Joint Parliamentary Session today: Military to brief MPs on war against Terror

[ejaz007]

Joint parliamentary session today: Military to brief MPs on war against terror

* Lt Gen Shuja Pasha will give in-camera briefing on security operations
* Briefing will focus on internal security threats, will be followed by questions-and-answer session

By Sajjad Malik

ISLAMABAD: The parliament is set to meet at 5pm today (Wednesday) for an in-camera briefing by the army on the security situation and the on-going military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Swat.

Sources familiar with the developments said Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha would brief the joint session about the steps taken by the armed forces to tackle terrorism and improve law and order. Before his promotion, Lt Gen Pasha had supervised the operations in FATA and Swat as the director general of military operations.

He will brief the public representatives on Operation Rah-e-Haq I and II in Swat, Operation Sherdil in Bajur Agency, Operation Sirat-e-Mutsaqeem in Khyber Agency, Operation Eagle Swoop I and II in Dara Adam Khel, and the security situation in Kurrum Agency, North Waziristan and South Waziristan agencies, the sources said.

They said the briefing would focus on internal threats to national security and would be followed by a question-and-answer session and a candid exchange of opinions.

Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani met President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday to discuss the army’s preparations for the briefing.

The president had said in his address to the parliament on September 20 that he would arrange the briefing.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani – who has already asked all parliamentarians to ensure their presence – met Pakistan People’s Party Vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim to ‘discuss matters of national interest’, and Leader of the House in Senate Mian Raza Rabbani and National Assembly chief whip Khurshid Shah to discuss the arrangements for the briefing.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has also been invited.

Today’s in-camera session is the third in the history of Pakistan’s parliament – the first being the session in 1974 to discuss declaring the Ahmadi community a minority, and the second in 1987 to brief parliamentarians about the situation in Afghanistan.

Media coverage of the session would not be allowed because of the sensitive nature of the issue being discussed, but the National Assembly secretariat would issue a press release on the conclusion of the joint session.

The state-run APP news agency said in a report that security around the Parliament House had been heightened and security personnel would search all vehicles entering Constitution Avenue.


Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[blain2]

A good step, lets just hope that these politicians put aside their bickering and provide Army the backing it needs to go after this problem. I can guarantee one thing, if Pakistan Army gets the support of the people of Pakistan and the politicians, it can and will sort out these folks. All this talk about the inability, incompetence of the Pakistan Army and FC which is making rounds in the western media has to be seen in the context of what the Army is currently being asked to do...go and fight these people without any national support. Obviously everyone up until recently has been double-minded about what to do and what not to do as anytime the Army takes action, its condemned by all and sundry on the political side. Professionally I know for a fact that we can handle the IS problem just as good as any other Army (and I would even say better than most others). Public and moral support is what is needed for the Army. Kiyani and team have been asking for this and this alone.

 

[fatman17]

A good step, lets just hope that these politicians put aside their bickering and provide Army the backing it needs to go after this problem. I can guarantee one thing, if Pakistan Army gets the support of the people of Pakistan and the politicians, it can and will sort out these folks. All this talk about the inability, incompetence of the Pakistan Army and FC which is making rounds in the western media has to be seen in the context of what the Army is currently being asked to do...go and fight these people without any national support. Obviously everyone up until recently has been double-minded about what to do and what not to do as anytime the Army takes action, its condemned by all and sundry on the political side. Professionally I know for a fact that we can handle the IS problem just as good as any other Army (and I would even say better than most others). Public and moral support is what is needed for the Army. Kiyani and team have been asking for this and this alone.

i hope these politicians will be signing the official secrets act agreement before such briefings!

 

[dr.umer]

Pakistan spy chief briefs lawmakers on horrors of Taliban threat​

9 Oct 2008

Taliban militants are using children as fighters and suicide bombers, Pakistan's new spy chief told lawmakers in a rare briefing on threats posed by Islamic militants the country's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), media reports and officials said Thursday.

Militants are brainwashing innocent children to use them for killing people, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was appointed director general of the military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) last week, told the closed-door joint session of the parliament's upper and lower houses the previous day, reported dpa.

Horrifying videos and slides shown during the presentation bore images of children, aged 10 to 14, carrying various sorts of lethal weapons, the Urdu-language Jang newspaper reported.

A female lawmaker fainted when a 10-year-old child was shown cutting a person's throat with a knife.

Young men were used in a majority of the suicide attacks carried out in the last couple of years across the country, Pasha told parliament.

The briefing, which continued on Thursday, was called by President Asif Ali Zardari to build national consensus on the country's fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, who recently intensified suicide bombings against security troops, public places and the nation's political leaders.

The ISI chief told the joint house meeting that Pakistan's military had made enormous sacrifices since it joined the international fight against terrorism following al-Qaeda's attacks on Untied States in 2001.

"The lawmakers were informed that 1,368 soldiers were martyred (killed) and 3,348 wounded," military sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Meanwhile, 581 fighters of Arab and Central Asian origin, believed to be linked with the al-Qaeda network, were eliminated, 311 injured and 330 arrested in actions across the country, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pakistani security forces carried out several offensives in tribal areas and some districts of NWFP, and killed 2,224 local Taliban militants, injured 1,089 and arrested 2,414 over the last seven years.

The civilian casualties in dozens of suicide or other attacks by militants as well as air air artillery strikes by Pakistani forces were not included in the data.

The closed-chambers briefing is only the third of its kind since 1974 and comes when the nation stands divided on cooperation in the US-led fight against terrorism.

Recent US airstrikes on suspected hideouts of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants have fuelled anger in Pakistan, increasing calls for ending the alliance. Islamists and conservatives are pressing for talks with militants rather than using force against them.

Opposition lawmakers were not completely satisfied with Wednesday's briefing.

Khurram Dastagir Khan, a lawmaker from former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said the briefing was "rather superficial as it only gave us a resume of events, but no diagnosis."

Another PML-N legislator, Ayaz Amir, said questions would be raised during Thursday's briefing "as to how Pakistan was thrown in this war and which country had brought this fire to our doorsteps."

"We need to change this policy to come out of the quagmire in which we have been stuck up to now," he was cited as saying by the English-language Dawn newspaper.

 

[dr.umer]

Opposition lawmakers were not completely satisfied with Wednesday's briefing.

Khurram Dastagir Khan, a lawmaker from former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said the briefing was "rather superficial as it only gave us a resume of events, but no diagnosis."

I am not surprised such statements are coming from Obsessive-compulsive disorder patient Nawaz Sharif's PML N. It has been only one day of in-camera briefing and they are asking for diagnosis and complaining about superficial nature of briefing. Watching a "young boy slaughtering" a man with knife is not superficial, i think...

 

[fatman17]

I am not surprised such statements are coming from Obsessive-compulsive disorder patient Nawaz Sharif's PML N. It has been only one day of in-camera briefing and they are asking for diagnosis and complaining about superficial nature of briefing. Watching a "young boy slaughtering" a man with knife is not superficial, i think...

we are a people who live in the past.. we r a people who dont accept responsibility for our actions. in pakistan today u will see billboards of ZAB and BB everywhere. what r they trying to tell us with this waste of funds. its sad that u will not find pics of Quaid-e-Azam MAJ anywhere.!

instead of collectively supporting the ops in the FATA, we want to know why and then pin the blame on the military for the situation.