Archive for November, 2009

All three lie in unmarked graves in a cemetery beside a field of cotton. Abdul Razzaq described his losses calmly, but his slight frame is withered by grief. His one surviving child was seriously injured in the blast. He keeps asking for his brothers and sisters.
My heart is not at peace,” Abdul Razzaq said. “I can’t sit in one place. I just roam around the village, from one place to another.”
The explosion in his remote village was one of a series of brutal wake-up calls about the growing militant threat in south Punjab.
Interviews we have conducted with senior police officers, independent analysts and militants in custody suggest that southern Punjab could be Pakistan’s next battleground.
Internal police documents we have seen paint a picture of a province at risk.
One report states that “poverty stricken, extremely feudalistic and illiterate south Punjab could possibly provide shelter to Taliban and other jihadi outfits. It has the potential to become a nursery or a major centre for sectarian recruitment.”
Some experts here argue that it has already reached that point. One describes it as “a factory for suicide bombers”.
Police say that al-Qaeda has access to a labour pool via the banned sectarian group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), among others.

Analysts have long suspected Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal region to be the hiding place of Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other top al-Qaeda leaders. As such, it is where suspected US drones launched their earliest missile strikes. One drone strike in January 2006 was said to have narrowly missed Ayman al-Zawahiri, although it killed nearly 18 others. Another strike nine months later killed 80 people at a religious seminary which US and Pakistani officials said was training militants.
The dominant militant group in Bajaur, and those in the neighbouring Mohmand tribal region, became members of the Baitullah Mehsud-led Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which was formed soon afterwards. Militants in both areas have since fought Pakistani forces inside their respective tribal zones, and have also carried out attacks in the cities of Peshawar, Charsadda and Mardan. They also conducted the first attacks against security forces in the Malakand region, where a fully fledged insurgency is currently continuing in and around the Swat valley.
Maulvi Faqir Mohammad is the chief commander of the Taliban in Bajaur. He is said to lead a force of nearly 10,000 armed militants. The “hard core” of his force is a good deal smaller. A year-long military operation against the militants in Bajaur ended early this year, followed by a peace agreement under which the dominant tribe in Bajaur, the Mamunds, agreed to surrender the entire TTP leadership to the government. But that has not happened. The Taliban are back in control in most areas outside the regional capital, Khaar, and Maulvi Faqir Mohammad continues to use his sermons, broadcast from an FM radio station, to whip up support for the Taliban.
In Mohmand, about 5,000 militants led by Omar Khalid have been resisting attempts by the security forces to clear them from southern and south-eastern parts of the district in order to reduce pressure on Peshawar and Charsadda. How many militants would stay to face a sustained offensive is unclear.

Fourth, the army has had the experience of operating in Waziristan since 2002, whereas it was a complete stranger to the Malakand region.
Fifth, the winters in the Mehsud area of South Waziristan are not as harsh as in some other areas and have not prevented the army from conducting operations there in the recent past.
Given these factors, security analysts believe there may be two main reasons why the army has been putting off action against this destructive ground-zero of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan.
Any action against the Baitullah Mehsud group in South Waziristan could draw in to the conflict militant groups based in the Wazir tribal areas of South and North Waziristan.
These groups are part of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Haqqani network, and have peace agreements with the army.
They have so far concentrated exclusively on fighting inside Afghanistan, and many analysts consider their activities central to the army’s perceived security interests in South Asia.
Any hostilities with them may harm these interests, analysts say.
Another reason may well have been the US government’s so-called Kerry-Lugar bill which promises $1.5bn (£0.95bn) in annual aid to Pakistan for the next five years.
The bill offers an unprecedented chance to the country’s civilian government to expand its clout over the state institutions at the cost of the military, which has until now monopolised political decision-making.
Last week, the army publicly denounced the bill at a time when the government was defending it, thereby sparking a rift in the political establishment.
But the dizzying pace at which the militants have struck at targets across the country during the last couple of weeks has increased public pressure on the army to deal with its erstwhile proteges.

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Israeli border police officers who were filmed apparently abusing Palestinian civilians will not face charges, an Israeli state prosecutor has ruled.
An appeal calling for an investigation was rejected and the police’s actions dismissed as “only light blows”, said human rights group, Yesh Din.
The three videos show Palestinian civilians being struck, grabbed and humiliated by uniformed officers.
The incident allegedly took place in East Jerusalem in 2008.
Israeli police have refused to comment on the ruling.
The Yesh Din group was set up in 2006 to provide legal assistance to Palestinians in the occupied territories.
It described the ruling a shocking decision:
“This shows a reality where soldiers feel that it is permissible to harass and beat civilians. Criminal law forbids assault.
“It is a wrong and dangerous wink of consent.”
The group quoted Israeli Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan as justifying the officers’ actions within the law: “They were light blows that do not cause real damage, are not illegal.”
It is not clear how the footage was made public, but reports suggest it was recorded on a mobile phone that was then lost.
In one of the videos, an Israeli officer is seen hitting a young Palestinian man, then striking him on the back of the neck – an action that is culturally an insult.
The officer then dishevels the man’s clothes and knees him in the backside.
In another video, a Palestinian is made to salute the officer before being released.
The Israeli Department for the Investigation of Police Officers had announced in January 2009 that it was not going to seek prosecution against the officers. The latest ruling was a rejection of Yesh Din’s appeal against that decision.
The human rights group said it would consider further legal means to challenge the decision.

Recent years have seen the re-emergence of the hardline Islamic Taliban movement as a fighting force in Afghanistan and a major threat to its government.
They are also threatening to destabilise Pakistan, where they control areas in the north-west and are blamed for a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks.
The Taliban emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
A predominantly Pashtun movement, the Taliban came to prominence in Afghanistan in the autumn of 1994.
It is commonly believed that they first appeared in religious seminaries – mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia – which preached a hard line form of Sunni Islam.
The Taliban’s promise – in Pashtun areas straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan – was to restore peace and security and enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power.
In both countries they introduced or supported Islamic punishments – such as public executions of convicted murderers and adulterers and amputations of those found guilty of theft.
Men were required to grow beards and women had to wear the all-covering burka.
Pakistan has repeatedly denied that it is the architect of the Taliban enterprise.
But there is little doubt that many Afghans who initially joined the movement were educated in madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan.
Pakistan was also one of only three countries, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which recognised the Taliban when they were in power in Afghanistan from the mid-1990s until 2001.
It was also the last country to break diplomatic ties with the Taliban.
But Pakistan has since adopted a harder line against Taliban militants carrying out attacks on its soil.
The attention of the world was drawn to the Taliban in Afghanistan following the attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001.

The Liberty Nickel series makes a challenging, yet very doable, series to complete. The Liberty Nickel, commonly known as the “V” nickel for the Roman Numeral “V” on
the reverse was officially produced from 1883 to 1912.

Before you embark on your mission of completing a set of this series, you must first decide what type of collection you want to assemble and what your budget will be.
For example, a complete collection of all coins from 1883 to 1912 (33 coins) retails for around $1000.00 in G4 condition. Up the condition to XF-40 and expect to pay
over $4500. Up the collection to MS60 and the retail price is nearly $8,500. If you just want the best quality, then look for MS65 which would retail for $62,000. That
is quite a range. While it is unlikely that your set will contain each coin in the exact same grade, this does give you an example of how much increasing the quality
can cost. In the XF-40 range, 4 or 5 of the coins will set you back $100 while the majority of the coins can be had for under $30.00. If budget is an issue, you could
collect the majority of the more common coins in a higher grade and acquire the keys in a lower grade and then upgrade as your budget allows.

You could also attempt to put together a collection of just proof coins. This set would consist of 31 coins and would retail for about $20,000 in MS65 condition.
Collecting proofs in the Liberty Nickel series can be tough yet rewarding. Proofs were minted for every year of existence for the “V” nickel. Proofs in PR65 condition
can run in the $500 plus range for most years with the 1885 running upwards of $1500. Production usually numbered in the thousands for each year, which was an
unusually high number for the period.

For this article, we will assume you have a tight budget and like most collectors you will need to sacrifice quality for the pricier coins. So, how do you get started?
The easiest and fastest way is to start with the common dates. This can give you some instant satisfaction that you are on your way. Within the Liberty Nickel series,
the dates from 1897 to 1912-D can be had for around $2.00 or less in G4 but will cost $30.00 a piece in the XF-40 range. If you are after the low cost coins simply
buying a roll of nickels will most likely yield all but a few dates from 1897 to 1912-D thus lowering your price per coin with a few left over. You can also find deals
such as Starter Sets that will include a certain number of different coins. These will commonly be in AG-3 to VG-8 grades. Beyond this, it is unlikely you will find
unsearched hoards so you will need to buy coins outside of this range individually.

In order to complete the series, three coins may give you trouble. The 1885, 1886 and 1912 S are the lowest mintage. The 1885 had a mintage of over 1.5 million but
will still set you back at least $500 in a grade around G4. The 1886 had a mintage of 3.3 million and will cost around $250 in a G4 grade. The 1912-S specimen had the
lowest mintage by far of just 238,000. As this was the first Liberty Nickel from San Francisco, as well as the last of the series, it was probably saved a little bit
more than the older issues as it may have been recognized for its low mintage. Even with a mintage of just 1/6 of the most expensive 1885 piece, the 1912-S can be had
for around $150 around a G4 grade.

Finding these tougher dates may prove to be somewhat challenging depending where you look. Surprisingly, there are very few dealers advertising Liberty Nickels in
national publications such as Coins Magazine. Those that I did find were asking above retail for 1885 and 1886 type coins. A quick search on the internet did yield
several dealers that had the scarcest dates in stock. Yet again, they were asking above retail for the scarcest dates. I suspect if I walked into my local coin dealer,
s/he would also be asking above retail for the 1885 and 1886 issue. So what does that leave you? If you are a gambler, there is always eBay. A quick search of eBay
yield several 1885 specimens to choose from. Please see my article on eBay buying tips if you are an eBay novice to prevent getting ripped off. While the coins on eBay
are typically overgraded, you can still get what you want if you are careful.

Collecting Liberty V Nickels can be a truly rewarding experience. In just a few short years, every coin in this series will be at least 100 years old bring extra
pleasure to the collector knowing that s/he has something that is a small part of history of the United States of America.

Happy Collecting!

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