EUA suspendem ajuda militar ao Paquistão

The US says it is withholding some $800m in military aid to Pakistan.

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley told ABC television that Pakistan had "taken some steps that have given us reason to pause on some of the aid".

He said the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in May had affected ties but he insisted the relationship "must be made to work over time".

The $800m (£500m) equates to about a third of the annual US security aid to Pakistan, US officials say.

In figures submitted to the International Monetary Fund last autumn, Pakistan's defence expenditure in its 2010-2011 budget was put at $6.41bn - an increase of $1.27bn on the previous year. [...]

Ver notícia na BBC

EUA e Paquistão à beira da ruptura

 Il est toujours triste de voir une histoire d’amour mal tourner, quand les espérances folles, torpillées par les trahisons secrètes, s’effondrent dans un concert de reproches. C’est précisément ce que vivent aujourd’hui les Etats-Unis et le Pakistan, et que ce soit à Washington ou à Islamabad, on se croirait un peu dans un feuilleton à l’eau de rose. "Comment ont-ils pu nous traiter de la sorte ?" Tel est le ton du débat politique dans les deux capitales. S’il s’agissait d’un couple en désamour, on lui recommanderait de prendre du recul, histoire de panser son orgueil blessé et de retrouver son équilibre. Un avis qui vaut sans doute aussi pour les Etats-Unis et le Pakistan. Ces deux pays ont été amèrement déçus par leur relation – chacun semblant incapable de comprendre ce qui déplaît à l’autre –, mais ils ont également des intérêts communs qui doivent passer avant tout le reste.
"Il y a des points de friction, mais pas de rupture", commente Husain Haqqani, ambassadeur du Pakistan à Washington, qui n’a pas ménagé ses efforts pour éviter la cassure, allant jusqu’à défier les militaires d’Islamabad. Du côté des décideurs américains, nombreux sont ceux qui approuveraient ses propos. Passée la période de recul, la relation ne sera plus la même – avec davantage de respect pour l’indépendance pakistanaise. C’est une bonne chose, même du point de vue des intérêts américains. L’étreinte des Etats-Unis devenait étouffante, et l’armée pakistanaise était considérée par son opinion publique comme un laquais de Washington. C’était une source croissante de honte et d’indignation nationale, comparables à la colère qui a causé la chute d’Hosni Moubarak en Egypte. [...]

Ver notícia no Courrier International

"Funestas coincidências em torno da morte de Benazir Bhutto" in Le Monde, 30 de Dezembro de 2007

por Kamran Haider

Par un funeste caprice du destin, le docteur Mussadiq Khan a tenté en vain de sauver jeudi la vie de Benazir Bhutto, visée par un attentat, tout comme son père avait échoué 56 ans plus tôt à maintenir en vie le Premier ministre de l'époque, également assassiné.

Khan a tout tenté pour essayer de sauver Bhutto lorsqu'elle a été emmenée dans un hôpital de Rawalpindi après avoir été la cible d'un attentat suicide alors qu'elle quittait une réunion électorale organisée dans un parc public de la ville.

Le père de Khan, Sadiq Khan, était de garde dans un hôpital de Rawalpindi en octobre 1951 lorsque le Premier ministre de l'époque, Liaquat Ali Khan, fut emmené après avoir été blessé par balles lors d'un rassemblement... organisé dans le même parc que celui où Bhutto tenait meeting.

Liaquat Ali Khan a perdu la vie et le parc a été rebaptisé "Liaquat Bagh" en sa mémoire. Bagh signifie "jardins" en Urdu.

"C'est la volonté de Dieu", a déclaré Khan à Reuters à propos de cette coïncidence qui a voulu que le père et le fils prennent en charge deux dirigeants pakistanais attaqués au même endroit, à plus d'un demi-siècle de distance.

Khan a indiqué que Bhutto était tout près de la mort lorsqu'elle est arrivée dans son hôpital.

"Elle ne respirait pas. La pression artérielle était nulle, son coeur ne battait plus. Nous avons entrepris une réanimation complète. Nous avons tout tenté mais malheureusement nous n'avons pas réussi à la réanimer", a-t-il expliqué.

"J'ai fait de mon mieux mais je n'ai pas réussi. Que puis-je dire ? (...). C'était une grande dirigeante. C'était notre dirigeante", a-t-il ajouté.

Khan confirme la thèse avancée par le gouvernement sur les circonstances de la mort de Bhutto. Selon lui, celle-ci a été tuée dans le souffle de l'explosion en se cognant la tête contre le levier du toit ouvrant de sa voiture.

Cette version est contestée, notamment par une proche collaboratrice de l'ancien Premier ministre selon laquelle elle a été atteinte d'une balle à la tête.

Autre coup du destin, Bhutto a été tuée à environ deux kilomètres de l'endroit où son père, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a été pendu en 1979.

Les deux fils de Khan sont médecins. Il espère qu'ils n'auront pas à vivre d'autres coïncidences comme celle-là.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-33747704@7-37,0.html
JPTF 2007/12/30

"Al-Qaeda reivindica a morte de Benazir Bhutto" in CNN, 28 de Dezembro de 2007

Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a Pakistani Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.

A report by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan quoted ministry spokesman Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema as saying, "Al Qaeda in a statement has accepted the responsibility of her assassination, as in the past she had been receiving life threats from this terrorist group."

CNN could not independently confirm that al Qaeda has claimed responsibility.

On Thursday, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin citing an alleged claim of responsibility by the terror network for Bhutto's death, a DHS official said.

But FBI and other law enforcement officials said that the claim is unsubstantiated and that federal officials are not making any comments about its validity.

No one has accepted responsibility for the Pakistani opposition leader's death on radical Islamist Web sites that regularly post such messages from al Qaeda and other militant groups.

Bhutto, 54, was killed Thursday in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, by flying shrapnel stemming from a suicide bombing, the Pakistani government said. See photos from rally and aftermath »

Italian news agency Adnkronos International apparently was the source of the al Qaeda claim, saying the terror network's Afghan commander and spokesman Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid had telephoned the agency with it.

"We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahedeen," the Italian news agency quoted Al-Yazid as saying.

The agency said that al Qaeda's No. 2 official, Ayman al-Zawahiri, set the wheels in motion for Bhutto's assassination in October.

One Islamist Web site repeated the assertion, but experts in the field don't consider the site to be a reliable source for Islamist messages.

The DHS official said the claim was "an unconfirmed open source claim of responsibility" and the bulletin was sent out at about 6 p.m. Thursday to state and local law enforcement agencies. Watch as an analyst says the killing gives al Qaeda "running room" »

The official characterized the bulletin as "information sharing."

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the validity of such a claim is "undetermined." Kolko said the FBI and the intelligence community is reviewing it "for any intelligence value."

Ross Feinstein, spokesman for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, said the U.S. intelligence community is monitoring the situation and trying to figure out who is responsible for the assassination.

"We are not in a position to confirm who may be responsible," Feinstein said.

Bhutto had been critical of what she believed was a lack of effort by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's government to protect her.

About a week after an October 18 car-bomb attack on her motorcade in Karachi, Pakistan, Bhutto sent an an e-mail to Mark Siegel, her U.S. spokesman, lobbyist and longtime friend.

Siegel forwarded the message to CNN's Wolf Blitzer with instructions not to report on it unless Bhutto was killed.

In the e-mail, Bhutto said Musharraf should bear some of the blame if anything were to happen to her.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/bhutto.dhs.alqaeda/index.html
JPTF 2007/12/28

"Quem matou Benazir Bhutto? Os principais suspeitos" in Times, 27 de Dezembro de 2007

The main suspects in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination are the Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants who saw her as a heretic and an American stooge and had repeatedly threatened to kill her.

But fingers will also be pointed at Inter-Services Intelligence, the agency that has had close ties to the Islamists since the 1970s and has been used by successive Pakistani leaders to suppress political opposition.

Ms Bhutto narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in October, when a suicide bomber killed about 140 people at a rally in the port city of Karachi to welcome her back from eight years in exile.

Earlier that month, two militant warlords based in Pakistan's lawless northwestern areas, near the border with Afghanistan, had threatened to kill her on her return.

One was Baitullah Mehsud, a top commander fighting the Pakistani army in the tribal region of South Waziristan. He has close ties to al Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban.

The other was Haji Omar, the “amir” or leader of the Pakistani Taleban, who is also from South Waziristan and fought against the Soviets with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

After that attack Ms Bhutto revealed that she had received a letter signed by a person who claimed to be a friend of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden threatening to slaughter her like a goat.

She accused Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security and hinted that they may have been complicit in the bomb attack. Asif Ali Zardari, her husband, directly accused the ISI of being involved in that attempt on her life.

Mrs Bhutto stopped short of blaming the Government directly, saying that she had more to fear from unidentified members of a power structure that she described as allies of the “forces of militancy”.

Analysts say that President Musharraf himself is unlikely to have ordered her assassination, but that elements of the army and intelligence service would have stood to lose money and power if she had become Prime Minister.

The ISI, in particular, includes some Islamists who became radicalised while running the American-funded campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan and remained fiercely opposed to Ms Bhutto on principle.

Saudi Arabia, which has strong influence in Pakistan, is also thought to frown on Ms Bhutto as being too secular and Westernised and to favour Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3100052.ece
JPTF 2007/12/27