Briefing the Senate Standing Committee on States and Frontier Region (SAFRON), which met with Senator Hafiz Rashid Ahmed in the chair, FATA additional chief secretary Habibullah Khan said there were strong evidences that these three countries are involved in deteriorating situation in tribal areas.

He told the legislators that famous warlord Mangal Bagh was still threatening the people through FM radio channel in Khyber Agency, adding he threatened Khassadars to kill their family members if they performed their duties.

In result, he continued, around 800 Khassadars have not turned up to perform their official duties.

About Taliban top leadership, he said both Hakimullah Mehsud and Qari Hussain were dead and termed some media reports baseless that the two militant leaders are still alive.

Khan informed the committee members that the government has credible reports of presence of more than 5,000 Uzbek militants in the North and South Waziristan, who he said move in to Balochistan as well.

Upon his disclosures, the legislators were surprised why the government has yet not taken up the matter with respective countries at the highest level.

The committee decided to call Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Interior Minister Rehman Malik in the next meeting to have briefing from them on the overall security situation in FATA and the steps taken by the government to control militancy in the troubled areas.

The members said it was high time that the government should introduce ‘time-bound’ reforms in tribal areas otherwise the situation could spiral out of control.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Raja Zafarul Haq observed that the federally administered tribal areas were not only neglected but also exploited in the past. He feared there could be a Darfur-like situation if the government did not take timely steps.

The committee members suggested that the government should announce compensation for people of FATA who have given great sacrifices in the war against terrorism.

They suggested that a thorough reform and development package should be introduced in FATA to remove the sense of deprivation among the people of tribal areas and to bring them into the national mainstream of national development.

They said extending facilities and privileges to the people of FATA would help restore durable peace in the troubled areas and would bring an end to the decades’ long exploitations.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Safron Najumuddin Khan said there should also be an investigation into the budget utilization for tribal areas.

Beside others, the meeting was attended by Senators Afrasiab Khattak, Wali Muhammad Badini, Mir Hasil Khan Bazenjo and Raja Zafarul Haq.

The federal budget for 2009-10 would be tabled in the National Assembly on June 13 – with the likelihood of the document being passed on June 26.

According to a letter written by Finance Secretary Salman Siddique to Cabinet Secretariat Secretary Zafar Mahmood, a special budget meeting of the cabinet would be held on the morning of June 13 for a final review of the budget.

Following the special meeting, the government plans to present the budget in the National Assembly at 5pm.

The budget documents, along with the finance bill and the annual budget statement, would be tabled in the Upper House simultaneously.

A proposed plan reveals that once the budget would be tabled in the National Assembly, a two-day break would be followed by a general discussion from June 16 to 22.

Following the general debate, a discussion on appropriations for charged expenditures would be held on June 23. The assembly would continue discussing and voting on demands for grants on voted expenditures on June 24 and 25 before finally passing the finance bill on June 26.

On June 27, the Lower House would hold a discussion on supplementary demands for grants and appropriations for 2008-09 as well as a discussion on supplementary appropriations for charged expenditure for the year.

The House would also hold a discussion and voting on supplementary demands for grants in 2008-09 in respect of voted expenditure.

The government would also lay down the schedule of authorised expenditure for 2009-10 and a supplementary schedule of authorised expenditure for 2008-09 on June 27, before the special budget session comes to an end.

Consultation: Meanwhile, sources said the government would consult parliamentary leaders in the House Business Advisory Committee to decide if two sittings a day should be scheduled during the budget session or just one.

The sources said the senior leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party had been directed to convey to coalition members the government’s plan to call the budget session and ensure partners’ maximum presence in the House during the proceedings, especially at the time of voting.

A PAC Secretariat source said PAC Chairman Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had ordered the water and power secretary and other officials concerned to appear before the committee with the record.

He said senior officials of the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) would also be summoned to the next meeting. “We have written a letter today to the secretary water and power to appear before the committee and give his explanation over the media reports,” a senior official said.

Several media reports said the farmhouse had been provided electricity at the cheapest agricultural rates.

In an interview with a foreign news channel, the ISPR director general said the current conflict in Swat was intricately linked to the situation in Afghanistan.

He said that Swat was a political problem, which could only be partially solved by military intervention. He estimated that 10 percent to 15 percent of the Taliban in the Swat valley and its adjacent areas were foreign fighters.

He said Mingora could be secured in 48 hours, but it may be “much, much longer” before the area was totally pacified. He also said that there was “no plan, date or time for the launch of an offensive in South Waziristan”.

Three men were hanged in Iran for involvement in a mosque bombing that killed 25 people this week, the country’s official news agency reported.

The three supplied explosives to the perpetrators of the bombing on Thursday in Zahedan, capital of the volatile Sistan-Baluchestan province in eastern Iran, said a statement issued by the judiciary.

Ebrahim Hamidi, the head of the justice department in Zahedan, said the men had been arrested before the bombing and had since “confessed to importing explosives into Iran and providing them to the main person behind the attack”.

He said the men, identified as Haji Nouti Zehi, Gholam Rasoul Shahoo Zehi and Zabihollah Naroui, were involved in several other bombings including a bus attack in 2006.

Jundallah, or God’s Brigade, a Sunni militant group believed to have links with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack.

The group is composed of Sunni Muslims from the Baluchi ethnic minority who for years have been fighting a low-level insurgency in south-eastern Iran, complaining of persecution by the overwhelmingly Shia and Persian Iranian government.

In March 2006, gunmen dressed as security forces killed 21 people on a road outside Zahedan in an attack that authorities blamed on “rebels”.

Pakistani troops have retaken the largest town in the Swat valley from the Taliban, the army said on Saturday.

Government forces had full control of Mingora, although they were still meeting pockets of resistance from fighters on the outskirts of the town, said a spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas.

Many militants had fled Mingora instead of confronting troops in a final battle, he said, despite the military claiming earlier that escape routes had been closed.

“They had prepared Mingora city … with bunkers, but when they realised that they were being encircled and the noose was tightening they decided not to give a pitched battle,” Abbas said.

The military launched the offensive one month ago to oust Taliban militants who were extending their control over Pakistan’s north-western region, near the border with Afghanistan. Government troops had been advancing steadily into the Swat valley, fighting house-to-house with Taliban gunmen, and towns have been bombarded from the air.

Pakistan’s information minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira, said the number of people uprooted from their homes by the fighting had reached “around 3 million,” and that more than 190,000 of them were living in refugee camps. The rest were staying with relatives or relying on goodwill from local residents.

The exodus has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis, and the widespread domestic support the campaign has enjoyed so far could sour if the government is perceived to have failed the refugees or if a high number of civilian casualties is revealed.

Abbas said 1,217 militants had been killed in the Swat offensive and 79 arrested, and 81 soldiers had died. The military has not released figures on civilian casualties and has said all care has been taken to minimise them. The prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, today defended the offensive, saying it was necessary because the Taliban had challenged the authority of the government by advancing from its stronghold of Swat to the neighboring district of Buner, 60 miles (100km) from the capital, Islamabad.

“The very existence of Pakistan was at stake, we had to start the operation,” Gilani told a group of workers at the state-owned Pakistan Television. He promised cash payments to people forced from their homes, and a massive reconstruction effort.

The military campaign has been backed by Washington and other western allies, who see it as a test of Islamabad’s resolve to fight extremism.

The Taliban has warned it will launch terrorist strikes in Pakistani cities in retaliation for the campaign, and claimed responsibility for a gun and suicide bomb attack on Wednesday in the eastern city of Lahore that killed at least 30 people. A day later, three suicide bombings killed at least 14 people in two cities in the north-west.

As of Wednesday, May 27, 2009, at least 4,302 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,446 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

The AP count is one fewer than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Wednesday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 179 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq, 31,285 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action, according to the Defense Department’s weekly tally.

___

The latest deaths reported by the military:

• A soldier died Wednesday of wounds suffered when a roadside bomb detonated in Baghdad.

___

The latest identifications reported by the military:

• Navy Cmdr. Duane G. Wolfe, 54, Port Hueneme, Calif.; died Monday after his convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device southeast of Fallujah; assigned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Gulf Region Division in Iraq.

Sometime next year, at a tightly guarded site south of its capital, Pakistan will be ready to start churning out a new stream of plutonium for its nuclear arsenal, which will eventually include warheads for ballistic missiles and cruise missiles capable of being launched from ships, submarines or aircraft.

About 1,000 miles to the southwest, engineers in India are designing cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads, relying partly on Russian missile-design assistance. India is also trying to equip its Agni ballistic missiles with such warheads and to deploy them on submarines. Its rudimentary missile-defense capability is slated for a major upgrade next year.

The apparent detonation of a North Korean nuclear device on Monday has renewed concerns over that country’s efforts to build up its atomic arsenal. At the same time, U.S. and allied officials and experts who have tracked developments in South Asia have grown increasingly worried over the rapid growth of the region’s more mature nuclear programs, in part because of the risk that weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists.

India and Pakistan see their nuclear programs as vital points of leverage in an arms race that has begun to take on the pace and diversity, although not the size, of U.S.-Soviet nuclear competition during the Cold War, according to U.S. intelligence and proliferation experts. Pakistani authorities said they are modernizing their facilities, not expanding their program; Indian officials in New Delhi and Washington declined to comment.

“They are both going great guns [on] new systems, new materials; they are doing everything you would imagine,” said a former intelligence official who has long studied the region and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. While both India and Pakistan say their actions are defensive, the consequence of their efforts has been to boost the quantity of materials being produced and the number of times they must be moved around, as well as the training of experts in highly sensitive skills, this source and others say.

“More vulnerabilities. More stuff in production. More stuff in transit,” when it is more vulnerable to theft, said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, formerly the CIA’s top official on weapons of mass destruction and the Energy Department’s director of intelligence during the George W. Bush administration. U.S. experts also worry that as the size of the programs grows, chances increase that a rogue scientist or military officer will attempt to sell nuclear parts or know-how, as now-disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan did in the 1980s and 1990s.

Former Indian government officials say efforts are underway to improve and test a powerful thermonuclear warhead, even as the country adds to a growing array of aircraft, missiles and submarines that launch them. “Delivery system-wise, India is doing fine,” said Bharat Karnad, a former member of India’s National Security Advisory Board and a professor of national security studies at New Delhi’s Center for Policy Research. India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices in 1998; India first detonated an atomic bomb in 1974.

A senior Pakistani official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said his government has refrained from testing missiles that could carry nuclear weapons because officials do not want to antagonize the Indian and U.S. governments.

‘A More Global Approach’

U.S. officials say narrow appeals to the two countries to slow their weapons work will probably fail. “We have to think of dealing with the South Asian problem not on a purely regional basis, but in the context of a more global approach,” Gary Samore, the senior White House nonproliferation adviser, said after a speech to the Arms Control Association last week.

Samore said the “Pakistani government has always said they will do that in conjunction with India. The Indians have always said, ‘We can’t take steps unless similar steps are taken by China and the other nuclear states,’ and very quickly you end up with a situation where it’s hard to make progress.”

Some experts worry, however, that the United States may not have the luxury of waiting to negotiate a treaty that would curtail the global production of fissile materials — a pact that President Obama says he hopes to complete during his first term.

A recent U.S. intelligence report, commissioned by outgoing Bush administration officials, warned of the dangers associated with potential attacks on nuclear weapons-related shipments inside Pakistan, for example

Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told senators days before his retirement in March that “Pakistan continues to develop its nuclear infrastructure, expand nuclear weapons stockpiles, and seek more advanced warheads and delivery systems.” He added that although Pakistan has “taken important steps to safeguard its nuclear weapons . . . vulnerabilities still exist.”

Although Maples did not offer details of the expansion, other experts said he was referring to the expected completion next year of Pakistan’s second heavy-water reactor at its Khushab nuclear complex 100 miles southwest of Islamabad, which will produce new spent nuclear fuel containing plutonium for use in nuclear arms.

“When Khushab is done, they’ll be able to make a significant number of new bombs,” Mowatt-Larssen said. In contrast, “it took them roughly 10 years to double the number of nuclear weapons from roughly 50 to 100.” A third heavy-water reactor is also under construction at Khushab, according to David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

Before it can be used in weaponry, the plutonium must first be separated from the fuel rods at a highly guarded nuclear facility near Rawalpindi, about 100 miles northeast of Khushab. Satellite images published by Albright’s institute show a substantial expansion occurred at the complex between 2002 and 2006, reflecting a long-standing Pakistani desire to replace weapons fueled by enriched uranium with plutonium-based weapons.

Pakistani officials dismiss suggestions that the building represents an acceleration in South Asia’s arms race. “If two are sufficient, why build 10?” asked Brig. Gen. Nazir Ahmed Butt, defense attache in Pakistan’s embassy in Washington. “We cannot match warhead for warhead. We’re not in a numbers game. People should not take a technological upgrade for an expansion.”

Details of precautions surrounding Pakistani nuclear shipments are closely held. Abdul Mannan, director of transport and waste safety for Pakistan’s nuclear regulatory authority, said in a 2007 presentation to the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington that Pakistani safeguards are “enough to deter and delay a terrorist attack, and any malicious diversion would be protected in early stages.” But Mannan also said the government needed to upgrade its security measures, and warned that “a country like Pakistan is not well equipped” to contain radioactive fallout from an attack on a nuclear shipment.

U.S. officials have said they accept Pakistan’s assurances that its nuclear stockpile is adequately safeguarded, but intelligence officials have acknowledged contingency plans to dispatch American troops to protect or remove any weapons at imminent risk.

Proximity to Taliban

While Pakistan’s nuclear program has lately attracted the most worry, because of the close proximity to the capital of Taliban insurgents, many U.S. experts say that it should not be considered in isolation from India’s own nuclear expansion.

Some experts say that a civil nuclear cooperation agreement that Bush signed with India in October benefits the country’s weapons programs, because it sanctions India’s import of uranium and allows the military to draw on enriched uranium produced by eight reactors that might otherwise be needed for civil power. In a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency last July, Pakistan’s ambassador in Vienna warned that the deal would increase “the chances of a nuclear arms race on the sub-continent.”

Ken Luongo, a former senior adviser on nonproliferation at the Energy Department who recently returned from meetings with Pakistani officials, said the deal exacerbated Pakistan’s fears of losing a technological race; others say that, at the least, it provided a rationalization to keep going.

Feroz Hassan Khan, a retired Pakistani general in charge of arms control, said Pakistan perceives a real risk of a preemptive strike by India. Because of Indian superiority in conventional forces, “Pakistan is compelled to rely more heavily on nuclear weapons to counter the threat,” Khan said. “It would be highly foolish not to produce more and better weapons.”

Pakistan appealed Thursday for millions of dollars of urgent aid to relieve the growing crisis posed by the displacement of 1.5 million people who fled its blistering offensive against the Taliban.

The United Nations is scheduled to launch a formal appeal on Friday to raise what Pakistan hopes will be half a billion dollars after tens of thousands of people flooded into camps with hundreds of thousands more staying elsewhere.

“There is an urgent need for a joint and comprehensive response to this issue by all those who are committed to fighting terrorism,” Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told a meeting of international donors.

“We have to win the hearts and minds of the people. We need to do something concrete and visible,” Gilani said.

As the conflict ploughs on with no end in sight, concerns are mounting about how to cope with the displaced, uprooted in what rights groups have called Pakistan’s biggest movement of people since partition from India in 1947.

The United Nations said around 1.5 million people left their homes this month and registered with authorities, joining about 550,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled previous bouts of fighting in the northwest.

“The United Nations will launch a formal appeal on Friday to raise some 500 to 600 million dollars for Pakistan’s IDPs”, minister of state for finance Hina Rabbani Khar told a news conference after the donors’ meeting.

She said representatives of around 40 countries and donor agencies attended talks in Islamabad on Thursday, which she called “successful”.

“We informed them of our three-pronged strategy, which includes immediate relief, safe return and rehabilitation of the displaced people and then reconstruction of the destroyed areas,” said Khar.

Western countries have already pledged 224 million dollars of aid, she said, including 100 million dollars publicly unveiled by the United States.

The military ordered the offensive last month under US pressure to crush militants in the northwest, which Washington said threatened the existence of the Muslim country and posed the greatest terror threat to the West.

Pakistan has asked its finance ministry to release eight billion rupees (99.18 million dollars) to assist the IDPs and Khar said Muslim countries were also expected to step forward with aid pledges.

“A one-time grant of 25,000 rupees (310 dollars) will be paid to every displaced family,” the state finance minister said.

Pakistan already allocated two billion rupees (25 million dollars) to the North West Frontier Province government for relief efforts, but critics warn that is a fraction of the money needed for reconstruction and law enforcement.

The UN World Food Programme warned on Wednesday that there was only enough money to feed hungry refugees until mid-July.

A senior US military official based in Islamabad said the crisis could last until December because authorities expect large numbers of displaced people to remain at temporary camps to the end of the year.

Gilani said a special prime minister’s fund had been established for the internally displaced and called for domestic and international donations, referring to “grave repercussions” as a result of the mass exodus.

Pakistan’s military says up to 15,000 troops are taking on 4,000 well-armed fighters in Swat, where Islamabad has ordered a battle to eradicate militants who advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the Pakistani capital.

The military says more than 1,050 militants and more than 60 soldiers have been killed since forces launched the offensive, but it has not been possible to confirm either that toll or civilian casualties independently.

Amid jockeying for ministerial positions from partners of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the decks were on Wednesday cleared for Manmohan Singh’s second consecutive term as prime minister with President Pratibha Patil formally inviting him to head the next government.

Armed with the support of 322 MPs, including the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi met the president at Rashtrapati Bhavan Wednesday evening to stake claim to form government.

The oath-taking ceremony of the new United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government will be held on Friday, May 22.

The council of ministers is likely to be dominated by the Congress, that is expected to keep the key cabinet portfolios, after the party’s election election sweep. The outgoing council of ministers had 78 members comprising 30 cabinet ministers, eight ministers of state with independent charge and 40 ministers of state or junior ministers.

Sonia Gandhi, who in the morning was re-elected as chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), said she handed over a letter to the president “stating that the leader of the parliamentary party to head the government is Dr Manmohan Singh”.

After a short meeting lasting no more than 10 minutes, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh addressed reporters at the forecourt of the presidential palace.

Detailing how the numbers stacked up to give the UPA a comfortable majority in the 545-member Lok Sabha, Manmohan Singh said: “We have 274 members who are part of the Congress and pre-poll alliance, also including four independents. The total number adds up to 274.”

Besides, he said, they had the support of 48 MPs from the SP, BSP and RJD, taking the total to 322.

With support letters in their pockets, the Congress leadership now has to deal with the knotty issue of distributing ministerial berths to its allies like the DMK and the Trinamool Congress.

Speculation persisted over whether RJD chief Lalu Prasad would retain the key railway portfolio because of sharply divergent views in the Congress.

It is learnt that the railway portfolio is being sought both by the DMK and the Trinamool Congress, whose chief Mamata Banerjee has held it earlier.

DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, who has been camping in the capital for the last two days and met veteran Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee, is lobbying for at least six ministerial berths, said a Congress insider.

The core group of the Congress is expected to firm up the composition of the council of ministers in the next two days, he said. Several senior ministers in the earlier dispensation, like Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Defence Minister A.K. Antony, are expected to continue in their ministries.

Congress spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi added the final composition of the council of ministers would be decided after “individual discussions” between Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.

“A decision on names from other parties will be taken after consulting the concerned party.”

All the UPA partners had met at Sonia Gandhi’s 10 Janpath residence in the morning to discuss details of government formation and endorse her as UPA chairperson.

Among those who attended the UPA meeting from the Congress were Pranab Mukherjee, P. Chidambaram, A.K. Antony and general secretary Rahul Gandhi.

The other members of the Congress-led grouping there in full strength included Karunanidhi with grandnephew Dayanidhi Maran, Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel and National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah. Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh, who switched over to UPA after the elections.

“We discussed about state and national matters. I said there should be a common minimum agenda and committees should be formed so that the concerns of all parties are addressed. This will help in good governance,” said Banerjee, who with 19 seats is the UPA’s largest ally.

National Conference patron Farooq Abdullah and NCP chief Sharad Pawar also brought up the issue of a common minimum programme. Abdullah said his party was not interested in ministerial berths at all.

“We have given our unconditional support. The National Conference is an ally of the UPA and hopes to remain an ally of the UPA,” Abdullah told a television channel.