Imran Khan confident of becoming PM

DAVOS: Cricket legend and opposition politician Imran Khan predicted Thursday that his party will sweep the next national elections and he will become the country’s next prime minister.

The 59-year-old Khan entered politics 15 years ago when he founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or the Movement for Justice Party and struggled to translate his sporting fame into votes.

But his political fortunes changed in October. He said he was shocked that crowds he estimated at 250,000 people turned out to support him not only in Lahore but later in Karachi, apparently attracted by his pledge to fight corruption, promote real democracy, institute a welfare system, and change Pakistan’s relationship with the United States.

”Eighty per cent of the politicians have joined me … because their children have revolted,” Khan said.

”People basically want the same democratic rights that exist in the Western countries. They want the same democracy, the same freedom.”

National elections are not scheduled until 2013, but Khan and other opposition leaders have been pressing the government to hold earlier polls.

Despite Khan’s rising popularity, it’s unclear how much he can shake up the political scene in the 2013 elections.

Khan said he was not daunted by the parties which he called ”political mafias.”

”The struggle that’s coming up in Pakistan is between a huge population dying for a democratic change against these political mafias that have stunted our growth and sold the interests of the country,” he told several hundred business and political leaderws at a luncheon on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum sponsored by the Pathfinder Group which carries out a wide variety of services in 132 cities and towns in Pakistan.

”I don’t think we’ll win the election —I think we’ll sweep the elections,” Khan predicted. ”But I hope we get two-thirds (of the seats in parliament) and I think we will.”

If the party wins, he said he will immediately focus on instituting the rule of law, expanding health care and education, especially for women, collecting taxes and tackling the country’s energy crisis.

Khan said Pakistan also needs a new relationship with the United States —a friendly one but not one in which Pakistan is a ”client state.”

”We don’t want to be, as we have been, a hired gun being paid to fight their war,” he said. ”We want a relationship where we are a credible, sovereign government. … Surely, that is what the US should want a Pakistani government to do, and that is what an Indian government should want.”

Khan said he hoped that Pakistan will have a relationship with India where the only competition is on the cricket field or ”which country reduces poverty first.”

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US says wants Pakistan to be part of Afghan reconciliation process

WASHINGTON: The United States believes Pakistan has an important role to play in the Afghan reconciliation process and expects Islamabad to have an ample opportunity to stay engaged on the issue going forward, the State Department said on Thursday.

“We think Pakistan has an important role to play in supporting the reconciliation process. We very much like Pakistan to be part of this (Afghan-led reconciliation process) as do Afghans,” spokesperson Victoria Nuland said at the daily briefing.

She disagreed with the suggestion that Pakistan has been sidelined on the issue of Afghan reconciliation with the Taliban.

“We think they (Pakistanis) will have ample opportunity to remain engaged” and that Ambassador Grossman’s visit to Islamabad — which could not materialise due to Pakistan’s continuing internal review of relations with the US — “was not the sole opportunity” for engagement on the issue.

The spokesperson was answering a series of questions about US Special Envoy Marc Grossman not having been able to visit Pakistan and having an opportunity to meet with Pakistani officials during his current visit to several regional countries with the Afghan reconciliation being the focus of discussions.

The spokesperson said Washington had “complete understanding” for the Pakistani position on Grossman’s visit in view of Islamabad’s ongoing internal review of its ties with the United States.

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Rockets hit Pakistan military academy in Abbottabad

PESHAWAR: Attackers on Friday fired rockets at Pakistan’s top military academy, damaging its outer wall in a major security breach near the home where Osama bin Laden lived for years, officials said.

No one was hurt in the pre-dawn attack and it was unclear who fired the nine rockets from behind a mosque in mountains overlooking the Kakul academy.

The garrison city of Abbottabad was considered one of the safest parts of nuclear-armed Pakistan until American special forces on May 2 found and killed the al Qaeda founder in a compound where he apparently lived for five years.

Three rockets on Friday damaged the outer wall of the academy, which is just 500 metres (yards) from the site of the US Navy SEALs raid that seriously damaged already turbulent relations between Pakistan and the United States.

“Nine rockets were fired. Three rockets hit the boundary wall of the military academy and damaged it. No one was hurt in the attack,” Imtiaz Hussain Shah, a top local government official in Abbottabad told AFP.

“We have launched a search operation,” Shah added.

Mohammad Karim Khan, Abbottabad police chief, confirmed the attack.

“Three rockets hit the boundary wall. Three others landed in an open area and three others landed in a field,” he said.

Officials blamed terrorists for the attack.

Shah told TV channel Geo that police had recovered nine rocket-launching pads behind a mosque, about 500 metres from the academy.

“We have a security system and checkpoints on the roads, but the place they used as a launch pad is accessible from all sides and there are mountains at the back of this place,” he said.

“At this stage we cannot say who was involved, but they are terrorists and we are investigating how they managed to reach this place.”

Taliban and other militants are fighting an insurgency against the army, although there has been a marked decline in violence in recent months.

Considered one of the quietest towns in the northwest, nestled in pine-dotted hills and popular with day-trippers from the capital, Abbottabad is listed on Pakistan’s official tourism website as a “popular summer resort”.

But although it is mainly tranquil, it is close to more troubled areas.

A judicial commission is investigating how bin Laden managed to live undetected in Pakistan for so long, and whether there was any government or military collusion.

Pakistani-US ties have since reached a new low over US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November, leading Pakistan to shut its Afghan border to Nato supplies and conduct a review of its alliance with Washington.

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