Thanks to my friend, Cyril Almeida, for highlighting the above picture on Twitter [Dawn gets a cheeky photo of Kayani in on front page] which was published on Dawn’s front page on 17 September 2011. .
According to the Dawn report:
stalemate between Pakistan and the United States over sanctuaries of the Haqqani network in tribal areas, which is threatening to stall normalisation of frayed bilateral relations, appears to be worsening.
Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani virtually ruled out on Friday an imminent full-scale action against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan.Gen Parvez Kayani said he doubted Afghanistan would be ready for a planned international troops’ pullout by 2014. “Frankly, I have my doubts,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the Nato military committee conference in Seville. He said he thought an alternative deadline might be possible. “No date can be a final date.” Gen Kayani said he thought relations between the United States and Pakistan were satisfactory. “Relations are good. They are improving.”
Clearly, General Kayani is reluctant to give in on Pakistan’s strategic depth doctrine (also known as Deep State doctrine), which treats Afghanistan as Pakistan’s own backyard and fiefdom whose only utility is to provide strategic depth against India, instead of treating and respecting Afghanistan as an independent, sovereign nation.
The Haqqani network is an ISI-affiliate group currently based in Pakistan’s Kurram agency. The Haqqani group along with local militants belonging to Sipah-e-Sahaba and TTP is responsible for the ongoing blockade and genocide of Shia Muslims in Parachinar and adjoining areas.
Recently the ISI/Haqqanis wasted no time in practically implementing the recommendations of Sherry Rehman’s JI/USIP report on Afghanistan, which was prepared in consultation with some leading ISI operatives, agents and affiliates. According to a recent report published in WSJ, U.S. officials are currently investigating evidence that directly links elements of Pakistan’s powerful spy agency to this week’s assault on the U.S. Embassy and coalition headquarters in Kabul.
Coming back to the picture, the best comment was by Abbas Nasir: “Nothing cheeky about it. The great Sipah Salaar never takes his eye off the strategic depth.”
Abbas’s comment was in response to what Cyril had written: “Dawn gets a cheeky photo of Kayani in on front page http://bit.ly/pHYAZK”
Here is my proposal. Given that Omar Waraich is an expert in identifying and promoting anti-ISI voices in Pakistani media, (recently Omar identified Hamid Mir, Ejaz Haider and Najam Sethi as three leading journalists who are under threat by the ISI), he may care to add Cyril’s name too in the list of anti-establishment journalists because of his anti-Kayani tweet. Who cares about what Cyril did last summer?
Pakistan Blogzine 