Newly elected Pakistani PM, Sharif demands end to US drone strikes

Nawaz Sharif after his swearing in faced the most contentious issue in Pakistan, noticeable in its political campaigns and other facets of its society; activities of US drones on its soil. The US drones have allegedly killed more innocent civilians than militants. Upon the return of Pervez Musharraf to Pakistan, he was booed and looked askance at because he instituted and signed the drone menace.

Pakistan’s parliament elected Nawaz Sharif as prime minister Wednesday. He received 244 votes in the 342-seat parliament, returning him to the Prime Minister’s office for an unprecedented third term. In his first address since taking office, Sharif called on the US to end its campaign of drone attacks in the country’s tribal northwest.

“We respect the sovereignty of others and they should also respect our sovereignty and independence. This campaign should come to an end,” AFP quoted him as saying. Sharif, who was deposed in a military coup in 1999, won the May 11 elections as part of his Pakistan Muslim League-N party.

APC of Nigeria: Theory of the Armoured Personnel Carrier

The battle began, for the survival of a nation at war with itself. Cloudburst sounds all over the sky. Citizens wail. At the battlefield, victory is being announced. A party in the war wins. Yes! Victory. Years gone, the war never ends, the opposing sides are fragmented. With maximum chutzpah, the victorious says it will stay on for 50 years. 50 what?! The citizens cry. Agonies and pains. All expect transformation, though not miraculous but in deed and in truth they wait to see. Disappointment speaks. The homeland of tears.

The divided oppositions try yearly to offset the balance and strength of the massive firepower employed by the victor. Though seemingly poorly trained in the art of statecraft, soldiers in the victorious wing understands the esoteric undertone of stirring the water to catch fishes. Divide and Rule; victory is assured. It sets up different tiny and minute groups within the opposition, funds them and deploy them as a veritable too of distraction.

The only alternative is the voice. The united voice of the oppositions. Though all animals are equal in crime and the anomalies combating the homeland but some are more reasonable than others. Soldiers trapped in the trench call out loud. They clamour for change over the loss on the battlefield. They echo the cries of the homeland. They are all culpable though for the destruction but some soldiers are better of. They have their Armoured Personnel Carrier packed in the thick jungle of war but cannot get there because they lack the voice.

Selfish and vainglorious interests impede change and charge. The only way to counter the trenches and 'formidable' fortress of the winning and victorious side is the deployment of the APC and its monumental missiles. The missiles of the people. The undaunting voice. The commanders of the different units have never agreed on any single line of action but the APC smiles from afar in wait of usage. Covered with dust, it seems the last option otherwise the entire homeland will blow up beyond repair. Critics and foreign rapists already pray for that.

Here comes the armoured personnel carrier, a dancing golden weapon of war. The stealth of fear and perplexity for the victorious party. A drone with a political mission. The soldiers are the same but the mission is of the people only if the people will look at the years of pains and inhumanity. They have to rise. The APC must shield all from the bullets of the ruling party. It must break the trenches of warfare already planned. All must be able to queue at its back for utmost protection. All the landmines of poverty must be uprooted.

The nation the APC is about to lead to battle is the trigger of Africa. Africa waits for Nigeria. If Nigeria divides, Africa falls. Neo-colonialism will assume an unprecedented dimension. The launchpad of the APC should not be personality attacks. The warheads should not be abuse and senseless unethical views. Arguments are for advancements. Arguments must occur but it must be for developments not who gets what, when and how. Arguments must be about Nigeria not Hausa, Igbo, Niger Delta or Yoruba.

The APC must be a guardian angel. Internal Democracy must be the prism through which all arguments and discussions shall be viewed. The people not only cry of the battle but also because their homeland lacks any concrete ideology. Programmes and course of actions must be explicit in the new theatre of political war. Being tired of the ruling and winning party is not the main headache, the main morass is being led without focus. The people are led blindly. We have indigenous acts before Europe, the dynamism of the APC on the battlefield will be the marriage of history and modernism.

The principle of soldiers in an APC is always 'All for One, One for All.' Soldiers in an APC fight together as one for surviaval and victory. None looks for personal glory. If one falls, others weep. Need and aspirations must be based on societal demands not personal aggrandizement. Soldiers in the APC must learn to SACRIFICE for the people not SACRIFICE the people like the Boko Haram and various unknown gunmen as well as militant events. The people must SPEAK through the APC.

Africa: Libyan Militants Supported Algerian Islamists

The interconnectedness among various militants and Islamist groups in Africa is growing nauseously. The militants who seized an Algerian gas plant before they were killed in a bloodbath received logistical aid from Islamists in Libya, a well-informed source told AFP on Tuesday

International media groups, including AFP, were able to get from Islamist circles based in Eastern Libya telephone numbers of the kidnappers as they last Wednesday overran the In Amenas gas plant in the deep Algerian desert.

37 foreigners were killed in the 4-day siege of the remote desert gas plant, some of them executed with a bullet to the head, Algerian premier Abdelmalek Sellal said on Monday. He said that a total of 29 militants were also killed and three captured in the siege, which got concluded on Saturday when Algerian special forces stormed the gas complex.

Algeria said its special forces managed to free 685 Algerian and 107 foreign hostages, most of them on Thursday, during their first rescue operation. During the deadly standoff, several media outlets had talked of a “Libyan connection” to the siege.

Algerian website TSA cited a security source saying the kidnappers had entered Algeria from Libya in official Libyan vehicles, while other outlets argued that the weapons the kidnappers used came from Libya.

When questioned by AFP, Libyan officials simply reiterated the words of their prime minister, Ali Zeidan, who denied that the kidnappers entered Algeria from Libya, saying the Libyan territory was not being used for launching operations that threaten security of neighbouring countries.

Algerian premier Sellal on Monday that the militants had crossed from Northern Mali. The Libyan source said that Libyan Islamists had no organisational link with the group, “Signatories in Blood” which led the four-day siege of the gas complex.

The group is led by one-eyed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the founders of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM ). Belmokhtar left Al-Qaeda in October to create his own group. Jaber al-Abidi, an analyst, has no doubt Libyans were involved.

“It is clear that there is a link between Libyan extremist groups and those who led the In Amenas operation,” said Jaber al-Obeidi, an analyst and political activist. “Libyan extremists are present in northern Mali and helped carry weapons from Libya after the fall of the regime” of Gaddafi, he added.

The “Signatories in Blood” group had said that its attack on the gas complex was in retaliation for French intervention in northern Mali. Algeria’s Sellal dismissed this, saying the assault had been planned for nearly two months, long before France intervened in northern Mali.

Since the fall of Gaddafi’s regime in October 2011, Libyan Islamists have gained influence and inherited a large military arsenal from the conflict that ousted and killed him. Their ability to strike was illustrated by the murderous assault launched September 11 on the US consulate in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi that killed the American ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans coupled with attacks on security men.

According to the Libyan source, the Islamists who attacked the gas facility entered Mali “transiting through Niger and Libya from the Salvador triangle,” a barren stretch of desert that borders Libya, Algeria and Niger. Libya has long struggled to monitor its 4,000-kilometre (2,500-mile) land border. Boko Haram is also said to be strengthened by the various Islamist groups around Nigeria, in the Sahel and Sahara.

Nigeria and her 190 Soldiers in Mali!!! A Mission of Jokes

Nigeria has decided to send 190 soldiers down to Mali after France has taken the initiative to combat the Islamists. What will be the effect of 190 soldiers in a vast land called Northern Mali?

Nigeria's act is at best laughable. The United Nations has given the West African body, ECOWAS the 'legal military framework' to tackle the insurgency but the body postponed any action all in the name of preparations. This is giving the Islamist rebels more time to get to Bamako.

Colonel Yerima said: “The degenerating crisis in the Republic of Mali compelled the decision of ECOWAS Heads of Government to intervene with a deployment of their military forces.

“Following this decision and in line with Nigeria’s acclaimed peacekeeping roles and in the spirit of African brotherhood, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has ordered the immediate deployment of Nigerian troops to Mali.

‘‘The President approved the deployment of a Battallion and in the next 24 hours, a Company of the Battalion [190] will be deployed. The remainder would be deployed later. Already, the Force Commander, Major General S U Abdulkadir, is on ground in Mali.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2085 of December 2012 approved the deployment of ECOWAS Security Force to assist Mali in reclaiming the northern part of the country from Islamic militants. Nigeria is still largely unable to address the Boko Haram hazard.

West Africa has proven that Africa will continue to depend on foreign actions to tackle her morass and menace. The colonel even said the EU remains in close touch with all international actors including the AU, ECOWAS and the UN. I wonder what actions the AU and ECOWAS have taken.