In Pakistan’s northwest, rise in extortion demands signals advance of Taliban

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan fighters in South Waziristan. (Reuters)
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Updated 29 September 2022
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In Pakistan’s northwest, rise in extortion demands signals advance of Taliban

  • Arab News interviewed traders who had received extortion demands in recent months
  • Most of them said the callers identified themselves as militants belonging to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan

PESHAWAR: Soon after a grenade struck his house in Peshawar city three months ago, Ihsan Khan, a well-known trader in the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, received a phone call.

“Next time, the entire home will be blown up if you don’t pay Rs300 million ($1.2 million),” the voice on the other end said.

The menacing call was taken seriously in a northern pocket of the country where the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, have carried out some of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan in past years and where officials as well as local residents widely say the militants are attempting to regain a foothold.

Over the next few days, Khan held a series of phone negotiations with the caller and finally brought the demand down through the help of intermediaries, subsequently paying a smaller sum.

Last week, Arab News interviewed at least seven traders, transporters and businesspeople who had received demands for protection money in recent months. Six said the callers had identified themselves as militants belonging to the TTP. It was unclear how many paid up.

The increasing demands for cash have stirred fears of the comeback of insurgents to the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province amid a stalled peace deal with Islamabad and drawn-out negotiations that began last year.

On Sept. 20, the TTP said it was not linked to the extortion demands and issued a statement calling on the public not to pay up.

“If anyone asks you…in the name of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), please contact us so we can unmask them,” the statement said, offering a contact number.

In comments to Arab News, Abu Yasir, the head of the TTP’s grievance commission, said the group had a “clear-cut and strong stance” against extortion.

“We have neither allowed nor will we allow anyone to do so,” Yasir said. “We have stopped many. And in some cases, members of the Tehreek have also done it on an individual basis, but we have stopped them…We have stopped our colleagues and asked others as well when a complaint has been lodged with us.”

‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’

Attacks and threats of violence have been a part of life in northern Pakistan since at least 2010, including the attempted assassination of Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai in 2012 and an attack on an army-run school in 2014 in which at least 134 children were killed.

Though thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in militant violence in the last two decades, attacks declined in the last few years after a series of military operations that pushed most TTP insurgents in Pakistan’s northwest to find shelter in neighboring Afghanistan.

But many analysts and officials warn militants are attempting to return and are busily conducting kidnappings and extortion to stockpile cash for the fight ahead if peace talks with Islamabad fail. Their reach and their ability to carry out attacks were chillingly demonstrated earlier this month when eight people were killed in a roadside bombing that targeted an anti-Taliban village elder’s vehicle in Swat Valley, in what was the first major bombing in the area in over a decade. 

Taliban militants this month also kidnapped 10 employees of a telecom company and demanded Rs100 million for their release, according to a police report filed with the local counterterrorism department.

Concerns of a TTP resurgence have grown since August 2021, when the Afghan Taliban took over Kabul following the departure of US and other foreign forces. Pakistani officials have since variously spoken of fears of fighters from the Pakistani Taliban group, which is separate but affiliated with the Afghan Taliban, crossing over from Afghanistan and launching lethal attacks on its territory.

The Afghan Taliban have reassured their neighbor they will not allow their territory to be used by anyone planning attacks on Pakistan or any other country. Still, the TTP has managed to step up attacks in recent months, and both police and government officials as well as locals report that hundreds of insurgents have returned — as have demands for extortion.

Mohammed Ali Saif, a spokesperson for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, said anonymous calls demanding protection money were being made both from Afghanistan and within Pakistan.  

“Different people have received calls for extortion, some have registered FIRs [police reports] and others have not,” Saif told Arab News, saying the Counter-Terrorism Department and police took immediate action whenever such cases were reported.  

Not all calls, he said, were from TTP militants.

“Some calls are also made by criminals and extortionists,” the spokesperson said.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Inspector General of Police Moazzam Jah Ansari, CTD chief Javed Iqbal Wazir, and spokespersons for the Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry and army and Afghanistan’s Information Ministry did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking comment.

But a Peshawar-based senior police official with direct knowledge of the issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the provincial police department had been registering at least four extortion cases a day in the city since July.

“This is just the tip of an iceberg,” he said. “Previously, traders, transporters and businessmen used to be the targets. Now, members of national and provincial assemblies as well as government officials are also asked to pay protection money…The situation is very bad and it’s deteriorating with each passing day.”  

Another police official based in Swat Valley said: “Well-off people, including lawmakers, receive phone calls on a regular basis. Few report it and a majority of them pay the money.”

Since the start of August, Swat police have registered four cases of extortion, naming the TTP as suspects in their reports. In one such case, the Swat official said, militants were paid Rs25 million as protection money by a provincial lawmaker.  

“Militants asked the lawmaker to remove CCTV cameras from his home before they arrived to collect the money at midnight,” the official said. “The lawmaker opted not to report the incident.”  

‘PREDICTABLE PHENOMENON’

Malik Imran Ishaq, president of the Industrialists’ Association Peshawar, said militancy and extortion had caused “severe damage” to the business fraternity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.  

In Peshawar, extortionists targeted wealthy families, he said, with residents regularly finding small bombs outside their homes or businesses.

“Many of our association’s members have received extortion calls and many of them have been hit, targeted by rocket launchers and hand grenades,” the industrialist said.

Police had increased patrolling in the Hayatabad industrial estate area of the city, but it had not resolved the issue, Ishaq said.

“I am clueless about how this issue will be resolved,” he said, lamenting that businesses worth billions of rupees in the Hayatabad industrial estate were on the verge of closure.

“Twenty-eight of our members have shut their industrial units in Peshawar and moved to Punjab to set up factories there,” Ishaq said, blaming the move on a resurgence of militancy and a rise in Taliban demands for cash.

“There has been an evident surge during the last year, particularly the last couple of months.”  

The crime wave means the government and military could face a well-armed insurgency if the TTP is able to fully return to the country’s northern belt, experts warn.

Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based militancy expert, said an increase in demands for protection money was a telltale sign that the militants were making serious attempts to regain control in Pakistan’s northwest.

“Militants require financial support for their operations,” he said, “and in this context, the rise of extortion incidents in these areas is a predictable phenomenon.”


UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser

Updated 09 November 2024
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UK government appoints former Blair negotiator Jonathan Powell as national security adviser

  • Powell, who was chief of staff to former PM Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007, was an architect of the Northern Ireland peace process
  • He faced criticism for his part in the UK’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq

LONDON: The UK’s Labour government has appointed Jonathan Powell, an architect of the Northern Ireland peace process, as its new national security adviser.

Powell, who served as chief of staff to former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair for a decade between 1997 and 2007, was deeply involved in the UK’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

In 2014, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him the UK’s special envoy to Libya, in an attempt to promote dialogue between rival factions embroiled in the nation’s civil war.

Many political figures in the UK welcomed Powell’s latest appointment at a time of escalating international conflicts. Some expressed hopes that he will be able to help British authorities forge a positive relationship with Donald Trump when he takes over as US president in January.

However, Powell faced criticism for his role in the UK government’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq two decades ago, and for later promoting the need to engage in dialogue with extremist groups. In 2014, at the height of Daesh’s bloody occupation of large swaths of Iraq and Syria, he argued that UK authorities should open channels of communication with them.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Powell’s experience of negotiating the Northern Ireland peace agreement and his other work related to some of the world’s most complex conflicts make him “uniquely qualified to advise the government on tackling the challenges ahead, and engage with counterparts across the globe to protect and advance UK interests.”

Powell said he was honored to be given the role at a time when “national security, international relations and domestic policies are so interconnected.”


Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says

Updated 09 November 2024
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Trump’s shunning of transition planning may have severe consequences, governance group says

  • Trump's transition team have yet to sign agreements required by the Presidential Transition Act, which mandates that the president-elect’s team agree to an ethics plan and to limit and disclose private donations
  • The delay is holding up the federal government’s ability to begin processing security clearances for potentially hundreds of Trump administration national security appointees

WASHINGTON: A good-governance group is warning of severe consequences if President-elect Donald Trump continues to steer clear of formal transition planning with the Biden administration — inaction that it says is already limiting the federal government’s ability to provide security clearances and briefings to the incoming administration.
Without the planning, says Max Stier, president and CEO of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, “it would not be possible” to “be ready to govern on day one.”
The president-elect’s transition is being led by Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. They said last month that they expected to sign agreements beginning the formal transition process with the Biden White House and the General Services Administration, which acts essentially as the federal government’s landlord.
But those agreements are still unsigned, and the pressure is beginning to mount.
The delay is holding up the federal government’s ability to begin processing security clearances for potentially hundreds of Trump administration national security appointees. That could limit the staff who could work on sensitive information by Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
It also means Trump appointees can’t yet access federal facilities, documents and personnel to prepare for taking office.
The agreements are required by the Presidential Transition Act, which was enacted in 2022. They mandate that the president-elect’s team agree to an ethics plan and to limit and disclose private donations.
In that act, Congress set deadlines of Sept. 1 for the GSA agreement and Oct. 1 for the White House agreement, in an effort to ensure that incoming administrations are prepared to govern when they enter office. Both deadlines have long since come and gone.
Stier, whose organization works with candidates and incumbents on transitions, said on a call with reporters on Friday that a new administration “walks in with the responsibility of taking over the most complex operation on the planet.”
“In order to do that effectively, they absolutely need to have done a lot of prework,” he said, adding that Trump’s team “has approached this in a, frankly, different way than any other prior transition has.”
“They have, up until now, walked past all of the tradition and, we believe, vital agreements with the federal government,” Stier said.
In a statement this week, Lutnick and McMahon said Trump was “selecting personnel to serve our nation under his leadership and enact policies that make the life of Americans affordable, safe, and secure.” They didn’t mention signing agreements to begin the transition.
A person familiar with the matter said that the congressionally mandated ethics disclosures and contribution limits were factors in the hesitance to sign the agreements.
Trump transition spokesperson Brian Hughes said Friday that the team’s “lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.”
“We will update you once a decision is made,” Hughes said.
The Trump team’s reluctance has persisted despite Biden’s White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, reaching out to Lutnick and McMahon to reiterate the important role the agreements with the Biden administration and GSA play in beginning a presidential transition.
“We’re here to assist. We want to have a peaceful transition of power,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “We want to make sure they have what they need.”
The unorthodox approach to the presidential transition process recalls the period immediately after Trump’s Election Day victory in 2016. Days later, the president-elect fired the head of his transition team, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and tossed out a transition playbook he’d been compiling.
But Stier said that, even then, Trump’s team had signed the initial agreements that allowed the transition to get started — something that hasn’t happened this time.
“The story’s not finished. But they’re late,” he said. “And even if they manage to get these agreements in now, they’re late in getting those done.”


50 countries warn UN of ransomware attacks on hospitals

Updated 09 November 2024
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50 countries warn UN of ransomware attacks on hospitals

  • The statement also condemned nations which “knowingly” allow those responsible for ransomware attacks to operate from

UN: The World Health Organization and some 50 countries issued a warning Friday at the United Nations about the rise of ransomware attacks against hospitals, with the United States specifically blaming Russia.
Ransomware is a type of digital blackmail in which hackers encrypt the data of victims — individuals, companies or institutions — and demand money as a “ransom” in order to restore it.
Such attacks on hospitals “can be issues of life and death,” according to WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who addressed the UN Security Council during a meeting Friday called by the United States.
“Surveys have shown that attacks on the health care sector have increased in both scale and frequency,” Ghebreyesus said, emphasizing the importance of international cooperation to combat them.
“Cybercrime, including ransomware, poses a serious threat to international security,” he added, calling on the Security Council to consider it as such.
A joint statement co-signed by over 50 countries — including South Korea, Ukraine, Japan, Argentina, France, Germany and the United Kingdom — offered a similar warning.
“These attacks pose direct threats to public safety and endanger human lives by delaying critical health care services, cause significant economic harm, and can pose a threat to international peace and security,” read the statement, shared by US Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger.
The statement also condemned nations which “knowingly” allow those responsible for ransomware attacks to operate from.
At the meeting, Neuberger directly called out Moscow, saying: “Some states — most notably Russia — continue to allow ransomware actors to operate from their territory with impunity.”
France and South Korea also pointed the finger at North Korea.
Russia defended itself by claiming the Security Council was not the appropriate forum to address cybercrime.
“We believe that today’s meeting can hardly be deemed a reasonable use of the Council’s time and resources,” said Russian ambassador Vassili Nebenzia.
“If our Western colleagues wish to discuss the security of health care facilities,” he continued, “they should agree in the Security Council upon specific steps to stop the horrific... attacks by Israel on hospitals in the Gaza Strip.”


China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

Updated 09 November 2024
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China summons Philippine ambassador over new maritime laws

  • Laws aimed at reinforcing Philippine rights to territory, resources
  • China unlikely to recognize laws, senator says

BEIJING/MANILA: China summoned the Philippines’ ambassador on Friday to express its objection to two new laws in the Southeast Asian nation asserting maritime rights and sovereignty over disputed areas of the South China Sea, its foreign ministry said.
China made “solemn representations” to the ambassador shortly after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed the Maritime Zones Act and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act into law to strengthen his country’s maritime claims and bolster its territorial integrity.
The Maritime Zones law “illegally includes most of China’s Huangyan Island and Nansha Islands and related maritime areas in the Philippines’ maritime zones,” Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, using the Chinese names for Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands respectively.
Beijing has rejected a 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims over the South China Sea had no legal basis, in a case that was brought by Manila. The United States, a Philippine ally, backs the court’s ruling.
Marcos said the two laws he signed, which define maritime entitlements and set designated sea lanes and air routes, were a demonstration of commitment to uphold the international rules-based order, and protect Manila’s rights to exploit resources peacefully in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
“Our people, especially our fisher folk, should be able to pursue their livelihood free from uncertainty and harassment,” Marcos said. “We must be able to harness mineral and energy resources in our sea bed.”
But Beijing said the laws were a “serious infringement” of its claims over the contested areas.
“China urges the Philippine side to effectively respect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, to immediately stop taking any unilateral actions that may lead to the widening of the dispute and complicate the situation,” Mao said.
China, which also has sovereignty disputes with the other countries in the region, has enacted domestic laws covering the South China Sea, such as a coast guard law in 2021 that allows it to detain foreigners suspected of trespassing.
Beijing, which uses an armada of coast guard ships to assert its claims, routinely accuses vessels of trespassing in areas of the South China Sea that fall inside the EEZs of its neighbors, and has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines in the past year.
Philippine officials acknowledged the challenges they face in implementing the new laws, with one author, Senator Francis Tolentino, saying he did not expect a reduction in tensions.
“China will not recognize these, but the imprimatur that we’ll be getting from the international community would strengthen our position,” Tolentino told a press conference.
The United States on Friday backed the Philippines.
“The passage of the Maritime Zones Act by the Philippines is a routine matter and further clarifies Philippine maritime law,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.


Chad accuses Sudan of aiding rebel forces

Updated 09 November 2024
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Chad accuses Sudan of aiding rebel forces

LIBREVILLE: Chad on Friday accused Sudan of arming and financing rebel groups on Chadian territory with the aim of destabilising its neighbor.
Chad claims Sudan is aiding a rebellion by members of the Zaghawa ethnic group operating out of Sudan’s southwestern El Facher region.
“Sudan is financing and arming terrorist groups operating in the sub-region with the aim of destabilising Chad,” foreign affairs minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said in a press release.
The Zaghawa rebels based in Sudan are led by Ousman Dillo, the younger brother of Chadian opposition leader Yaya Dillo Djerou, who was killed by Chadian military forces earlier this year.
In February 2008, a Zaghawa rebel group based in Sudan launched a lightning offensive in Chad along with other groups, forcing former president Idriss Deby Itno to take refuge in his presidential palace, before he was able to repel them with help from France.
In 2021, Idriss Deby Itno died fighting other rebel forces near the border with Libya and the army named his son Mahamat Idriss Deby as president.
Sudan’s government has accused Chad of meddling in its own civil war by helping to deliver weapons from the United Arab Emirates to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary forces, which Chad and the UAE have denied.
The Sudanese war, which pits the army against the RSF, broke out in April 2023 and has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, including 3.1 million who are now sheltering beyond the country’s borders, monitors say.