mujahideen
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2007
- Messages
- 2,407
- Reaction score
- 0
Kayani, Baitullah on Times list of 100 influential people
By Masood Haider
NEW YORK, May 1: Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani made the final list of TIME magazines 100 most influential people in the world, which includes luminaries like Indias Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi, US President George Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao and US presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain.
Also making to the list is Baitullah Mehsud who was named by the government as the prime suspect in the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
In an appreciation of General Kayani, the magazine said: Kayani, 56, quickly showed that his loyalty lay with the nation he had served for nearly four decades, not with the man who had elevated him to the most powerful position in the country.
On taking office, Kayani ordered the withdrawal of all military officers from lucrative posts in the civilian bureaucracy. As Pakistan went to the polls in February, Kayani kept the army out of sight, a first in a nation long accustomed to election results tinged by a khaki shadow. The message was clear: his army would stick to the barracks and the battlefields, not the ballot boxes.
Soldiers, friends, diplomats and politicians all extol his reasoned thinking and tempered judgment.
Kayani understands that he will have to restructure the military to go after extremists, says a western observer in Islamabad.
The fight against extremism got a breath of fresh air when he came in. Fresh air is not usually the first thing that comes to mind when one describes
Kayani his voice has the deep crackle of a chain smoker, and he is rarely without his ivory-handled cigarette holder. But it looks as if hes planning to be seen and heard as little as possible.
On Baitullah Mehsud, a leader of Mehsud tribe in Waziristan, the magazine writes he is known to be in his mid-thirties and has told Al Jazeera television that his ultimate ambition is to attack New York City and London.
For Pakistanis, the Dec 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto was the J.F.K. murder and 9/11 rolled into one, plunging the nation into days of mourning and setting off riots across the country. It was a stunning victory for
Pakistans militants, who have increasingly turned their firepower against the state, conducting more than 50 suicide attacks in 2007 alone.
The government quickly fingered Baitullah Mehsud as the mastermind of Ms Bhutto assassination; he had previously threatened to kill her.
The details of Mehsuds biography are sketchy, as he shuns publicity. He is known to be in his mid-30s and to lead thousands of militants, many of them Mehsud tribesmen.
In January, Spanish police said a cell of Pakistanis they arrested in Barcelona were planning suicide operations in Spain and possibly elsewhere in Europe. They had allegedly been dispatched by Mehsud.
Kayani, Baitullah on Times list of 100 influential people -DAWN - Top Stories; May 02, 2008
By Masood Haider
NEW YORK, May 1: Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani made the final list of TIME magazines 100 most influential people in the world, which includes luminaries like Indias Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi, US President George Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao and US presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain.
Also making to the list is Baitullah Mehsud who was named by the government as the prime suspect in the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
In an appreciation of General Kayani, the magazine said: Kayani, 56, quickly showed that his loyalty lay with the nation he had served for nearly four decades, not with the man who had elevated him to the most powerful position in the country.
On taking office, Kayani ordered the withdrawal of all military officers from lucrative posts in the civilian bureaucracy. As Pakistan went to the polls in February, Kayani kept the army out of sight, a first in a nation long accustomed to election results tinged by a khaki shadow. The message was clear: his army would stick to the barracks and the battlefields, not the ballot boxes.
Soldiers, friends, diplomats and politicians all extol his reasoned thinking and tempered judgment.
Kayani understands that he will have to restructure the military to go after extremists, says a western observer in Islamabad.
The fight against extremism got a breath of fresh air when he came in. Fresh air is not usually the first thing that comes to mind when one describes
Kayani his voice has the deep crackle of a chain smoker, and he is rarely without his ivory-handled cigarette holder. But it looks as if hes planning to be seen and heard as little as possible.
On Baitullah Mehsud, a leader of Mehsud tribe in Waziristan, the magazine writes he is known to be in his mid-thirties and has told Al Jazeera television that his ultimate ambition is to attack New York City and London.
For Pakistanis, the Dec 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto was the J.F.K. murder and 9/11 rolled into one, plunging the nation into days of mourning and setting off riots across the country. It was a stunning victory for
Pakistans militants, who have increasingly turned their firepower against the state, conducting more than 50 suicide attacks in 2007 alone.
The government quickly fingered Baitullah Mehsud as the mastermind of Ms Bhutto assassination; he had previously threatened to kill her.
The details of Mehsuds biography are sketchy, as he shuns publicity. He is known to be in his mid-30s and to lead thousands of militants, many of them Mehsud tribesmen.
In January, Spanish police said a cell of Pakistanis they arrested in Barcelona were planning suicide operations in Spain and possibly elsewhere in Europe. They had allegedly been dispatched by Mehsud.
Kayani, Baitullah on Times list of 100 influential people -DAWN - Top Stories; May 02, 2008
