PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party’s red flag can be seen everywhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s PK-3 constituency. The area has traditionally been a stronghold of the Pashtun nationalist party, and it never lost a voting contest here until the last general elections in 2013.
Back then, the country’s relatively new Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party managed to defeat the ANP’s Haroon Bilour, who had replaced his deceased father, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, after the Taliban assassinated him in a suicide attack in December 2012.
There are several other areas in Peshawar and other KP districts where the ANP has a significant following. Yet the party has never been able to form an independent government in the province, though it has spearheaded several coalition administrations.
This is despite the fact that the ANP prides itself on being the province’s organic political force. However, unlike Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz or the Pakistan Peoples Party, which have usually remained the strongest political entities in their respective provinces of Punjab and Sindh, the ANP has largely failed to dominate KP’s electoral politics, even though it has always marketed itself as a Pashtun political party.
But KP is not an easy province to govern. The incumbency factor always militates against political parties administering the region, making its people change their rulers in almost every general election. The ANP, which claims to champion the rights of the Pashtun population, has not been immune to this habit of change, either.
Today, the party claims to follow the legacy of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who launched the Khudai Khidmatgar – or Servants of God – movement in 1929 to drive out the British from the subcontinent. His son, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, founded the ANP as a left-wing party in 1986. Asfandyar Wali Khan, who belongs to the family’s third generation, is leading the political faction, making it a dynastic entity. Yet ANP leaders claim they desire radical sociopolitical transformation of the country.
“The red in our flag symbolizes revolution,” Senator Zahid Khan told Arab News. “ANP’s ideology is Pashtun nationalism, and our objective is to work for the rights of the oppressed.”
The party’s secular political orientation turned it into a target for the Taliban between 2008 and 2013. ANP leaders publicly criticized the militant network as well, and their offices and front-running candidates were frequently targeted by suicide bombers. The party lost a large number of activists to the scourge of terrorism, making it difficult for its leaders to run an aggressive election campaign.
“More than a thousand ANP leaders and workers were killed in terrorist attacks while we were ruling the province,” Khan said.
He added that even after the party lost its government in KP, nearly 250 ANP members have become victims of target killings in the past few years.
Regardless of such hardships, the party’s detractors believe it failed to deliver while governing the province. Juma Khan Sufi, who remained quite close to ANP’s founding fathers, accused it of indulging in corrupt practices during its last tenure. He also criticized its relations with India and Afghanistan.
“ANP should stop playing politics in the name of Pashtuns and its leaders should become Pakistanis,” he said. “They should not toe the line of Kabul and New Delhi.”
But the party’s vice president, Senator Baz Muhammad Khan, told Arab News that the ANP faced such criticism because it demanded Pashtun rights, and the federation viewed its politics quite negatively.
“Why was Bashir Bilour, our senior minister, killed? Why have our leaders been targeted since the party’s inception? They did not have personal enmities. They were only targeted since they were demanding the rights of the province and its Pashtun population,” he said.
Asked about ANP’s less-than-satisfactory election performance in 2013, Senator Zahid Khan said elections were always rigged in Pakistan. He also claimed that the party never got a level playing field.
“Why did we lose in 2013? It was because the PTI was holding public rallies while our party was being attacked. While other parties were campaigning, we were attending funerals of our party colleagues,” he said.
He pointed out that the ANP had faced criticism not only domestically but also internationally: “We were disliked at the international level when we opposed the Cold War. The ANP also said that what was happening in Afghanistan during the late 1970s and much of the 1980s was a war between the United States and Soviet Union, and it must not be misconstrued as jihad.”
Responding to the allegation that the ANP had a soft spot for India and Afghanistan, Khan said: “Our leadership was killed and targeted by militants. Is this not enough to prove our patriotism toward our country?”
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s organic political force: ANP’s rise, fall and continuing struggle
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s organic political force: ANP’s rise, fall and continuing struggle
South Sudan lawmakers to arrive in Islamabad today to enhance parliamentary ties, bilateral cooperation
- South Sudanese lawmakers to meet prominent political figures, government leaders during three-day visit
- Delegation arrives at a time of conflict and turmoil in Sudan, where a 20-month war has killed over 24,000
ISLAMABAD: A delegation of South Sudan’s legislative assembly is arriving in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad today, Monday, on a three-day visit to boost bilateral relations and parliamentary ties with Pakistan, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.
The delegation will be headed by Nathaniel Oyet Pierino, the first deputy speaker of the South Sudan parliament. Pierino is visiting Pakistan on the invitation of Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to enhance parliamentary diplomacy, Radio Pakistan said.
“These meetings will focus on fostering closer parliamentary cooperation, addressing mutual interests, and expanding the scope of bilateral relations across various sectors,” the state media reported.
The South Sudanese delegation will engage in a series of important meetings with Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Deputy Speaker Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah and Deputy Chairman of the Senate Syedaal Khan.
The Sudanese delegation will meet prominent political figures and government leaders to further solidify ties between the two nations, Radio Pakistan added.
The delegation arrives at a time when the African region is engulfed in turmoil as a civil war between a paramilitary group in Sudan and the country’s army rages on. The 20-month war has killed over 24,000 and driven over 14 million people from their homes, according to the UN.
An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have crossed into neighboring countries, including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan, to escape the horrors of the conflict.
Pakistan has repeatedly called on the international community to support efforts for a ceasefire in the African country and urged both warring parties to desist from further bloodshed in the country.
Pakistan says progress on resettling Afghans in Western countries remains ‘painfully slow’
- Thousands of Afghans who helped American troops and diplomats during Afghan war await resettlement in US
- Pakistan says would have been “more appropriate” if world did not abandon the Afghan people after the war
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office has said that progress on the cases of thousands of Afghans seeking resettlement in Western countries remains “painfully slow,” insisting that it was only repatriating Afghan nationals who were residing illegally in Pakistan.
Thousands of Afghan locals put themselves in danger to serve alongside US troops, diplomats, and contractors during the war in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks. These individuals provided linguistic, cultural and geographic knowledge to the United States at great personal risk to themselves and their families.
Since 2006, the American Congress has established several Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) programs that allow eligible applicants to resettle to safety in the US. After the fall of Kabul in August 2021, thousands of Afghans who had filed such refugee resettlement applications entered neighboring Pakistan, but remain trapped in legal limbo, while facing persistent threats for their collaboration with the US.
In 2023, Islamabad began a drive to expel what it said were all undocumented foreigners, a campaign that has disproportionately hit Afghans, with reportedly 800,000 repatriated so far. Afghan rights activists and applicants of SIVs have said the deportation drive has also forcibly repatriated scores of Afghans awaiting resettlement in the United States, which Islamabad denies.
Pakistan has consistently called on Western countries to expedite the approval and visa issuance of Afghan nationals that are currently in Pakistan but awaiting to be resettled in the West.
“Progress on the cases of thousands of Afghan nationals who were promised resettlement in Western countries remains painfully slow,” Pakistan’s foreign office wrote on social media platform X on Sunday.
It was responding to Jan England, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who had highlighted the plight of Afghan refugees being repatriated from Pakistan and Iran.
The foreign office pointed out that Pakistan had hosted over four million Afghan refugees that had escaped their war-torn country for the past 40 years, adding that those being sent back were those that were “residing illegally without any documentation or proof of residence.”
“It would have been more appropriate had the world not abandoned the Afghan people after the war and if conducive socioeconomic conditions had been created inside the country for the Afghan people to prosper,” the foreign office said. It said that the United Nations’ humanitarian aid to Afghanistan remains “critically underfunded” with only 37.5 percent of the required funds secured last year.
“Pakistan has been and will continue to support all efforts aimed at addressing the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan as well as for lasting peace and stability in the country,” the foreign office concluded.
PAKISTAN’S DEPORTATION DRIVE
Pakistan launched the deportation drive in October 2023 after a spike in suicide bombings which the Pakistan government, without providing evidence, said were carried out by Afghan nationals. Islamabad has also blamed them for smuggling, militant violence and other crimes.
A cash-strapped Pakistan navigating record inflation, alongside a tough International Monetary Fund bailout program in 2023, had also said undocumented migrants had drained its resources for decades.
Until the government initiated the expulsion drive, Pakistan was home to over four million Afghan migrants and refugees out of which around 1.7 million were undocumented, as per government figures.
Afghans make up the largest portion of migrants, many of whom came after the Taliban took over Kabul in 2021, but a large number have been present since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Islamabad insists the deportation drive is not aimed specifically at Afghans but at all those living illegally in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s new Gwadar airport set to begin operations today
- The opening of Chinese-funded airport was delayed because of security review due to militant attacks in Pakistan’s Balochistan in August
- The airport will begin operations with the arrival of an inaugural Pakistan International Airlines flight from Karachi, airports authority says
KARACHI: Pakistan’s new Gwadar International Airport is set to begin operations today, Monday, with a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight due to arrive from the southern port city of Karachi, a Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) spokesperson said, following a months-long delay in the opening of the airport.
A security review, prompted by deadly attacks by separatist militants in Balochistan in August last year, had delayed the airport’s opening to the end of 2024. The airport was due to begin operation on Jan. 10, but it was once again postponed.
The $200-million Chinese-funded airport, which will handle both domestic and international flights, is expected to become one of Pakistan’s largest, according to the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA).
A ceremony will be held to mark the airport’s opening on Monday, which would be attended by senior federal and provincial government officials, according to PAA spokesperson Saif Ullah.
“The first flight will be given a traditional water salute by Rescue and Fire Fighting Service (RFFS) water bowsers after landing,” the PAA spokesperson said in a statement.
China has pledged over $65 billion in infrastructure, energy and other projects in Pakistan under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Part of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, the program in Pakistan is also developing a deep-water port close to the new Gwadar airport, a joint venture between Pakistan, Oman and China that is close to completion.
Last month, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office said the Gwadar airport would be able to handle A-380 aircraft and capable of accommodating 4 million passengers annually.
The airport will feature various facilities, including cold storage, cargo sheds, hotels and shopping malls, with banking services arranged through the State Bank of Pakistan, according to the PM’s office. PIA also planned to increase
flights between Karachi and Gwadar to three times a week, while discussions were ongoing with private airlines and carriers from China, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to launch both domestic and international services.
Sharif had highlighted that the Gwadar International Airport symbolized the strong China-Pakistan friendship, expressing gratitude to Beijing for constructing an airport with international standards and modern facilities.
Although no Chinese projects were targeted in militant attacks in August, they have been frequently attacked in the past by separatists who view China as a foreign invader trying to gain control of impoverished but mineral-rich Balochistan, the site of a decades-long insurgency.
Recent attacks, including the one in October 2024 in which two Chinese workers were killed in a suicide bombing in Karachi, forced Beijing to publicly criticize Pakistan over security lapses and there had been widespread media reports that China wanted its own security forces on the ground to protect its nationals and projects, a demand Islamabad has long resisted.
Pakistan launches operation in Kurram district, sets up camps for displaced families
- Tribal and sectarian clashes since Nov. 21 have killed at least 136 people in Kurram and caused medicine, food and fuel shortages
- A senior police official says military will lead the operation in Kurram’s Bagan area, with police providing ‘second-tier support’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security forces have launched an operation to clear the northwestern Pakistani district of Kurram of militants, a senior police official said on Sunday, following months of unrest in the region.
Kurram, a district of around 600,000 people in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, has been rocked by tribal and sectarian clashes since November 21, when armed men attacked a convoy of Shia passengers, killing 52 people.
The attack sparked further violence and blockade of a main road connecting Kurram’s main town of Parachinar with the provincial capital of Peshawar, causing medicine, food and fuel shortages in the area, as casualties surged to 136.
The operation in Lower Kurram comes after the KP government announced the establishment of camps for temporarily displaced persons (TDPs), following an ambush on a supply convoy that killed 10 people on Thursday.
“The operation has commenced in Lower Kurram’s Bagan area and the sanitization process to clear the area is underway,” Abbas Majeed Marwat, the Kohat regional police officer (RPO), told Arab News.
“The military will lead the operation, with the police providing second-tier support through the Elite Force, regular police, and other security forces.”
Asked about the scale of the operation, Marwat said it was targeted at specific areas where militants were using hideouts to sabotage peace efforts.
“The operation will focus on certain pockets, particularly in Bagan and its adjacent areas,” he said.
Thursday’s ambush targeted a convoy of 33 vehicles set to resupply local traders in the region with rice, flour and cooking oil and two aid vehicles carrying essential medicine. It followed a similar attack on a supply convoy this month that injured five people, including a top administration official in the region.
The violence has continued despite a peace agreement signed between the warring tribes on Jan. 1. Under the peace agreement, both sides had agreed on the demolition of bunkers and the handover of heavy weapons to authorities within two weeks.
RPO Marwat said the operation aimed to target elements “embedded within the local community who were acting as spoilers.” He said authorities had completed arrangements for TDPs, while some families had already left the most affected areas to stay with their relatives elsewhere.
“The commissioner of Kohat and I visited the proposed sites for TDP camps in Hangu to inspect the administrative and security arrangements,” he told Arab News on Sunday.
“As of yesterday, more than 20 families had relocated [from Bagan] and more are leaving because the situation here remains critical.”
Separately on Sunday, the KP government announced action against militants in violence-hit areas of Kurram, following a high-level huddle in Peshawar.
“Action against few miscreants in the affected areas has become unavoidable and a decision has been made to take strict and indiscriminate action against miscreants,” said a statement issued from the office of KP government spokesperson Mohammad Ali Saif.
For the past three months, the statement said, the KP government had been working hard to restore peace and stability in Kurram, and a peace agreement was reached through a grand jirga in line with Pashtun traditions.
“A few miscreants in Kurram have attempted to sabotage the peace agreement,” it said, adding that the militants attempted to assassinate Kurram Deputy Commissioner Javedullah Mehsud, leaving him seriously injured, and were also targeting security personnel and supply convoys.
The statement said the government feared that the “miscreants” had infiltrated peaceful communities, and to protect peaceful citizens, they would be separated.
“Alternative housing arrangements have been made for the affected population,” it added.
Feuding tribes have battled with machine guns and heavy weapons in Kurram, cutting off the remote and mountainous region bordering Afghanistan from the outside world.
Provincial authorities have been supplying relief goods and transporting ailing and injured people from Kurram to Peshawar via helicopters since late last month.
Pakistan commerce minister arrives in Cambodia to hold bilateral trade talks
- The development comes amid Pakistan’s push to revive its $350 billion economy since avoiding a default in June 2023
- Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan will attend the inaugural Joint Trade Committee and Ministerial Meeting in Phnom Penh
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan on Sunday arrived in Cambodia on a three-day official visit to hold bilateral trade talks, his ministry said, amid Pakistan’s push for trade and investment.
The commerce minister will participate in the inaugural Joint Trade Committee and Ministerial Meeting in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, according to the Pakistani commerce ministry.
Upon arrival, Khan was received by Pakistan’s Ambassador to Cambodia Zaheer Uddin Baber Thaheem and Tith Rithipol, undersecretary of state from the Cambodian ministry of commerce.
“The visit aims to strengthen bilateral trade ties, explore new economic opportunities, and enhance cooperation between the two nations,” the Pakistani commerce ministry said in a statement.
“The meetings are expected to cover a range of topics, including trade facilitation, investment prospects, and market access.”
The development comes amid Pakistan’s efforts to revive its $350 billion economy since avoiding a default in June 2023. The South Asian country last year secured a new $7 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and has been actively pursuing trade and investment opportunities to put the economy on the path of recovery.
The Pakistani commerce ministry said Khan’s visit marked a “significant step” toward deepening economic engagement between Pakistan and Cambodia.
“Further discussions and agreements are anticipated during the visit,” it added.
