Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Pakistan
Updated
An Iranian diplomat has been kidnapped in Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan - a day after an American aid worker was shot dead in the same city. Hashmatullah Atharzadeh was kidnapped when armed assailants attacked his car and killed his driver. Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman, Muhammad Sadiq, told reporters in Peshawar his government is working hard to secure the diplomat's release. Seven months after taking power, Pakistan's civilian government is struggling to cope with deteriorating security.
Presenter: Zulfikar Abbany
Speaker: Dr Samina Ahmed, South Asia director of the International Crisis Group in Islamabad
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DR SAMINA AHMED: It isn't just that an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped and a US aid worker was killed but there's been any number of attacks, suicide attacks as well in the recent weeks in Peshawar the provincial capital of the North-West Frontier Province. Clearly the security situation there is getting seriously dangerous and resembling, to some extent, what we see across the border in parts of southern and eastern Afghanistan where you have criminality as well as extremism on the rise.
ZULFIKAR ABBANY: Of course this comes also to the incident now with the Iranian diplomat comes only two months after the Afghan Consul-General was abducted and the driver was killed in that situation. Are we going to see more and more abductions like this?
DR SAMINA AHMED: Well it is a major challenge for the Government which is confronting a situation that it has unfortunately inherited from the military regime that you have security agencies in particular - the police - not capable of countering the kinds of threats that we see and as I said these threats - let's be very clear about it - these are not necessarily all linked to extremist groups, these are also linked to criminals operating in this area, so it is as much an issue of law enforcement as it is an issue of terrorism.
ZULFIKAR ABBANY: It's not the best report card, is it? For the 7-month-old civilian government of Pakistan? What should it be doing?
DR SAMINA AHMED: Exactly, you just said it. It's a 7-month-old civilian government after eight years of military rule. In seven months they are expected to reform the police and to make it capable of law enforcement when the police have been denied the resources and the political support it needed for eight years of military rule? Of course it takes time. These kinds of expectations of an elected government are actually quite difficult to understand given the fact that expectations of the military government were extremely low.
ZULFIKAR ABBANY: But to the outside observers it looks as though since the civilian government came in the situation has in fact worsened so they have absolutely no control, I'd like to put it to you.
DR SAMINA AHMED: Actually that is not so true either because in 2007 is when terrorist activity peaked and we are into, as I said, less than a year of civilian rule so what we are seeing now are the fruits of the military government's labour - support for extremist groups, support for religious parties, a government that was composed of religious parties in the North-West Frontier province, marginalising the moderate forces, decimating the capacity of the civilian law enforcement agencies, putting all the resources into the military as an institution which is incapable of law enforcement as we've seen. No, I mean you have a cumulative effect of bad state policy which the civil government has inherited.
ZULFIKAR ABBANY: Given that the people who are being abducted are foreign nationals, foreign diplomats, what is the sense, do you think in the international community of what's happening in Pakistan? I mean the international community could criticise Pakistan for what's happening but then it could perhaps help Pakistan get over this difficult situation and gain more control. What do you think?
DR SAMINA AHMED: Well I think it's important for the international community to understand that most of the important actors in the international community have put all their eggs in the Pakistan military's basket and so all those billions of dollars that were poured into the Pakistani State under military rule which were then not used for the purpose intended, which was to fight terrorism, has gone to waste. Here's an opportunity now perhaps to also understand that you will not have effective law enforcement unless you put the same amount of resources or more into the civilian law enforcement agencies. If you are to contain the threat that are posed to not just foreign nationals, but to the Pakistani citizens and to the neighbouring countries from Pakistani territory.
