The “Baloch Liberation Army” Is a Foreign-Backed Feudal Terrorist Group — Astute News

The so-called “Baloch Liberation Army” issued a video ultimatum to China over the weekend to discontinue its CPEC development projects in Pakistan’s Balochistan or face a renewed wave of terrorist attacks against its interests there, with this message unambiguously proving that the group is far from the “national liberation movement” that it purports to be […]

via The “Baloch Liberation Army” Is a Foreign-Backed Feudal Terrorist Group — Astute News

Gwadar Can be a Dubai/Hong Kong Style Supercity But The Government Must Crack Down on Agitators First

By Adam Garrie
Source

Pakistan’s Army and Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) are among the most professional in the world. Their experience of saving Pakistan from being totally destroyed by terrorism in the wake of the Musharraf era ought to earn them a place in world history as valiant forces of a legitimate state that worked to eliminate a multi-front, foreign funded scourge of terror. Although Pakistan’s toughest battles against terrorism have been won, the war is not over.

The recent attack by BLA terrorists on a luxury Gwadar hotel proved yet again both the danger of foreign backed terror groups and also the professionalism of Pakistan’s security services who rapidly neutralised the heavily armed terrorists. Pakistan’s leadership is well aware of who funds and aids the BLA and why. Yesterday, Eurasia Future published a piece exploring the best way to deal a final blow to the terrorists while using legal means to put their foreign backers on notice.

But beyond this lies an overriding reality in which domestic political forces are not only endangering Pakistan’s security through their obstructionist provocations but are actively retarding the economic progress of the country.

There are only two things standing between the shores of Gwadar and a Dubai or Hong Kong style super-city. The first thing is time itself. In time, according to present plans, Gwadar will indeed rise to become a supercity due to the sustained efforts by Pakistan, China and other partners. There is however a caveat to this. If Pakistan’s agitating liberal trouble makers prohibit the security services from busting the scum and clearing the terrorist debris from Balochistan and neighbouring KP province, the progress of Gwadar’s modern development will be hindered and all of Pakistan will suffer both economically and in terms of its global image as a result. Such obstructionists ought also to keep quiet about their perverse love for the enemies of Pakistan that rule Afghanistan. Instead, such people ought to promote the fact that the security rampart being built on the Durand Line will save thousands of lives in the future.

Although Pakistan’s liberals are treated well when they make provocative and salacious speeches in western capitals, they are but pawns in the hands of those who want to keep Pakistan dependent on bodies like the IMF as opposed to those who wish Pakistan to develop an independent economic position of strength alongside all weather partners like China and others.

But for those in the wider world who are either ordinary investors in the private sector or even just ordinary tourists, one tends to favour countries with the most economic potential and not countries with the most annoying agitation groups whether loudmouth opposition parties or devious cutthroat foreign backed “NGOs” intent on destroying Pakistan’s state institutions. This is why Singapore is a popular investment and tourist destination. One knows that in Singapore, one’s money will be safe, one’s life will be safe and that the infrastructure is both modern and inviting.

Gwadar has every potential to attract the same kinds of positive investment and tourism from abroad as do places like Singapore. Ensuring sustainable security is the key to achieving this. Pakistan’s Army and ISI have every ability to do so but they must first be unleashed by a venal, greedy and at times wicked political class who are willing to see places like Gwadar suffer through underdevelopment from the confines of their heavily secured mansions in Islamabad or Lahore. Such people in any society are the enemies of progress. They are a small group of political/business oligarchs who themselves stand to lose their power over society if clean money from abroad pours in as it does on a daily basis in cities like Shanghai, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Clean money will ensure that the oligarchs in their mansions no longer rule Pakistan but instead, the people having been subject to heavy inflows of foreign direct investment will be able to take the future into their own hands as leaders of a new anti-dynastic middle class.

Therefore, the oligarchs have made a direct pact with liberals and separatist agitators to tie the hands of the country’s protectors so that Pakistan must be forced to fight terrorism by inflicting a thousand little blows rather than by allowing the Army and ISI to wage total and uncompromising war against the last remaining packs of terrorist rats who threaten Pakistan.

Pakistan has external enemies, but the liberal elite are doing their job better than the foreign enemies of Pakistan ever could do. Such agitators are both openly and privately conspiring against those who will make Pakistan safe and prosperous and they are conspiring against the protectors of Pakistan in a more cunning way than any foreign enemy ever could do.

Pakistan’s ordinary people must open their eyes. If the Army killed every last terrorist and if as a result ever more foreign investment would pour in, people would visit and continue to invest in Gwadar in the same way that they have for years done in the UAE, China, Singapore and beyond.

Gwadar must be cradled by two powerful arms. One is that of the heroic Pakistani Army and the other is that of Chinese economic might. Together, Gwadar can be made great and serve as a model of the future development of Pakistan. But in order for this to happen, PTI must realise who its friends are and who its enemies are. The political enemy within is far more dangerous than anything or anyone in Kabul or New Delhi. Imran Khan proved that he understood thus during decades of campaigning. Now he must transform this knowledge into action.

The Gwadar Terrorist Attack Exposed The International Media’s Double Standards

By Andrew Korybko
Source

Most of the international media is referring to Saturday’s attack on the Pearl Continental hotel in Gwadar as being committed by either “gunmen” or “militants” instead of the actual terrorists that the perpetrators are after the BBC reported that they chose their target in order to kill Chinese and other foreign investors, therefore exposing a common double standard whereby “politically convenient” terrorist attacks are simply reframed as “shootings” or “militancy” while “politically inconvenient” acts of resistance are smeared as “terrorism”.

Several terrorists tried storming into the Pearl Continental hotel in CPEC’s terminal port of Gwadar Saturday afternoon, but a large-scale tragedy was thankfully averted after the security services managed to evacuate most of the guests. The BBC reported that the “Balochistan Liberation Army” (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack and quoted the terrorist organization as “saying it had targeted Chinese and other foreign investors”. This incident is a blatant act of terrorism just like the much more devastating ones that were carried out against several hotels and churches in Sri Lanka last month, but the international media is resorting to its tried-and-tested double standards after most of them described the perpetrators as “gunmen” or “militants” instead of the actual terrorists that they are.

This is because the terrorist attacks are “politically convenient” for the US and India, with these two allies collectively commanding impressive influence across the world’s media space, because it targeted Chinese civilians and infrastructure as part of the ongoing Hybrid War on CPEC. The evident purpose was to deter further investments and visits by foreign businessmen to this strategically significant port in the global pivot state of Pakistan, as well as to trigger an overreaction by the security services against local Baloch which could then be basis upon upon which a Xinjiang-like fake news campaign alleging “concentration camps” and “cultural cleansing” can be carried out prior to the possible imposition of sanctions for “humanitarian reasons”. Of course, this would also be executed in parallel with the Hybrid War on Hybrid War in Pakistan pretending that the country has no terrorist threats whatsoever and that all forms of opposition to the state — including taking up arms and targeting civilians — are “legitimate”, especially if they’re being led by minority Pashtuns or Baloch.

On the opposite side of the coin, “politically inconvenient” acts of resistance such as what the Kashmiris and Palestinians are doing against their Indian and “Israeli” occupiers (who not coincidentally have recently become military-strategic partners and are both allied with the US) are smeared as “terrorism” even if they only target soldiers and paramilitary units. Another double standard is that international media is usually pleading for the world’s leading economies to invest in underdeveloped “Global South” regions, yet these same information outlets are now lending “legitimacy” to the BLA’s terrorist crusade against China’s Belt & Road Initiative(BRI) investments in Pakistani Balochistan because it serves the US’ grand strategic purposes. Having said that, even the most casual information consumer must sense that they’re being manipulated after the world condemned last month’s terrorist attacks on Sri Lankan hotels but is now silent about the latest one Pakistan’s PC Gwadar.

The Infowar On Xinjiang Failed, Now They’re Targeting Pakistan & PM Imran Khan

By Andrew Korybko
Source

The Western Mainstream Media’s infowar about the true state of the anti-terrorist situation in Xinjiang failed after a group of diplomats and journalists were unprecedentedly allowed to visit some of the education and job-training facilities in the strategically located province, after which the weaponized narrative was tweaked to become one of “China buying off Pakistan’s silence”, which dishonestly portrays the Muslim Great Power’s pious leader as a religious hypocrite and dangerously risks provoking terrorist attacks against him and his government.   

2018 was predominantly characterized by four main stories for Pakistan – the rise of Imran Khan as Pakistan’s latest Prime Minister; the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan’s (TLP) anti-blasphemy protests and subsequently seditious calls for acts of terrorism against the state; the Hybrid War on CPEC that peaked near the end of the year with the Karachi & Chabahar attacks and the first-mentioned mastermind’s assassination in Afghanistan; and the creeping awareness of the Western Mainstream Media’s infowar narrative about China’s alleged treatment of the Uighur in Xinjiang. It’s therefore not surprising that all four of them are still relevant at the beginning of 2019, but there are worrying signs that hostile perception managers are attempting to weave them together as part of a renewed destabilization campaign against Pakistan.

The Hybrid War on CPEC received an unexpected setback after one of the so-called “Balochistan Liberation Army’s” (BLA) top terrorists was assassinated in Afghanistan right before the New Year, which occurred just a few weeks before China’s unpreceded diplomatic and journalistic opening in Xinjiang when it recently allowed members of both professional communities to visit some of its education and job-training facilities that it constructed there as part of its anti-terrorist operations in the strategically located province. Beijing even announced that UN officials are welcome to travel to the region as well, provided of course that they follow the proper procedures and don’t interfere in the country’s domestic affairs. These two developments are the reason why the weaponized narratives that were unleashed against both countries are now being tweaked.

Recognizing that the BLA terrorists were dealt a mighty blow by the recent assassination of one of their leaders and the growing popularity of Dr. Jumma Marri Khan’s Overseas Pakistani Baloch Unity (OPBU) that peacefully reintegrates wayward overseas Baloch into Pakistani society, and realizing that the world is becoming aware of the fact that the scandalous stories about China’s treatment of the Uighur in Xinjiang are fake news, the forces that are hostile to both multipolar Great Powers are scrambling to adapt their infowar techniques to these changed conditions. It’s with this situational context in mind that one should approach the latest claims coming from the popular American-based financial and business news site Business Insider, which just published a very inaccurate portrayal of Pakistani-Chinese relations.

In an article titled “Pakistan abruptly stopped calling out China’s mass oppression of Muslims. Critics say Beijing bought its silence”, one of the outlet’s news reporters attempted to make the case that China paid Pakistan off so that it wouldn’t use its influence in the larger international Muslim community (“Ummah”) to rally its co-confessionals against Beijing’s alleged mistreatment of the Uighur. The author drew attention to a widely publicized fake news report that the country’s Federal Minister for Religious Affairs supposedly brought this topic up in a critical way when meeting with the Chinese Ambassador last September. Bothofficials later denied the media’s reports about their talks, but the damage was already done because few people who heard the fake news were made aware of their response.

The writer then tried to make it seem like PM Khan was sidestepping the Uighur issue after reminding her audience about Chinese support for Pakistan’s economy, with her innuendo being that “Beijing bought its silence”. She then quotes two people to press home this point, the second of whom is Peter Irwin, who’s described as a “project manager” at the so-called “World Uyghur Congress” (WUC). Unbeknownst to her audience and conspicuously left out of her report, that man functions as a spokesman for an organization that many in China and beyond believe to be the political wing of the so-called “Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement” (ETIM) which was designated as a terrorist group by the UN in 2002. This makes it very disturbing that his words were included by the author in the article’s title.

After declaring that China was “buying the silence of Pakistan”, Irwin goes on to say that “he knows he simply needs to keep his mouth shut”, concluding that “someone like Khan has a very good idea of the balance of power in their relationship with China.” This dangerously insinuates that PM Khan and his government are being paid to stay silent about the plight of Muslims, which would make them religious hypocrites if it was true and accordingly paint them as targets of Takfiri terrorists (i.e. those who target alleged “infidels”/”apostates”). Dolkun Isa, the WUC leader who China regards as a terrorist, recently slammed Muslim countries for not supporting him, so it might be that Irwin was tasked by his boss to weaponize this narrative against Pakistan and PM Khan personally.

This is exceptionally dangerous in the Pakistani context because leaders of the TLP opposition party were arrested late last year on charges of sedition and terrorism after they called on their supporters to commits acts of violence against state officials on the purported basis that they were violating fundamentalist Islamic tenets following the Supreme Court’s acquittal of a Christian woman who was previously convicted of blasphemy during a high-profile case. Some of the group’s most religiously extremist sympathizers inside of Pakistan and abroad might interpret Irwin’s hypocrite/infidel/apostate insinuation that he just spread on the globally famous Business Insider information outlet about the pious Prime Minister as a “call to action”, just like Isa might have planned to happen all along as punishment for Pakistan’s refusal to support his narrative.

The WUC-ETIM’s intention seems to be to rekindle the Hybrid War on CPEC by expanding it beyond its now-contained Baloch “nationalist”-driven acts of terrorism to become an “Ummah”-wide militant jihad against the Pakistani state for its position towards China’s alleged treatment of the Uighurs, which is increasingly being revealed to have been the proper one all along after Beijing’s recent diplomatic and journalistic opening in the province debunked the last year’s worth of fake news about this emotive issue. It’s precisely because it turned out that Pakistan was right all along, and its refusal to fall for this infowar narrative doomed the plans to organize an “Ummah”-wide militant jihad against China, that it’s now being targeted through this desperate Hybrid War scenario.

No one should automatically assume that Business Insider is knowingly acting as an instrument of Hybrid War against Pakistan, and it might just be a coincidence that its news reporter decided to obtain exclusive comments on this topic from an individual representing an organization that Beijing regards as a political front for a UN-designated terrorist group (which she didn’t inform her audience of), but the outlet’s irresponsibly inaccurate portrayal of the country’s relations with China nevertheless advances the aforementioned scenario regardless of its original intent. A globally renowned US-based information platform is openly being used by what many consider to be a terrorist-connected organization to spread its dangerously false innuendo that PM Khan is a hypocrite/infidel/apostate who was paid off by China to remain silent about the supposed plight of fellow Muslims, and that’s extremely alarming.

CPEC and The New Great Game on the Roof of the World — Astute News

On top of the graceful Baltit Fort, overlooking the Hunza Valley’s Shangri-La-style splendor, it’s impossible not to feel dizzy at the view: an overwhelming collision of millennia of geology and centuries of history. We are at the heart of Gilgit-Baltistan, in Pakistan’s Northern Areas, or – as legend rules, the Roof of the World. This […]

via CPEC and The New Great Game on the Roof of the World — Astute News

Iran Just Fell Victim To Blowback From The US-Indian Hybrid War On CPEC

By Andrew Korybko
Source

The suicide bombing that just took place in Iran’s southeastern port of Chabahar was more than likely caused by blowback from the joint US-Indian Hybrid War on CPEC, in which case Tehran would do well to reconsider its strategic partnership with New Delhi and ask itself whether it’s worth facilitating the country’s entrance into Central Asia if India’s recklessness is responsible for endangering the Islamic Republic’s security at this very sensitive time of sustained international pressure against it.

Blowback…

The southeastern Iranian port of Chabahar, the terminal point of the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) that India’s investing in to connect with Central Asia and Russia, was just hit by a suicide bombing that has yet to be claimed by any terrorist group as of the time of this article’s publication. Given what’s known about the regional security situation and its overall strategic dynamics, however, it’s conceivable that this attack is blowback from the joint US-Indian Hybrid War on CPEC that both allied Great Powers are waging against Pakistan via their terrorist proxies of the so-called “Balochistan Liberation Army” (BLA) and Daesh. For background into this asymmetrical warfare campaign, please reference the author’s previous pieces written over the past two and a half years:

* “The US-Saudi Plan To Prompt An Iranian Pullback From Syria”

* “India’s Geopolitical Hate For Pakistan Is Sabotaging The North-South Corridor”

* “RAW + Daesh = Jundallah 2.0”

* “The Hybrid War On CPEC Hits Karachi”

The general concept put forth and vindicated in hindsight after the latest events is that US-Indian support for BLA and Daesh terrorism against Pakistan will inevitably spread across the border into the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchistan that hosts the strategic Chabahar port, which could in turn hamper the efficacy of this project for connecting India to Central Asia and ultimately “balancing” Russian and Chinese influence there. More importantly, however, it could derail India’s long-term ambitions to make itself a key player in the Afghan peace process through the patronage networks that the NSTC’s eastern branch could create with time. While there’s a chance that this blowback was, per the very definition of the word itself, unintentional, another possibility also exists.

…Or “Deep State” False Flag?

Per the author’s forecast two and a half years ago about the US-Saudi plan to prompt an Iranian pullback from Syria, some “deep state” factions in Washington might be willing to sacrifice their rivals’ scheme to have Iran facilitate India’s entrance into Central Asia via Chabahar and might actually believe that their country’s grand strategic interests would best be served by severing this de-facto anti-sanctions “pressure valve” instead of granting New Delhi a waiver to continue using it to Tehran’s residual benefit. Whether directly involved in this plot or not, that outcome would also advance Saudi Arabia’s interests vis-à-vis Iran by stoking more instability in its adversary’s borders and therefore making it more likely that Tehran will redirect its military focus away from Syria.

In fact, Saudi Arabia already blatantly bribed Indian Prime Minister Modi by committing to invest in India’s technological, agricultural, infrastructure, and energy industries as a means of guaranteeing his partner’s tacit quid pro quo to gradually decrease purchases of Iranian energy, which could severely impact on the Islamic Republic’s economy considering that India is the second-largest consumer of its resources. It follows that Saudi Arabia would naturally be in favor of India abandoning its NSTC plans, which is why Riyadh must be silently celebrating the blowback that Tehran’s experiencing from the Hybrid War on CPEC because it makes it less likely that New Delhi will continue using the Chabahar Corridor, thus in effect cutting off one of Iran’s most important anti-sanctions “pressure valves”.

Expanding upon this scenario, it would imply that the US might have actually had more of a direct hand in this latest terrorist attack than it initially seems, with one of its “deep state” factions wanting to deliberately sabotage Trump’s foreign policy by compelling India to pull out of Chabahar despite the President’s administration granting it a waiver to continue its economic activities there. Seeing as how Saudi Arabia is now a crucial strategic partner in CPEC, it’s extremely unlikely that it would endanger this privileged position by aiding BLA and/or Daesh terrorism against Iran in a transnational region where it’s bound to blow back against Gwadar, so the Kingdom is probably innocent of any suspicions about its complicity despite its previous reputation in this respect.

The Way Forward

India is now in a double dilemma after its Iranian partner fell victim to blowback from the Hybrid War on CPEC that New Delhi’s jointly waging together with Washington. The first conundrum that the South Asian state has to confront is that it can’t exactly be sure whether this was a “natural” development per se or if an anti-Trump “deep state” faction was behind it in order to undermine the President’s ambitious vision of facilitating India’s Chabahar Corridor to Central Asia by means of his recently granted anti-sanction waiver for this strategic port. The other uncertainty has to do with whether India will continue investing in this project or not after its security is now in doubt and risk bearing the manifold costs that this might entail.

Iran also has to ask itself whether it’s even worth hosting the Chabahar Corridor anymore in the first place after India’s recklessness in contributing to the Hybrid War on CPEC in one way or another was responsible for endangering the Islamic Republic’s security at this very sensitive time of sustained international pressure against it. Responsible decision makers in Tehran should be troubled by the fact that they’re taking on extra security risks by supporting an as-yet-unprofitable project that’s being inadvertently subverted by their own Indian partner, all while getting nothing in return at this moment other than a grandiose Bollywood-assurances that this “master plan” will eventually work out. At the very least, Iran should make its continued cooperation on this project conditional on India curtailing its Hybrid War on CPEC.

Going further, Iran would do well to deepen its incipient multidimensional strategic partnership with Pakistan, particularly in the field of hard and “soft” security and with a specific focus on countering Hybrid War threats through joint “Democratic Security” measures. One tangible step that it could take in this direction is to explore the possibility of creating an Iranian version of the “Overseas Pakistani Baloch Unity” (OPBU) initiative spearheaded by Dr. Jumma for reintegrating wayward Baloch into mainstream society, as well as carrying out joint border exercises with Pakistan and raising international awareness about the BLA and other relevant terrorist groups at international fora. Ideally, their joint Russian and Chinese strategic partners could aid with these initiatives and also provide consultative support because of their shared interests in defeating terrorism.

Concluding Thoughts

As of this analysis’ publication, no group has taken responsibility for the suicide bombing in Chabahar, but regardless of who did it, the overall dynamics at play are such that this is proof that the joint US-Indian Hybrid War on CPEC is finally blowing back into Iran and undermining the NSTC. Two main theories can be postulated about whether an anti-Trump “deep state” faction had a guiding hand in this attack in order to sabotage the President’s ambitious Chabahar Corridor plans for connecting India to Central Asia or if this was just an inevitable “happenstance” event, but irrespective of that, the fact of the matter is that India and Iran are now thrown onto the horns of several interlocked dilemmas.

India isn’t quite sure whether its American ally played a part in orchestrating this attack, nor is it certain whether New Delhi will continue with the Chabahar Corridor after its security and other related costs just dramatically spiked following the latest suicide bombing. As for Iran, some of its decision makers must naturally be questioning the wisdom of allowing a proud American and “Israeli” ally like India to play a leading role this sensitive border region, especially after its irresponsible Hybrid War on CPEC is veritably blowing back into Chabahar. Independent of the Chabahar Corridor’s uncertain future, Iran will probably enhance its full-spectrum ties with Pakistan in response to this terrorist attack, thereby strengthening the Golden Ring of Great Powers in the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Ironically, the most far-reaching blowback from the Hybrid War on CPEC therefore might not be that the Chabahar Corridor could be discontinued or that this latest event contributes to Iran pulling back from Syria per the US-Saudi plan in this respect and Russia’s initiative that it’s reportedly commencing independently thereof, but that the grand strategic positions of the US and its Indian ally are greatly weakened if the ultimate outcome is that the Golden Ring becomes more unified than ever before in the face of this terrorist threat. Russia, China, and the Central Asian CPEC stakeholders’ support of any joint Pakistani-Iranian anti-terrorist measures, especially worldwide information campaigns at international fora, would go a long way towards showing the world that Eurasia won’t be divided by such Hybrid War schemes.

The Hybrid War On CPEC Hits Karachi

By Andrew Korybko
Source

The so-called “Balochistan Liberation Army’s” suicide attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi is a serious escalation of the Hybrid War on CPEC designed to put unprecedented pressure on China ahead of President Xi’s planned meeting with his American counterpart at the G20 Summit next week.

The Chinese consulate in Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi was targeted by a suicide attack Friday morning that was claimed by the so-called “Balochistan Liberation Army” (BLA), an Indian-backed terrorist group that’s been a problem for decades. The state had recently scored plenty of successes against it though in both the military and ideological domains, the former of which is attributable to Pakistan’s nationwide anti-terrorist operations over the past few years while the latter is due to prominent separatist Dr. Jumma Baloch’s defection from his former “fellows” in February and his subsequent creation of the Overseas Pakistani Baloch Unity (OPBU) for peacefully reintegrating foreign-based fighters into their homeland’s social fabric.

Altogether, the military and ideological gains that Pakistan achieved are sustained by the fresh wind of optimism that the Baloch minority now has about their future in the Silk Road Century, seeing as how their region forms the terminal point of the Belt & Road Initiative’s (BRI) flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and is correspondingly mainland-maritime pivot in Afro-Eurasia. In fact, it can be argued that any “separatist insurgency” that might have previously existed in Balochistan had been strategically neutralized in its entirety, ergo why the foreign-backed remnants of the BLA resorted to the desperate means of carrying out a terrorist attack against the Chinese consulate in Karachi in order to instantaneously draw international media attention to their “cause”.

Unaware observers shouldn’t be fooled into falling for the BLA’s narrative that it supposedly represents an “oppressed people yearning for freedom”, since Dr. Jumma proved that not only have the Baloch’s previous misgivings been addressed by the promises that the Pakistan state made to them through CPEC, but this famous separatist also outright spilled the beans and declared that India hijacked the original struggle that he previously dedicated his life to supporting. He even traveled throughout Europe earlier this year to raise awareness about how some countries are hosting dangerous terrorists from his homeland in an important series of visits that exposed the continent’s double standards towards this scourge.

Regrettably, his warnings weren’t heeded and now some European states have blood on their hands for pretending that the BLA and other terrorist organizations from Balochistan are nothing more than “political opposition groups”, but the country that deserves the most blame for the latest attack is India. Kalbushan Jadhav, a Hybrid War operative working with India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW, an analogue of the CIA and Mossad), admitted after his capture last year that he was fomenting terrorist attacks in this strategic region, thereby proving that the Indo-American Hybrid War on CPEC isn’t just a “conspiracy theory” but can nowadays be regarded as a conspiracy fact.

Speaking of which, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan officially stated that the latest attack was indeed a conspiracy aimed at sabotaging his country’s cooperation with China, which isn’t surprising considering that the Chief Of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa warned over the weekend that Pakistan is “now confronting hybrid conflict where focus is shifting to subversion on religious, sectarian, ethnic and social issues”. Accordingly, the latest stage of the Hybrid War on CPEC perfectly fits into this model because it’s aimed at exacerbating identity fault lines within this diverse country, albeit in an artificial way that wouldn’t naturally occur without the crucial catalyst of terrorism.

To explain, the foreign backers behind the Karachi suicide attack are hoping that it will provoke a disproportionate military response in Balochistan that could cause collateral damage among civilians and thus set into motion a “self-sustaining” Hybrid War reaction from the locals that could roll back the recent gains that were achieved. This is highly unlikely to happen, however, because of the world-class professionalism of the Pakistani Armed Forces, which is why the only outcome will probably be that the two countries behind this destabilization operation will invest in decontextualizing, misportraying, and then over-amplifying events in order to produce the false narrative of a purportedly ongoing “identity/separatist/freedom conflict” there that could then be spread across the Mainstream Media as part of their infowar against BRI.

The weaponized management of global perceptions is intended to propagate the notion that Pakistan is allegedly a “very dangerous and unstable” country that no foreign company should risk doing business in, even if it’s to take advantage of the time-saving geostrategic shortcut of trading with China via CPEC. The whole point of this campaign is to sow seeds of doubt about Pakistan, China, CPEC, and ultimately BRI itself which could eventually lead to economic hardships for all of them if the Silk Road’s flagship project is perceived (key word) to be “functionally unviable” by the “international community” as a result of this coordinated propaganda attack against it.

In fact, any fake news that might be spun in the coming future about any alleged “atrocities” carried out by the Pakistani military against the Baloch (either in the past or the present day) could be used to set the narrative basis for the US to sanction Pakistan, just as it might be planning to do with China as regards the issue of Uighur terrorism in Xinjiang, with it being implied by the US that entities doing business with the South Asian state (especially its Balochistan region) and/or the western Chinese province could be eligible for “secondary sanctions”. This would in effect amount to the indirect sanctioning of CPEC, a disturbing scenario that Pakistan and its all-weather Chinese ally should possibly prepare for.

BRI is currently undergoing an unofficial period of “restructuring” after countries from Malaysia to the Maldives and even Ethiopia are renegotiating their previous commitments to this worldwide series of connectivity projects, so putting pressure on CPEC at this specific moment (be it of the Hybrid War and/or sanctions variant) is intended to destabilize the foundation of China’s grand strategy. It also can’t be forgotten that all of this is occurring in the run-up to President Xi’s planned meeting with his American counterpart at the G20 next week right on the heels of Vice President Pence’s dramatic declaration about an impending “all-out cold war” between the two Great Powers during last weekend’s APEC Summit.

Some media reports have speculated that the US wants China to agree to a so-called “truce” in their “trade war”, which might turn out to be nothing more than a euphemism for demanding its rival’s strategic capitulation. Considering this very plausible scenario in light of the new American administration’s tendency to unabashedly bully its counterparts on the international arena, it wouldn’t be surprising if Washington tasked its new allies in New Delhi with ordering their BLA proxies to carry out the terrorist attack against the Chinese consulate in Karachi in order to exert maximum pressure on Beijing prior to next week’s summit between Presidents Xi and Trump.

Regardless of the analytical conjecture about who might have really been behind this high-profile suicide attack and why, it should be expected that this brazen act of terror will be exploited by third parties for their own benefit, be it by India to distract from its abuses in occupied Kashmir or by the US to push China into complying with its terms for a “truce”. Concerted efforts will be made in the near future by both of those countries to portray this event as “proof” that Pakistan is “unstable”, but what it really proves is that the Hybrid War on CPEC is just getting started and that the “Zipper of Eurasia” has a game-changing global geostrategic significance that neither of them will ever openly admit.

The Asian Parliamentary Assembly Meeting In Gwadar Was Good News For CPEC

 

By Andrew Korybko
Source

It was a very prudent move for Pakistan to have Gwadar host this year’s Asian Parliamentary Assembly instead of any other of the country’s cities because Islamabad showed off the progress that’s been made thus far on CPEC, encouraged its fellow institutional members to feel like they have a stake in its future success, and opened their eyes to the peaceful state of affairs in Balochistan.

This year’s Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) just took place in the southwestern Pakistani port city of Gwadar, the terminal point of the Silk Road’s flagship project of CPEC as well as its mainland-maritime pivot, which importantly allowed Islamabad to show off the progress that’s been made thus far on this game-changing initiative. Around 100 parliamentarians from 26 countries such as Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia arrived to participate in the event, which was the first high-profile multilateral one of this level to take place there. The author suggested back in Spring 2017 during a speech at Pakistan’s National Defence University (NDU) that the country prioritize hosting large-scale events in this growing connectivity nexus in order to promote CPEC, proposing at the time that a brand-new function one day be unveiled provisionally called the “Gwadar Gathering” for bringing together a wide array of academic, political, military, business, and civil society figures.

The two-day APA meeting can therefore be seen as an organizational and logistical precursor for preparing Gwadar to host even larger functions in the future such as the unique one that the author suggested. It’s also relevant in and of itself not only for the work that the organization carried out during this time, but because of the soft power goals that Pakistan advanced as well. CPEC recently secured significant Saudi backing during Prime Minister Khan’s visit to the Kingdom in mid-September which was seen as proof of this project being the “Zipper of Eurasia” in at least connecting West Asia with East Asia via Pakistani territory, let alone of its larger potential in ultimately becoming the “Convergence of Civilizations” in Afro-Eurasia. These geo-cultural integrational possibilities could powerfully debunk Huntington’s thesis about the imminence of a so-called “clash of civilizations” if successfully actualized and thus stabilize the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Accordingly, it only makes sense that Acting President Sadiq Sanjrani emphasized the angle of CPEC’s Asian integrational vision and also took the time to talk about Pakistan’s many sacrifices in the War on Terror. This latter part of his remarks drew attention to the peacemaking achievements that were made in the Balochistan region over the past couple of years that enabled Pakistan to guarantee the security of CPEC and therefore make APA’s Gwadar meeting a reality. The intention behind doing all of this was to make the visiting dignitaries feel like their countries have a stake in CPEC’s success, but it also had another motivation to it as well. Showing the foreign parliamentarians the developmental progress that CPEC has made in Gwadar and the entire Balochistan region, as well as Pakistan’s future plans for them, exposed the fake news narrative  that the supposedly “hopeless plight” of the native Baloch has given rise to a “rebellion” as nothing more than a debunked infowar narrative spread by hostile forces.

The fact of the matter is that approximately 100 visiting parliamentarians saw that CPEC is delivering tangible benefits to the people of Balochistan and that the Pakistani state has successfully defeated terrorism there, though the region nevertheless remains in the crosshairs of Hybrid War precisely because of its strategic significance vis-à-vis the “Zipper of Eurasia” concept and its larger “Convergence of Civilizations” one. Having said that, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the rare attacks that still occur there every once in a while are due to foreign-backed terrorist infiltrators and not indigenous “rebels”, which former separatist leader Dr. Jumma Baloch proved to the world since switching sides, exposing how India hijacked his people’s struggle, and launching the Overseas Pakistani Baloch Unity organization for rehabilitating his remaining wayward compatriots. As such, it can be said that Gwadar’s hosting of the latest APA meeting was a success because it informed 26 countries’ representatives of CPEC’s grand strategic importance and the peaceful state of affairs of Balochistan.