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Special security session in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The two Houses of Parliament will hold a joint session on Wednesday for an extraordinary briefing on the threat posed by militancy and extremism to the security.

Top intelligence officials are to make presentations at the in camera joint session of the National Assembly and Senate on the situation in the North-West Frontier Province, in the tribal areas known as FATA and Pakistan’s role in the war on terror.

The state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said the newly appointed ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, will likely brief the parliamentarians.

Pakistan is badly divided on it role in the “war on terror”, and how to deal with the challenge that Taliban militancy and the Al-Qaeda pose to the country. The joint session is aimed at conveying the seriousness of the threat so that parliamentarians can put their heads together to build a consensual strategy for dealing with it.

Farahtullah Babar, spokesman of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, said the debate would not only help draw up a plan to counter terrorism “as per the wishes of the people’s representatives but would also provide an opportunity to take the masses into confidence on the issue”.

Pakistan’s role thus far in the “war on terror" has been seen as a one-man policy fashioned by a military ruler. Since the February 18 election that brought to power a democratically elected government, political parties have been united in their demand that this should be debated in Parliament to craft a more broad-based strategy than the one imposed by the former President, Pervez Musharraf.

In an address to Parliament last month, President Asif Ali Zardari said a briefing for the parliamentarians on the security situation would help them make an “informed judgment” about the risks to Pakistan and the policy to adopt “with responsibility and clarity of vision”.

Only two such joint in camera sessions have been held before in Pakistan’s history: in 1974, at which the Ahmediyyas or Qadiyanis were declared a non-Muslim minority in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government; and during the tenure of Prime Minister Muhammed Khan Junejo, when Parliament was briefed about the Afghan war.

Ahead of the session, the three service chiefs, including the newly appointed Navy chief Admiral Noman Bashir, called on Mr. Zardari separately on Tuesday.

The Chief Ministers of all four provinces and the Prime Minister of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir will attend the joint session. Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif, who is not an MP, has accepted a special invitation from Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to witness the session, which may spill over to two or three days.

Mr. Sharif, who returned on Monday after a private visit to Saudi Arabia, said the joint session was a positive step .

His brother Shahbaz Sharif, Chief Minister of Punjab, told journalists that it was necessary to fight terrorism with determination “in order to live.” He was speaking after Sunday’s suicide attack at the home of a PML(N) parliamentarian in the south Punjab town of Bhakkar that left at least 25 dead and more than 50 wounded. Rasheed Akbar Khan Niwani, parliamentarian, escaped with minor injuries. The News reported that Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group that targets Shias, may have been behind the attack. Mr. Niwani is Shia.

The attack, as also another last week at the home of the Awami National Party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan in the North-West Frontier Province and rocket attacks on the home of the provincial Chief Minister, following fast on the heels of the Marriott bombing, have all served to underline that the government needs to urgently chalk out a strategy against terror, and that this is its biggest challenge.

Speaking in Peshawar at a press conference, Mr. Wali Khan flagged the urgency by saying that “now is the time to decide if one is for peace or for terrorism; there is no more middle ground”, even though he described the “war on terror” as imposed on Pakistan by the U.S.

“It is time to stand up and be counted,” he said, adding that there was “an open insurgency” going on the NWFP. He also spoke about a “foreign hand” in the militancy.

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