Pakistan on the edge as more suicide attacks feared
ISLAMABAD
29-Jul-07
PAKISTANI authorities warned more suicide bombers were stalking Islamabad, a day after 14 people were killed in a blast near a mosque regarded as a symbol of Islamist resistance to US ally President Pervez Musharraf.
"I feel very insecure for myself, for my children and for my city. I never thought my city would be like this," Fareha Ansar, a former high school principal, said yesterday, after the second suicide attack in the capital this month.
A wave of suicide attacks, roadside bombs and shootings have killed more than 180 people, in a militant campaign triggered by the storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad earlier this month to crush a Taliban-style movement.
The government reopened the mosque this week, but trouble broke out on Friday as hundreds of followers of radical clerics briefly seized the mosque before being dispersed by police.
A suicide bomber, described as a bearded man in his 20s, struck at a nearby restaurant shortly afterwards.
The only extra police evident yesterday were stationed around the now "indefinitely closed" Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid.
Part of the problem for security forces is that they are the main target for attacks. Eight of Friday's victims were police.
Police foiled a car bomb plot on Friday in Bannu, a city at the gateway to North Waziristan, a tribal region regarded as a hotbed of support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Musharraf has to contend with more challenges than just the militant threat in Pakistani cities, and pressure from the United States to act against al-Qaeda nests in North Waziristan, as he struggles to hold on to power.
A Supreme Court ruling last week to reinstate a chief justice who Musharraf had spent four months trying to oust augured ill for his plan to get re-elected by the sitting assemblies before their dissolution in November without running into serious constitutional challenges.
Having become increasingly isolated politically over the past few months, and virtually silent since the court decision went against him last week, Musharraf was in Abu Dhabi on Friday, reportedly for secret talks with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto about a deal to secure him a second term.
Officials denied the television reports on Friday, but newspapers yesterday said the two held their first face-to-face talks since Musharraf came to power in a coup eight years ago, though his emissaries have been speaking to Bhutto for months.
Musharraf was in Saudi Arabia yesterday, and expected back in Pakistan today.
Mutual distrust has surrounded contacts with Bhutto, and a deal remains fraught with problems, though both share a vision of turning Pakistan into a moderate, progressive nation.
Living in self-exile, Bhutto has seen her bargaining position strengthen as Musharraf's grip on power weakens.
Reuters
In the line of fire
By Amir Zia
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=66282
When zealots belonging to Lal Mosque — many of them armed — were out on the streets of Islamabad on the fateful day of July 3, attacking and setting ablaze public and private property, Pakistani media made its mark by an unprecedented blow-by-blow coverage.
Dozens of reporters, cameramen and press photographers risked their lives in the line-of-duty for both the media and the masses and covered the violence and terror unleashed by extremists in Islamabad — a city which once was considered the safest in Pakistan. All day, they braved teargas, stones and bullets. Many were caught in the crossfire, but they never left their post.
The television screen showed glimpses of these brave men and women as they ducked to save themselves from stones and hunkered down to avoid bullets. But not all proved lucky. One photojournalist, Javed Khan, died on the spot after sustaining a bullet to his neck. Four other journalists were wounded by stray bullets. In Pakistan, this has been the highest price paid by the media while covering an event.
The bulletproof jackets and helmets came a day later for some of the media personnel — once the security forces had restricted their movement and barred them from the main battle zone of Lal Mosque and its adjacent women’s seminary. In such conflicts, this remains the standard operating procedure of security forces in most parts of the world.
Journalists, who specialize covering wars, anti-terror operations and civil-strife, perform duties mostly by tagging along with security personnel or an organized guerrilla group in an attempt to minimize risk. Thus, we have this term ‘embedded-journalists’, who on the battlefront are usually kept at the rare or at the safest spot in full security gear. They are never allowed to place themselves in the midst of action.!
In all the professional media organizations, editors and seniors holding desk from the safety of their offices ask their journalists to take maximum precautions when covering wars and strife.
While working for two leading international news agencies and traveling to conflict areas of Afghanistan and Kashmir, I was always told by my seniors and colleagues that, “no story is worth your life.” And they heard the same advice when their turn used to come. “Yes pal, you are going out to cover a story, not to become a story yourself.”
Perhaps such suggestions may look odd in our Pakistani contest where activism and journalism go hand-in-hand, but that is how professional media personnel are asked to report events internationally. That remains the mantra. Awareness about security issues and practical and theoretic training on “dos and don’ts” while operating in hostile circumstances remains a top priority in all the professional media organizations.
But it also remains a fact that many journalists like to take risks and test their luck to get a story, which others do not have, a photograph or footage which beats the rivals. Going to the conflict zone and risking live seems to keep their adrenaline flowing.
However, it does not mean that journalists should any way become lax about safety. Some questions must always be kept in mind. How to approach a trouble spot? How to move in and around that area? Where to place yourself when two sides are exchanging gunfire and how to get out as quickly as possible if caught in the middle of violence? In the case of bombings and suicide attacks, media personnel are often advised not to rush to the spot where there is always a chance of second explosion. They are advised by the security personnel to stand at a safe distance until they clear the area.
In May 2004, more than a dozen photographers and cameramen were wounded near Pakistan American Cultural Centre (PACC) in Karachi when a second car bomb exploded within short-span of the first explosion. Luckily, no one died .
In Pakistan, the pressure of competition — which in case of the electronic media is relatively new — is forcing media personnel to take greater risks – as many of them perhaps did on July 3. Here, it is primarily the responsibility of editors and seniors to ask their front-liners — who in the heat of the moment are may be going beyond the call of their duty — to move to safer spots, if not to evacuate.
It is a hard fact that being a journalist and by holding a notebook and a pen, or a camera in our hand does not make us bulletproof ,nor do we transform into some sort of holy cows that cannot be touched by combatants. In the chaos and confusion of a conflict, journalists remain at risk from both warring sides. From a distance, a television camera on the shoulder can be mistaken for a rocket launcher and the dash for cover behind a tree or a wall as the positioning of an enemy combatant. Then, there is also a possibility that any of the warring sides, deliberately target media personnel to prevent coverage or just to get publicity and inflate an event beyond its real proportion.
Highlighting some of these dangers and threats does not mean that one should shy away from duty. But there is a delicate difference between taking a calculated risk and a leap in the dark. The more awareness we have about such situations, the more we are prepared to deal with them.
In the wake of the massive growth in Pakistan’s print and electronic media in recent years and the kind of events and conflicts journalists are now required to cover, there is a growing need to impart not just conventional mass communication training to the media personnel, but also to give them an exposure to the art of conflict reporting and survival in the hostile environment. Even occasional brainstorming sessions inside newsrooms about imaginary conflict situations are of great help to prepare minds when the real test comes.
Professional bodies, including Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, can take a lead in organizing such courses and workshops. However, it is the bigger media groups, which remain in a better position to get their employees trained both within the country and abroad. The media groups also need to provide their personnel proper safety gear and insurance cover as it’s done internationally.
Let’s hope that our journalists are better equipped and trained whenever they go out on dangerous assignments. As our old cliché goes, “journalists are there to report a story. They should try their utmost not to become one.”
The writer is a Karachi-based columnist. Email: amir.zia@gmail.com
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