Month: January 2024

At least one person was killed and another injured in clashes between the workers of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) in Karachi’s Nazimabad area, MQM-P claimed.

The incident took place in the Nazimabad No 2 area late Sunday as political parties are busy canvassing, holding public gatherings and corner meetings to mobilise their supporters ahead of the February 8 elections, according to police, Geo News reported.

Police said clashes erupted between the workers of the two political parties and unidentified persons also lit two vehicles during the violence.

They said the deceased person was identified as 48-year-old Faraz.

A video of the incident also emerged wherein the political parties’ activists can be seen hurling chairs at each other.

Abbasi Shaheed Hospital administration said the man was brought to a hospital dead and added that he died of a bullet wound in his head.

Meanwhile, MQM-Pakistan Rabita Committee member Taha Siddiqui claimed that PPP workers opened fire at their office which resulted in the death of UC-incharge.

“The Peoples Party [PPP] cannot occupy the city through terrorism,” he alleged while speaking to the media outside the hospital.

In a statement issued following the incident, a MQM-Pakistan spokesperson claimed that PPP workers tried to remove their party’s flag which led to the altercation between the workers of the two parties.

However, the spokesperson said the dispute between them was settled after some time.

The PPP workers returned after two hours with armed guards and resorted to firing which left their worker dead, the statement added.

The MQM-P said a first information report (FIR) of the incident will be lodged following the funeral prayer of the deceased worker.

Addressing a press conference, MQM-P senior leader Mustafa Kamal claimed that the PPP workers carrying Kalashnikovs opened fire at their members following an altercation over flag removal.

He claimed that MQM-P workers were unarmed and did not “even throw stones” at them in retaliation.

He accused PPP leader Asim Hussain of orchestrating the attack on the MQM-P workers.

“I am warning for the last time that I will not let my workers even suffer a single scratch,” the MQM-P leader added.

Earlier in December last year, MQM-P claimed that its three workers were shot dead and others injured when PPP members fired on them.

In a statement, the party said its election office in Karachi’s Machar Colony — one of the largest slums of the port city — was attacked whilst workers and leaders were busy in election-related activities.

Police, on the other hand, had claimed that “two groups” had a clash in the area, adding that three people were killed, while the main suspect and his brother were arrested.

Previous election campaigns in the metropolis have witnessed spasms of violence, with scores of candidates and voters targeted by bombings and gun attacks.

The Nordic country’s admission to Nato last year drew threats of “counter measures” from its much larger neighbour. In December, Finland closed its entire border with Russia to passenger traffic in response to a surge in migrants trying to cross. Moscow denied Finnish charges it was sending the migrants there.

All nine candidates are promising a tough stance towards Russia if elected president, a role that leads on foreign and security policy in close cooperation with the government and represents the country at Nato meetings, while also acting as a Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces.

The centre-right National Coalition’s Alexander Stubb has emerged as the frontrunner, with recent polls giving him 22-27pc support in a first round, just ahead of liberal Green Party member Pekka Haavisto, who polled at 20-23pc.

The nationalist Finns Party’s Jussi Halla-aho is not far behind Haavisto, at 15-18pc.

Nearly 45pc of eligible voters, or 1.9 million Finns, had voted in advance ahead of Sunday, the justice ministry’s data showed, and partial results consisting of advance votes are expected as soon as polls close after 1800 GMT.

“These claims are made with specific political goals to reverse the realities of the region,” IRNA quoted foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying.

There has so far been no claim of responsibility for the strike.

US President Joe Biden said on Sunday that “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq” were behind the strike on the frontier base in Jordan’s northeast.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated a call for Iran “to de-escalate in the region”.

Kanaani said such statements threatened “regional and international peace and stability”.

US Central Command said 34 personnel were also wounded, eight of whom required evacuation.

US troops operate at the base near Jordan’s border with Iraq and Syria as part of an international coalition against the Islamic State militant group.

The strike marked the first US military losses since Israel began bombarding Gaza following the October 7 attack by Hamas.

The Palestinian group Hamas had launched an attack on October 7 that resulted in about 1,140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Israel’s subsequent relentless military offensive has killed at least 26,422 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the enclave.

Political pressure builds on Biden to strike Iran

The killing of three US troops is piling political pressure on Biden to deal a blow directly against Iran, a move he’s been reluctant to do out of fear of igniting a broader war.

Biden’s response options could range anywhere from targeting Iranian forces outside to even inside Iran, or opting for a more cautious retaliatory attack solely against militants responsible, experts say.

American forces in the Middle East have been attacked more than 150 times in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and off the coast of Yemen since the Gaza conflict erupted in October.

But until Sunday’s attack on a remote outpost known as Tower 22 near Jordan’s northeastern border with Syria, the strikes had not killed US troops nor wounded so many.

Republicans accused Biden of letting American forces become sitting ducks, waiting for the day when a drone or missile would evade base defenses. They say that day came on Sunday, when a single one-way attack drone struck near base barracks early in the morning.

In response, they say Biden must strike Iran.

“He left our troops as sitting ducks,” said Republican US Senator Tom Cotton.

“The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” he said.

The Republican who leads the US military oversight committee in the House of Representatives, Representative Mike Rogers, also called for action against Tehran.

“It’s long past time for President Biden to finally hold the terrorist Iranian regime and their extremist proxies accountable for the attacks they’ve carried out,” Rogers said.

Former US president Donald Trump, who hopes to face off against Biden in this year’s presidential election, portrayed the attack as a “consequence of Joe Biden’s weakness and surrender”.

One Democrat openly voiced concern that Biden’s strategy of containing the Israel-Hamas conflict to Gaza was failing.

“As we see now, it is spiraling out of control. It’s beginning to emerge as a regional war, and unfortunately the United States and our troops are in harms way,” Democratic Representative Barbara Lee said, renewing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Democratic Representative Seth Moulton, who served four tours in Iraq as a Marine, urged against Republican calls for war, saying “deterrence is hard; war is worse”.

“To the chicken hawks calling for war with Iran, you’re playing into the enemy’s handsand Id like to see you send your sons and daughters to fight,” Moulton said.

“We must have an effective, strategic response on our terms and our timeline,” he added.

Experts caution that any strikes against Iranian forces inside Iran could force Tehran to respond forcefully, escalating the situation in a way that could drag the United States into a major Middle East war.

Jonathan Lord, director of the Middle East security programme at the Centre for a New American Security, said striking directly inside Iran would raise questions for Tehran about regime survival.

“When you do things overtly you represent a major escalation for the Iranians,” Lord said.

Charles Lister of the Washington-based Middle East Institute said a likely response would be to go after a significant target or high-value militant from groups in Iraq or Syria.

“What happened this morning, was on a totally different level than anything these proxies have done in the past two to three months […] (but) despite all of the calls to do something in Iran, I don’t see this administration taking that bait,” Lister said.

Hundreds gathered in the latest protest at the Kerem Shalom crossing, despite the army saying in a statement it had declared the area “a closed military zone”.

The demonstrators, some affiliated with relatives of prisoners held in Gaza, have assembled there for days to protest aid going to the territory that UN officials say is on the brink of catastrophe.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled that Israel must facilitate “urgently need­ed” humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory, which has been under relentless bombardment and siege since the Oct 7.

Only two border crossings are used for aid delivery to Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million residents — southern Israel’s Kerem Shalom and Egypt’s Rafah crossing.

COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry body governing civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, said that the Kerem Shalom crossing was closed on Sunday due to around “around 200” protesters demonstrating there.

GAZA STRIP: While bad weather hit displaced Palestinians seeking refuge further north in the battered enclave, Israel pressed ahead on Saturday with its aggression in Gaza’s Khan Younis area after the failure of UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) to call for a ceasefire.

Aggravating the crisis for Palestinians, the UK, Australia, Canada, Italy and Finland suspended their funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) despite the Palestinian Authority insistence that the organisation needs ‘maximum’ support.

On the day of ICJ’s ruling that Israel must prevent possible acts of genocide, 174 Palestinians were killed during the unabated hostilities. Gaza health authorities said on Saturday some 26,257 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 65,000 wounded so far, including 174 lives lost during the last 24 hours.

The majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million population has been displaced. Residents reported heavy aerial and tank fire across Khan Yunis, a part of southern Gaza that has become the focus of Israel’s ground offensive against Hamas, and around two main hospitals there.

After the ICJ ruling amid Israeli accusations that several employees of UNRWA were involved in October 7 attack, the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Italy and Finland suspended funding to the UN agency.

Set up to help refugees of the 1948 war, UNRWA provides education, health and aid services to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

“In Gaza’s rebuilding, UNRWA must be replaced with agencies dedicated to genuine peace and development,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement, urging more donors to suspend funding.

Hamas slammed Israeli “threats” against UNRWA, urging the United Nations and other international organisations not to “cave in to the threats and blackmail”.

Relations between Israel and UNRWA, which have been strained for years, deteriorated further in recent days, with the UN agency condemning tank shelling it said had hit a shelter for displaced people in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis.

The agency said tens of thousands of displaced people had been registered at the shelter and Wednesday’s tank shelling killed 13 people.

Asked about the incident, the Israeli army said “a thorough review of the operations of the forces in the vicinity is underway”, adding it was examining the possibility that the strike was a “result of Hamas fire”.

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini slammed Israeli bombardment at UN shelter as a “blatant disregard of basic rules of war”, with the compound clearly marked as a UN facility and its coordinates shared with Israeli authorities.

However, Israel vowed to stop the UN agency at the heart of humanitarian efforts in Gaza from operating after the war. “UNRWA will not be a part of the day after”, Foreign Minister Israel Katz earlier wrote on X, formerly Twitter, adding that he would try to gather support from the US, EU and other major donors to the agency.

UN urged not to cave in Palestinian group Hamas slammed the Israeli “threats” against UNRWA, urging the UN and other international organisations not to “cave in to the threats and blackmail”.

Similarly, the Palestinian Authority’s minister for civilian affairs, Hussein Al-Sheikh, said on X, formerly Twitter, “We need the maximum support for this international organisation and not stopping support and assistance to it.”

UNRWA did not react on Saturday to the announcement of the suspension of funds.

The United States has approved the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey after the Turkish parliament this week ratified Sweden’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) membership.

The US Department of State on Friday notified Congress of the $23 billion agreement to sell warplanes to NATO ally Turkey and $8.6 billion advanced F-35 fighter jets to Greece.

This comes after Turkey submitted its “instrument of ratification” for Sweden’s NATO accession to Washington and several key Congress members lifted their objections, Al Jazeera reported.

Turkey requested F-16 jets in October 2021, but Ankara’s delay in ratifying Sweden’s NATO bid had hindered congressional approval.

After 20 months, the Turkish parliament ratified Sweden’s bid, and US President Joe Biden urged Congress to approve the F-16 sale “without delay,” Reuters reported.

“My approval of Turkey’s request to purchase F-16 aircrafts has been contingent on Turkish approval of Sweden’s NATO membership. But make no mistake: This was not a decision I came to lightly,” said Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of four key committees that needs to approve arms transfers.

Turkey needs to urgently improve its human rights record, cooperate better on holding Russia accountable for its invasion in Ukraine and help lower the temperature in the Middle East, Cardin listed.

“My concerns have been strongly and consistently conveyed to the Biden administration as part of our ongoing engagement, and I am encouraged by the productive direction of their discussions with Turkish officials to address these issues,” he said.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committees scrutinise every major foreign arms sale, frequently raising concerns over human rights or diplomatic issues that could potentially delay or halt such deals.

Congress has 15 days to object to the sale of Turkey, after receiving formal notification from the State Department, and US officials do not anticipate Congress blocking either sale despite criticism.

The party launched its manifesto with the slogan ‘Pakistan Ko Nawaz Do’.

Addressing the media after manifesto’s launch, PML-N supremo said his party will ensure the implementation of the manifesto, highlighting that the country’s biggest problem is its state of economy.

Criticising PTI, the Imran Khan-founded party that formed a government following the 2018 elections, Nawaz said: “You broke the poor’s back through inflation. You cut off the electricity, while it was never cut off during my time.”

He added that action is a distant thing, some people don’t even have a manifesto. However, Nawaz said he wants to get the country out of all problems.

The PML-N supremo added that a tractor was worth Rs900,000 during his government in the past, while a car which was worth Rs2 million during his time is now worth Rs10 million today.

The former prime minister, addressing the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said they must now prove their responsibility.

“The people of KP should understand what kind of man they gave a chance to,” he said, deriding the PTI.

He reiterated that his focus this time around is on the politics of development, not revenge, as he has always “done politics on principles”.

“If we were allowed to work without interference, the shape of the country would have been different,” the former premier added.

Initiating the launch of the manifesto, the party’s Manifesto Committee Chairman Senator Irfan Siddiqui said there is nothing in the manifesto that the PML-N will not be able to do when it comes to power.

Siddiqui added that the PML-N supremo directed the committee not to include anything in the manifesto that the party cannot fullfill in the future.

“Nawaz Sharif had forbidden [us] from showing false dreams in the manifesto,” he said, adding that he was fully guided by the leadership during the preparation.

He said the delay in the announcement of the manifesto came as the party was focusing on reforms during the preparation.

“At least 32 committees were formed to draft the manifesto, which also includes the party’s past performance,” he said.

Party’s President Shehbaz Sharif, who was also present at the launch alongside senior leadership, said a special body will be established to ensure the effective implementation of the manifesto.

“People must see which political party fulfilled promises made in its manifesto. Everyone presents the manifesto, but some act upon it,” he added.

Also present at the launch, PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal said there is a difference between social media myths and reality while taking a jibe at social media campaigns being led by other political parties, particularly the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).