-lived truce known as the Waziristan accord was brokered in September 2006. The War in North-West Pakistan is an armed conflict between the Pakistani Armed Forces and Islamic militants made up of local tribesmen, the Taliban, and foreign supported criminals disguised as mujahideen (holy warriors). It began in 2004 when tensions rooted in the Pakistani Army's search for al-Qaeda members in Pakistan's mountainous Waziristan area (in the FATA) escalated into armed resistance.
Clashes erupted between the Pakistani troops and al-Qaeda's and other militants joined by local rebels and pro-Taliban forces. Pakistan's actions were presented as its role in the war on terror, and had connections to the war and Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. 2,637 security forces members and 12,847 militants were killed between January 2003, and November 12, 2009, according to government sources. On February 18, 2010, the Pakistani military confirmed that since September 11, 2001, 2,351 soldiers have been killed in the war and another 6,512 have been wounded. Also, there have been 21,672 civilian casualties (at least 7,598 of these were killed). The military stated that 17,742 militants have been killed or captured. Among these, by November 2007, were 488 foreign extremists killed, 24 others arrested and 324 injured. An additional 220 policemen were killed in fighting in 2007 and 2008. Before all-out fighting broke out in 2003, independent news sources reported only four incidents of deaths of Pakistani security forces members in 2001 and 2002, in which a total of 20 soldiers and policemen were killed. The independent South Asia Terrorism Portal website has estimated that at least 1,865 soldiers and policemen were killed between 2003 and 2008. The Pak Institute for Peace Studies has estimated that 1,185 soldiers and policemen were killed in 2009. Also, at least 857 soldiers and policemen have been reported captured by the militants since the start of the war, with at least 558 of them being released. Mr. Naushad Ali Khan Superintendent of Research and Analysis, NWFP Police in his article Suicide and terrorist attack and police actions in NWFP, Pakistan has provided details of different activities of the terrorists during 2008. Accordingly 483 cases were registered with 533 deaths and 1290 injured. Similarly 29 suicidal cases were registered that resulted in the death of 247 persons while 695 persons sustained injuries. During the same period 83 attempts of terrorism were foiled by the NWFP Police.
The researcher is the communication consultant for NGOs
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