The suicide bombing, which turned a solemn [Shia] mourning procession into a scene of strewed limbs and bloody clothing, provoked a frenzy of retaliatory violence against local Sunnis, police and witnesses said. Dozens of Sunni-owned houses and shops were burned, and security forces imposed a curfew on the area.
BBC: how the cleavage has changed over time
In Pakistan, the focus of the sectarian violence has arguably changed. In the 1980s and 1990s the problem was acute in Karachi and in the province of Sindh.
But tough policing - especially in Karachi - over this period meant that many militants were either killed or arrested.
Slate: more skepticism on the Swat Valley deal
...as respected journalist Ismail Khan notes in an article in today's Dawn, the country's most widely read English-language newspaper, the deal calls for Pakistan's secular criminal code to be observed, unless a council of sharia judges rules that some law or another is un-Islamic. The deal also calls for a halt in the fighting between the Pakistani army and the Taliban militias.
The key facts here are that, at the moment, there is no working judicial system of any sort in the Swat Valley—and that the Taliban militias have routed the numerically superior Pakistani army in their armed confrontations. So the deal imposes national secular authority even more than it legitimizes sharia justice. And given the balance of power, it's unclear why the Taliban would go along with that.
The deal was made not with "the Taliban" as a whole—the term implies a more cohesive entity than actually exists—but rather, specifically, with Maulana Sufi Muhammad, whom the Pakistanis arrested two years ago for leading jihadist raids across the border into Afghanistan. He was released from prison after agreeing to give up the struggle and to work for peace.
The hope is that he would strike a deal with his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, who is the deputy to a much more militant Taliban leader—or that, if he can't come to terms with his son-in-law, a wedge might be driven between various Islamist factions, peeling Sufi Muhammad and his followers away from the radicals and thus strengthening the hand of the central government.
This is why the deal is not only ill-fated but potentially disastrous: It reveals the severe weakness of the Pakistani state. The politicians pursued the deal only because the state cannot control its own territory. Unless Sufi Muhammad can convince his son-in-law to accept peace and obeisance to secular authority in exchange for a parcel of land where Islamic law carries some weight, the deal is more likely to convince the militant Taliban simply to press on for more favors still.AP: ...but it appears that the Taliban have agreed to a cease-fire
Slate: technology and warfare: Google Earth pinpoints a US drone base in Pakistan
The picture, together with a second picture of the same site taken sometime this year and posted on Google Earth, destroys much of the political advantage of the U.S. drones. The drones aren't supposed to be a U.S. military presence in Pakistan. They're unmanned, and until now, they were thought to be flown exclusively from the Afghan border. The satellite images, backed by expert analysis, prove otherwise. The drones are on Pakistani soil. And if the drones are there, so are the U.S. personnel who physically manage them.
BBC: militias in Paktia, Afghanistan
The insurgency has raged and grown in this part of the country. Paktia borders Pakistan and is a route for insurgents coming into the country. The Taleban and al-Qaeda have a growing presence here and clashes between them and government and foreign forces have escalated.
But Ahmadabad district is an exception, thanks to the gunmen of the Arbakai, a tribal militia that has protected this area and its people for centuries, making it something of a safe-haven from the violence all around.
They are a volunteer force of men and boys, armed with old rifles and true grit. They are part of a traditional code of conduct and honour called Pashtunwali.The tribal elder is Haji Gulam Khan. He tells us that the area is stable and that there is a good relationship between the people and the government.
He is in no doubt who to thank: "If it weren't for the Arbakai, this area would've been controlled by the Taleban or mafia groups."
AJE: US acknowledges 13 civilians killed in missile strike in Herat earlier this week
NYT: another US soldier found not guilty in killings of 2 New York National Guard soldiers
AJE: Abu Ghraib re-opens as "Baghdad Central Prison"
NPR: how many have died in Iraq since the start of the war?
"By orders of minister's office, we cannot talk about the real numbers of deaths," says a man who works at the Baghdad central morgue statistics office, where all the deaths that take place in Baghdad get recorded. He doesn't want his name used because he's been told by his superiors at the Ministry of Health that he is not allowed to talk to the media. "That's been the case since 2004. When press comes to the morgue, they are taken to our boss's office and we have never been allowed to meet with them."
The reason, he says, is because the number of deaths the morgue registers never corresponds with numbers from the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Interior.
"They do it on purpose," he says. "I would go home and look at the news. The ministry would say 10 people got killed all over Iraq, while I had received in that day more than 50 dead bodies just in Baghdad. It's always been like that — they would say one thingm but the reality was much worse."...
Dougherty [of Iraq Body Count] estimates at least 20,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during U.S. military operations.
The military and human rights groups often disagree over whether victims were civilians or insurgents.
Econ: Turks and (Iraqi) Kurds getting along better for the moment
Turkish officials, who used to dismiss Iraq’s Kurdish leaders as “tribal upstarts”, privately concede that part of the solution is to co-opt Iraq’s Kurds. In the past year Turkish intelligence men and diplomats have held secret talks with Nechirvan Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish region’s prime minister, to get the PKK to call off its fight, even as Turkish aircraft continue, with America’s blessing, to pound rebel strongholds near Iraq’s mountain border with Iran. One idea is that rebels untainted by violence might be coaxed home and their leaders offered cash inducements to move to any European country that would take them in.
NYT: Netanyahu invites Kadima and Labor parties to form moderate coalition
Mr. Netanyahu and Ms. Livni have agreed to meet Sunday, but the negotiations are likely to be tough. Ms. Livni, his chief rival for the premiership, has said she would rather go into opposition than serve as a fig leaf for a coalition of the right.
Mr. Barak, whose Labor Party fared badly in the elections, has already said he would head into the opposition.
To many here, it is increasingly likely that Mr. Netanyahu’s government will consist exclusively of parties from the right, which oppose a Palestinian state and favor expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, making it much harder for him to exercise his pragmatic penchant.
NPR: Saudi religious police facing more constraintsNPR: Lebanon no longer requiring sect identification
WP: Calderón will not relent, despite demonstrations against militarization
Calderón, who has sent more than 45,000 troops to fight the cartels, said the military would remain on patrol until the government had control of the most violent parts of the country and civil authorities were fully able "to confront this evil."
Only then, he said, "will the army have completed its mission." Turf battles involving the drug traffickers, who are fighting the army, police and one another in order to secure billion-dollar smuggling routes into the United States, took the lives of more than 6,000 people in Mexico last year. The pace of killing has continued in 2009, with more than 650 dead, most in the violent border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. In the past few days, a running gun battle between soldiers and gunmen through the streets of the northern city of Reynosa, captured live on television, left five people dead.
LAT: Ciudad Juárez police chief opts out after threats, though
BBC: photos of the violence indicate why
SDT: lessons from Colombia's drug war (via Adam Isacson)
The drug-trafficking operation in Mexico is different than in Colombia. While there is some marijuana and opium grown in Mexico, as well as methamphetamine manufacturing, the cartels aren't fighting over production. They are battling to control the smuggling routes used to move drugs, including Colombian cocaine, into the United States...
The strategy of Mexico's leaders is to break the cartels into smaller pieces, as happened in Colombia, where local police in urban areas were better able to get a handle on street crime once the larger criminal organizations receded.
The assumption is that smaller drug operations would be better handled by state and local police, Shirk said. But it is not clear such a strategy will succeed, and institutional corruption presents a challenge...
But even if the Mexican government is successful in breaking up the big cartels, neither Mexican soldiers nor U.S. equipment and training are going to stop the demand for drugs, [former DEA regional director] Holifield said.
“The biggest lesson is for the U.S.,” he said. “And that is to stop using (drugs). Until that happens, nothing the U.S. does can prevent these people from doing this. There is absolutely no way to stop it.”
NPR: on top of that drug demand issue, US also arming Mexico, informally
The weapons and ammunition are being bought on the black market and at gun shows, but mostly from licensed dealers. Arizona and Texas make it especially easy to buy guns retail. Basically, any adult with a valid ID and no criminal record can buy as many as he or she wants...Authorities call the weapons smuggling trafico de la hormiga, or "ant traffic," because it's done in small steady shipments to avoid detection. And after all, the main mission of the customs service is not examining vehicles leaving the U.S....nearly 8,000 guns sold in America last year were traced to Mexico. That was more than double the number the year before.
Econ: Ortega as Somoza
WP: LTTE bomb Colombo, kill three and injure 48
The attack shows the apparent air power of the Tamil Tigers far from the northern war zone, where they are said to be boxed into a 34-square-mile sliver of the jungle, with government troops closing in.
AJE: riots claim lives in Bauchi, Nigeria
Several churches and mosques were set on fire in the violence on Saturday and at least 28 people were injured, but it was not immediately clear what triggered the unrest.
NYT: Latvian PM steps down, gov't dissolves over recession
BBC: 100,000 march in Dublin
Many are angry at plans to impose a pension levy on public sector workers.
Trade union organisers of the march said workers did not cause the economic crisis but were having to pay for it.
BBC: Bosnian Serbs ordered to pay for mosques destroyed between 1992-1995
Ind: German MP appointed to head new museum of expellees from Eastern Europe after WWII; Poland takes umbrageWladyslaw Bartoszewski, Poland’s special envoy on German affairs and a former foreign minister, summed up Warsaw’s objections to Mrs Steinbach’s planned appointment. “It is as if the Vatican had decided to give the Holocaust-denying Bishop [Richard] Williamson the task of overseeing its relations with Israel,” he said.
NYT: Guantánamo complies with Geneva Conventions, according to Pentagon report
Slate: (other) prison growth in the US
The United States has a prison population like nowhere else. With one out of every 100 adults behind bars, our incarceration rate is the highest in the entire world. Our inmates—1.5 million in prison, with another 800,000 in jail—comprise one-third of the world's total. This is a surprisingly recent development. After barely budging for 50 years, our incarceration rate increased sevenfold (to 738 per 100,000 people) between 1978 and 2008.
BBC: Italy implements new rape law
The decree sets a mandatory life sentence for the rape of minors or attacks where the victim is killed.
It also establishes rules for citizen street patrols to be conducted by unarmed and unpaid volunteers.
The number of sexual assaults fell last year, but three high-profile rapes last weekend sparked national outrage.
Many recent rapes have been blamed on foreigners, especially Romanians. Violent attacks on immigrants have since been reported.
Police say a mob of around 20 masked men beat up four Romanians outside a kebab restaurant in Rome on Sunday in an apparent vigilante attack.
The government has pointed to official statistics saying immigrants committed as many as 35% of crimes in Italy in 2007.But analysts and opposition parties say many of these are related to breaches in immigration rules, and that foreigners have often been unfairly targeted amid a xenophobic backlash from right-wing politicians and the media.++
Slate: Q: does decapitation have a special meaning in Islam?
A: Yes, but it's important in other cultures, too. [eg, Mexican drug gang violence above.]
++
Salon: Murakami accepts award in Israel
In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies...
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist's job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories -- stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
NYT: resisting North Korean propaganda by parody
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