Pakistani policemen and relatives surround the coffins of suicide bomb attack victims after their funeral procession in Lahore, Jan. 10.

On Thursday (Jan. 10) a young man blew himself up near a police post in front of the High Court building in Lahore minutes before a lawyers’ rally was to pass from the same spot. The bomb killed 22, of whom 17 were policemen. On the basis of circumstantial evidence we can clearly say that he represented Al Qaeda. He had been sent to target the police. Had the lawyers been his target he would have waited for them to come out. For the Lahore police, the suicide attack was an unusual phenomenon, since the last such incident took place in 2004. Unlike Peshawar, DI Khan, Kohat and other cities, Lahore was surprised by the targeting of the police.
But the Punjab police was in no doubt. His men had been targeted because they had caused a spate of arrests related to Al Qaeda in the past week in a number of Punjab cities.
The Police had gone after and captured a number of potential suicide-bombers and connected terrorists from Isa Khel, Mianwali, Bhakkar, Sargodha and Lahore. After this success, the police “got death threats from someone called Kaleemullah Mehsud who claimed to be an associate of Baitullah Mehsud“, according to the Lahore police. The big catch--because of its sensitivity--was the arrest from Lahore of Major (Retd) Ehsanul Haq on the “pointation“ of the arrested terrorists.
Any connection with Muharram is only indirect. If bombings occur in the coming days, they can doubtless be a part of the ongoing sectarian war that Al Qaeda is letting its Pakistani militias wage on the sidelines.
The Sunni-Shia trouble in Parachinar may hot up again and spread to the rest of the country, but the police might still be targeted because it will be out in large numbers to secure the citizens against sectarian violence.
Last year the Peshawar police, including the city’s police chief, were massacred by a suicide-bomber during the month of Muharram. Nobody doubted then that the real target was the police and not the Shias, because the police personnel had been suicide-bombed earlier in many other cities of the NWFP including the recruiting centre of DI Khan.
Immediately on receipt of the news about the Lahore blast, the TV channels began discussing it.
But, by and large, all discussions concentrated on two possible suspects: the United States and the “establishment“ working for President Musharraf. No one named Al Qaeda and used bland ambiguity when generally referring to “certain quarters“ determined to destabilise and destroy Pakistan. Reference was made to the “big power“ which had “arrived in the neighbourhood“ and wanted excuses to attack Pakistan to destroy its nuclear assets. There was also veiled reference to “the old enemy next door“ who was said to remain set on the goal of annihilating Pakistan. No one mentioned Al Qaeda despite the fact that it too had “arrived“ in the neighbourhood and had made its intentions clear about what it would do in Pakistan.
Opposition politicians, retired judges and lawyers stated in newspapers that the attack was actually carried out by the establishment and its intelligence agencies to fire a warning shot against the movement for the restoration of the country’s judiciary and revival of democracy.
Significantly, again, no one even once mentioned Al Qaeda. Instead it was said that no Muslim could be behind the killings; only an enemy of Islam--and those who collaborated with him--could spill the blood of Muslims. What was ignored was the circumstantial evidence: “during 2007, the security forces killed 1008 terrorists and miscreants, and arrested 1636 suspected terrorists, including 427 Taliban, 53 Al Qaeda operatives, 740 Baloch nationalist insurgents, 315 banned jihadi organisations’ militants and 27 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorists operating as Al Qaeda troops in Pakistan “.
The irony is that the credibility of the Al Qaeda warlord in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, is higher today than that of the government in Islamabad. It is politically correct these days to believe when he says he has not killed; and not believe the government or even independent media when it presents evidence involving Al Qaeda in the killings. Osama bin Laden himself is keeping quiet on Pakistan although his success rate in Pakistan is far higher than in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The last time he had vowed revenge on President Musharraf was in September 2007, when he had pledged to retaliate for the killing of Islamabad ’s Lal Masjid cleric. Of course, it is strategically significant for him to kill and then keep quiet so as to allow the polarised Pakistani politicians to get at each other’s throat.
The assumption behind the above “denial“ is that once President Musharraf and his pro-America policy are gone, the trouble with Al Qaeda and its warlords will simply melt away. But this is not going to happen. What might happen is that the road might be cleared for Al Qaeda to spread its tentacles and consolidate and enlarge its mini-state in Pakistan from where to attack the rest of the world, building on the facility already available to it for the training of international terrorists who attack targets in the European Union and elsewhere.
DAILYTIMES.COM.PK

Kenyans were cynical about their political establishment long before the latest election violence.
One wisecrack doing the rounds since last year says “there is more chance of a Luo becoming president of the United States than president of this country“ - referring to Barack Obama, whose father hails from the same ethnic Luo country in western Kenya as Raila Odinga, challenger to the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki of the Kikuyu tribe.
Nearly 500 people have been killed in the violence following the announcement by Kenya’s electoral commission that Kibaki somehow pulled back from a million-vote deficit to win re-election. This has prompted dire warnings that the country risks a political meltdown along ethnic-tribal lines.
But there are problems with this analysis. First, while Kenya’s tribal divisions are a proximate cause, they are not the underlying source of the bloodshed.
Second, Kenya’s stability has always been tenuous; the current battle lines were drawn at least since Kibaki was soundly defeated by Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement in a 2005 referendum on the Constitution.
In fact, the underlying cause of the violence is endemic political corruption and flawed governance by Kenya’s political elite.
Upon coming to power in a clean election in 2002, Kibaki dismantled his National Alliance Rainbow Coalition and concentrated power--and access to wealth and patronage--in a cabal of cronies drawn down from the foothills of the Kikuyu dominated region just north of Nairobi.
Odinga was a key member of Kibaki’s 2002 team but lost out in the post-election power shake-up, leaving the two men bitter rivals.
Kibaki government had legitimate successes: consistent 6 percent annual economic growth after years of stagnation; the introduction of universal free primary education; the revitalization of tourism.
But this meant little in the minds of many voters daunted by the prospect of another opaque, Kikuyu-dominated government coming on the back of an almost-certainly rigged election.
Many media reports in the past painted too rosy a picture of Kenya’s stability and relative prosperity compared to its neighbors.
Sudan has seen war for all but 11 years since independence in 1956, with over two million dead; Somalia remains a failed state, too lawless for most aid agencies to work in; Congo’s war has left five million dead; and northern Uganda was, until last year, ravaged by a millenarian cult known as the Lords Resistance Army, best known for mutilating villagers and abducting children as soldiers and sex slaves.
By comparison, Kenya certainly has not imploded. But election-time clashes killed hundreds of people in 1992 and 1997, and in 1982 hundreds of others died as the result of a failed coup.
Nairobi--aptly-nicknamed Nairobbery--is a dangerous city, infamous for violent break-ins and car-jackings. Kenya’s borderlands with Ethiopia and Somalia are bandit territory, where the easy availability of small arms gives nomadic bandits and smugglers the means to hijack and rob at will.
Despite $16 billion in foreign aid since independence and the recent economic growth, more than 50 percent of Kenyans live in poverty. Those living in the country’s arid northern and eastern areas are as poor and marginalized as any in Africa.
In May 2007, a report funded by the Swedish government outlined the degree of political and economic favoritism granted to the Kikuyu stronghold in Central Province--where Kibaki took 97 percent of the vote in the recent election.
Although the report exaggerated the figures, making it seem that Central paid much less in taxes than other regions, the damage was done.
All too often in Africa, politics is played as a zero-sum game. The state is often seen as a cash cow to be captured and retained at all costs. Power-grabs by particular ethnic groups are nothing new.
But when combined with institutional graft and cronyism, it can be explosive. Kenya has not bucked the trend, and the post-election violence is not the surprise some observers would have us believe.
Luo, Luhya and Kalenjin ethnic groups saw the elections as a means to take their turn to eat from the lavish table of power at the expense of deposed rivals, perpetuating the dynamic that saw party and candidate votes coalesce on ethnic lines.
Rewards for one’s colleagues and allies must be doled out--whether this transpires after an election victory or triumph in a civil war.
Unlike Uganda and Ethiopia, official aid is not a major factor in Kenya’s economy, which is buttressed by a lucrative tourist trade and has a relatively efficient tax collection system.
Simon Ronghneen IHT.COM

Israeli right wing protestors chant slogans during a demonstration against Bush in Beit-ul-Moqaddas, Jan. 10.

After the talks in Beit-ul-Moqaddas and Ramallah, George W. Bush said that a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis would be reached by the end of the year.
He was less optimistic on the settlement within Palestine--he is not sure that the head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Mahmoud Abbas will be able to resolve this problem in the foreseeable future.
“The peace agreement should happen, and can happen, by the end of this year... and I am committed to doing all I can to achieve it,“ Bush promised.
The more often the U.S. president talks about the establishment of the Palestinian state by the end of his term, the more he believes in it. He is almost ready to swear on the Bible.
No policymaker has dared talk about peace in the Middle East with such certainty (not in theory but quoting deadlines). Numerous agreements and international resolutions required that the warring parties should fulfill their commitments by certain dates but it all remained on paper.
Much more seasoned diplomats and politicians crossed swords over a peace settlement. But strange as it may seem, Bush with his cowboy manners may achieve success because he believes in his historical mission. As distinct from previous peacemakers, he doesn’t stumble at such trifles as a split between the Palestinians, Israel’s settlement policy or shooting of Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip.
Bush followed the same logic when he engineered the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq--without going into details how the country would live after the U.S. invasion. Saddam is “absolute evil,“ whereas freedom and democracy are indisputable values--there is no doubt.
He is guided by the same logic when talking about Palestinian-Israeli settlement. Peace agreements and the formation of the Palestinian state are an objective necessity. Why couldn’t it take place now?
Bush does not suggest any new recipes--all stages of Mid-Eastern settlement were repeatedly discussed in general before him. The U.S. president is simply saying that they will resolve the problem. Even if all analysts in the world insist that this is impossible, Bush’s can-do spirit can make it happen. Going into details seems inappropriate in the face of his messianic zeal.
It is more fitting to make forecasts not about the signing of Palestinian-Israeli agreements, but about developments after their signing.
It is again possible to draw a parallel with the situation in Iraq, where the worst predictions of experts given on the eve of the coalition’s invasion came true. But are we discussing today whether Hussein’s regime had to be toppled down? We have a new reality and everyone has to deal with it.
The Palestinian-Israeli situation will be the same. But it makes sense to avoid the bitter mistakes of Iraq and think in advance of a detailed course of action for the future.
But this is hardly possible. Today, Bush is talking about “painful concessions,“ which the Palestinians and Israelis should make on the road to peace. But soon they will have to deal with quite painful consequences of that peace.
Maria Appakova
EN.RIAN.RU