PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s election has stunned heavyweight Pashtun religious and nationalist leaders who were “wiped out” at the polls as voters rejected political dynasties in favor of change.
The poll results surprised many at home and abroad with the defeat of veteran Pashtun leaders such as Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Awami National Party (ANP) Chairman Asfandyar Wali and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Siraj-ul-Haq.
According to the 2017 census, Pakistan’s population has surged to 207.8 million, with ethnic Pashtuns making up 24 percent of the country’s population — the second largest ethnic group in the country.
Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), led by Imran Khan, emerged as the leading party in the poll, but opposition parties have questioned the legitimacy of the elections amid claims of vote rigging.
Senior politicians and heads of political parties facing defeat include Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former prime minister and veteran Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader, former Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Aftab Sherpao of Qaumi Watan Party (QWP), and former Housing Minister Akram Khan Durrani.
The JUI-F chief lost in his traditional stronghold and hometown of Dera Ismail Khan, while contesting from two constituencies, NA-38 and NA-39.
Soon after his defeat, the party leader, who also leads the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of religious-politico parties, rejected the poll results.
“The election has been held, but in a real sense it was a brazen assault on the people’s mandate,” he said.
Political scientist Irfanullah Khan said the entire Pashtun religious and nationalist political leadership had been wiped out in the elections.
“I don’t think they lost because of rigging but because voters in Pakistan are getting mature and simply discard those who can’t deliver,” Khan said.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who was contesting for the first time from three constituencies, lost in Malakand (NA-8) and in Lyari (NA-246) constituency of Karachi city. However, he managed to secure victory from his native constituency NA-200 in Larkana.
Zardari tweeted that attempts to keep him out of Parliament had failed. “Party workers are understandably outraged when it takes 28 hours to announce controversial results,” he said.
“The voice of Pashtuns, either religious or nationalist, will be largely missing in the Parliament,” Khan said.
ANP chief Asfandyar Wali faced a surprise defeat in his native Charsadda constituency NA-24.
“Not only the ANP, but the entire Pashtun leadership has been targeted in this election,” his party quoted him as saying as he rejected his defeat.
PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif, who contested from four constituencies, could secure his victory only in Lahore. Sharif faced defeat in Dera Ghazi Khan, Karachi and Swat.
On behalf of PML-N, Khwaja Asif, former foreign minister, said that the PML-N would act as a “vibrant opposition” in the Parliament.
Rehmat Khan, former additional inspector-general, told Arab News that it was not a question of vote rigging of election but the fact that people are fed up with “hereditary politics.”
“Voters want new leaders, and those winning elections again and again with a background in hereditary politics have been firmly rejected,” he said.
PML-N stalwart Sardar Awais Leghari also lost in his home constituency of Dera Ghazi Khan. Another veteran, JI chief Siraj-ul-Haq, lost in his native Lower Dir area.
A seasoned political figure, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who had been in the Parliament since 1985 tasted defeat on two seats — NA-59 and NA-63 in Rawalpindi district.
In another upset, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi lost on two seats in Islamabad and his native constituency Murree.
But the PTI chairman secured an overwhelming victory on all five seats contested, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Bannu and his hometown Mianwali.
PkMAP chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai told a press conference in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, that his party rejected the election results.
Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, a senior ANP leader, also lost the election from NA-31 in Peshawar. Bilour was the first politician to concede defeat.
Khurshid Ahmad, a retired intelligence officer, said that a new generation wants a new leadership to deliver instead of voting in favor of political dynasties.
“The voters rejected religious and nationalist leaders because they didn’t deliver in the past,” he said.
Pashtun leaders pay high price as voters demand change
Pashtun leaders pay high price as voters demand change
- They lost not because of rigging but because voters in Pakistan are getting mature, says analyst
- Ghulam Ahmed Bilour of ANP was the first politician to concede defeat
Bangladesh revamps worker training for Saudi 2034 FIFA World Cup projects
- Govt to prepare training centers with focus on Saudi market demands
- Reskilling, upskilling services to be provided to migrants already residing in the Kingdom
DHAKA: Bangladeshi authorities are revamping training for prospective migrant workers and will offer upskilling programs to those residing in Saudi Arabia to tap into the labor market ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which the Kingdom will host in 2034.
Last month, the football governing body confirmed that Saudi Arabia had won the bid to host the world’s largest sporting event.
With the bid proposing to hold games across 15 stadiums in five cities, many new migrant workers will be involved in building new sports and transport networks, as well as hotel infrastructure.
In Bangladesh, which has a major expat community in Saudi Arabia, the trend is viewed as an “opportunity” for the country’s migrant workers, according to A.Z.M. Nurul Huq, joint secretary at the employment wing of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment.
“It’s a huge task, and a lot of construction works will take place targeting this World Cup event. Here lies the opportunity for us as our migrants have been working with much goodwill in many sectors of the Kingdom for many years,” Huq told Arab News.
“Saudi Arabia has to build over a dozen new stadiums, renovate existing ones and develop numerous new accommodation facilities, along with necessary infrastructure and connectivity.”
Some 3 million Bangladeshi nationals live and work in Saudi Arabia. They are the largest expat group in the Kingdom and also the biggest Bangladeshi community outside Bangladesh.
Many are employed in the construction sector as masons, electricians, pipe fitters, plumbers and electricians.
“Bangladeshi migrants can be more actively employed in the construction work for the FIFA World Cup,” Huq said.
“Works are underway for providing reskilling and upskilling services to migrants who are already in the Kingdom. In this way, our workers will be able to secure their jobs and earn more.”
For the past few years, as Saudi Arabia is prioritizing efforts to improve the professional competence of employees under its Vision 2030 program, the expatriates’ ministry has been collaborating with the Kingdom’s skills verification authority, Takamol.
The agency, which manages migrant skill certification based on the needs of Saudi employers, provides Bangladesh’s 113 technical training centers with a list of the Kingdom’s latest workforce requirements.
“Our centers tailor their programs to equip workers with the necessary skills. Upon completing the training, the prospective migrants receive certification through Takamol, which is recognized by Saudi authorities,” said Shah Zulfiquer Haider, deputy secretary at the ministry’s training wing.
As demand is set to increase in line with 2034 World Cup projects, more Bangladeshi training centers will focus on the Saudi market in particular.
“We are planning to strengthen our collaboration with Takamol,” Haider said. “Currently, a dozen technical training centers are preparing skilled workers to meet Saudi Arabia’s demands. We will soon increase the number of training centers, which will produce more skilled migrants tailored to the needs of the Saudi labor market.”
Malaysia doubles patrols to find Myanmar migrant boats after nearly 200 detained
- Malaysia doubles patrols to find Myanmar migrant boats after nearly 200 detained
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s coast guard said on Friday it was doubling patrols in its waters to locate boats carrying undocumented Myanmar migrants, after almost 200 were detained on an island in the northwestern Malaysian state of Kedah.
The coast guard said police had detained 196 undocumented Myanmar migrants in the early hours of Friday after their boat came ashore on a beach on the resort island of Langkawi.
“Based on information the coast guard received, there are two more boats carrying undocumented Myanmar migrants at sea but their exact location is still unknown,” the coast guard said in a statement.
Malaysian coast guard director-general Mohd Rosli Abdullah said authorities were patrolling the northern waters off Langkawi and border areas, and had arranged for air surveillance to be conducted to locate the boats.
The coast guard is also in contact with Thai authorities to identify the movement of the boats carrying the migrants, Mohd Rosli said.
Earlier on Friday, local English daily The Star reported about 200 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar had come ashore on Langkawi. The Rohingya are a mainly Muslim minority in majority Buddhist Myanmar.
The coast guard did not specify in its statement whether the migrants were Rohingya.
Around one million Rohingya have fled, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh, to escape a Myanmar military offensive launched in August 2017, a campaign that UN investigators have described as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
Mynamar’s military rulers deny the allegations.
Malaysia, which does not recognize refugee status, has long been a favored destination for ethnic Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar or the refugee camps in Bangladesh.
But in recent years, Malaysia has turned away boats carrying Rohingya refugees and rounded up thousands in crowded detention centers as part of a crackdown on undocumented migrants.
Between 2010 and 2024, Malaysian authorities detained 2,089 undocumented Myanmar migrants attempting to enter the country by sea, the coast guard said.
Dense smog shrouds Indian capital, threatening to disrupt flights
- Delhi ranked third among the world’s most polluted capitals in Friday’s live rankings by Swiss group IQAir
- On social media, India’s largest airline IndiGo and low-cost carrier Spicejet caution against weather delays
NEW DELHI: Thick smog engulfed the Indian capital on Friday, prompting warnings of possible flight disruptions from airport and airline officials, as worsening air quality cut visibility to zero in some areas.
Delhi, which has been battling smog and poor air quality since the beginning of winter, ranked third among the world’s most polluted capitals in Friday’s live rankings by Swiss group IQAir.
No diversion or cancelation has been reported yet, an airport spokesperson said, although authorities warned in a post on X that aircraft lacking equipment to enable landings in low visibility could face difficulties.
On social media, India’s largest airline IndiGo and low-cost carrier Spicejet also cautioned against weather delays.
Delays averaged eight minutes for 20 flights by 10:14 a.m., aviation website FlightRadar24 said.
Some train services in the capital were also delayed, media said.
New Delhi’s air quality was rated “very poor” on Friday, with an index score of 351, the country’s top pollution control body said, well beyond the levels from zero to 50 that it considers “good.”
Biden awards the 2nd highest civilian award to leaders of the Jan. 6 committee and 18 others
- Cheney, a Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Rep. Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that investigated the Trump-inspired insurrection
- Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from a mob of angry Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday awarded the second highest civilian medal to Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, leaders of the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot who Donald Trump has said should be jailed for their roles in the inquiry.
Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony in the East Room, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president’s longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Delaware, and Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut.
“Together, you embody the central truth: We’re a great nation because we’re a good people,” he said. “Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship. That’s our work for the ages and it’s what all of you embody.”
Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from a mob of angry Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election, when Trump tried and failed to overturn the results.
Cheney, a Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Rep. Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that investigated the insurrection. The committee’s final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the election he lost to Biden and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. Thompson wrote that Trump “lit that fire.”
The audience erupted in loud cheers and stood when Cheney took the stage. Biden clasped her hand and gave her the medal. The announcer said she was being given it “for putting the American people over party.”
Cheney, who lost her seat in the GOP primary in August 2022, later said she would vote for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and campaigned with the Democratic nominee, raising Trump’s ire. Biden has been considering whether to offer preemptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted.
Thompson, who also received a standing ovation, was recognized “for his lifelong dedication to safeguarding our Constitution.”
Trump, who won the 2024 election and will take office Jan. 20, still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he is back in the White House.
During an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the president-elect said that “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” claiming without evidence they “deleted and destroyed” testimony they collected.
“Honestly, they should go to jail,” he said.
Cheney and Thompson were “an embarrassment to this country” for their conduct on the committee, Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung asserted.
Biden also awarded the medal to attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage, and Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage equality movement.
Other honorees included Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse during the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women’s rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.
He bestowed the honor to photographer Bobby Sager, academics Thomas Vallely and Paula Wallace, and Frances Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
Other former lawmakers honored included former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas; and former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., who championed gun safety measures after her son and husband were shot to death.
After he presented the awards, he went back to the lectern to ask lawmakers in the room to stand, as well as John Kerry, a former US senator and Biden’s first climate envoy.
“Let’s remember, our work continues,” he said to the room after he thanked the families in attendance for the support they gave to the nominees. “We’ve got a lot more work to do to keep this going.”
Biden honored four people posthumously: Joseph Galloway, a former war correspondent who wrote about the first major battle in Vietnam in the book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young“; civil rights advocate and attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; former Delaware judge Collins Seitz; and Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was held with other Japanese Americans during World War II and challenged the detention.
The Presidential Citizens Medal was created by President Richard Nixon in 1969 and is the country’s second highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes people who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”
Investigators seek clues to New Orleans attacker’s path to radicalization
- Jabbar’s profile atypical for Daesh recruits, says former FBI agent
- Jabbar is a former US veteran who worked for a major corporation
- Daesh uses online platforms for recruitment, experts say
WASHINGTON: As investigators learn more about the man who pledged allegiance to the Daesh group, or ISIS, and killed 14 people with a truck on New Year’s Day in New Orleans, a key question remains: How did a veteran and one-time employee of a major corporation become radicalized?
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said on Thursday that videos made by Shamsud-Din Jabbar just before the attack showed the 42-year-old Texas native supported Daesh, claimed to have joined the militant group before last summer and believed in a “war between the believers and nonbelievers.”
While the FBI was looking into his “path to radicalization,” evidence collected since the attack showed that Jabbar was “100 percent inspired by ISIS,” said Raia.
Jabbar, who authorities said acted alone, was killed in a shootout with police.
His half-brother, Abdur Jabbar, said in an interview that Jabbar, who had worked for audit firm Deloitte, abandoned Islam in his 20s or 30s, but had recently renewed his faith.
Abdur Jabbar told Reuters in Beaumont, Texas, where Jabbar was born and raised, that he had no idea when his half-brother became radicalized.
Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated terrorism cases and is on an advisory council to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said Jabbar did not fit the typical profile of those radicalized by Daesh.
Jabbar served for 10 years in the US Army and was in his 40s, Soufan noted, explaining that people who fall prey to Daesh recruitment are typically much younger.
“This is a guy who … went from being a patriot to being an Daesh terrorist,” said Soufan.
Attackers responsible for a range of deadly strikes have claimed a link to Daesh and other jihadist groups.
They included the lone survivor of the Islamist squad that killed 130 people across Paris in 2015, the man who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, and the man who drove a truck into a crowded bike path in 2017 in New York City, killing eight people.
Some attacks, like those in 2015 in Paris, were carried out by trained Daesh operatives. But investigators found no evidence of a direct role for the terrorist group in others.
Online recruitment
It is still unclear what contact Jabbar might have had with overseas extremist groups.
US officials and other experts say Daesh conducts most of its recruiting in online chatrooms and over encrypted communications apps since losing the “caliphate” it overran in 2014 in Iraq and Syria to a US-led military coalition. Even as the coalition continues hitting the group’s remaining holdouts, Daesh has stepped up operations in Syria while its Afghanistan- and Africa-based affiliates have kept recruiting, expanding their networks and inspiring attacks.
US officials say Daesh has used the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza to boost its recruitment.
Nate Snyder, a former US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counterterrorism official, said both international and US-based extremist groups follow a similar playbook to draw in new recruits.
The groups use social media to push their message and then move discussions to encrypted app such as Telegram, which could evolve into one-on-one conversations, Snyder said.
“Then people feel like they’re part of a community,” said Snyder, who left DHS in December and joined the race to chair the Democratic National Committee.
Recruits could either receive direct orders or self-radicalize to take action, Snyder said.
Individuals susceptible to recruitment “might have lost their jobs, might have had a mental health crisis, might have just concluded that however hard they’ve tried, they never belong,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat who led a UN team that monitors Daesh and Al-Qaeda.
The main appeal of Daesh is its determination to establish a Sunni Muslim “caliphate” ruled by Islamic law, unlike the Taliban, which “has sold out to Afghan nationalism,” or Al-Qaeda, members of which have cooperated with Iran’s Shiite Muslim-run government, he said.
“People that are carrying out those attacks may never in their lives have actually met somebody who is a member of Daesh,” said Fitton-Brown, a senior adviser to the Counter-Extremism Project, a policy and research organization. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t carry out an Daesh-inspired attack.” Crashing cars into crowds or staging stabbing rampages “are unsophisticated, very low-budget attacks (that) are almost impossible to defend against,” he continued. “If you are determined enough to kill unsuspecting public, you are going to be able to do it.”
