ISLAMABAD: The ouster of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has created a deepening rift in his own Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.
Sharif was sacked and disqualified for life by the Supreme Court in July following an investigation into corruption allegations against his family originating from the Panama Papers leak.
Sharif’s troubles deepened on Thursday when Pakistan’s accountability court issued a warrant for his arrest in two cases of alleged corruption after he failed to appear in court. The former prime minister is currently abroad. The hearing was adjourned until Nov. 3.
While the PML-N re-elected Sharif as party president on Oct. 3, having pushed through a change in the law — and although Sharif’s wife, Kalsum, won his vacated assembly seat in Lahore in September — dissenters within the party have emerged, demanding that Sharif’s younger brother Shahbaz, currently chief minister of Punjab, should replace Nawaz as party leader.
“Shahbaz Sharif should come forward and take charge of the party,” Riaz Hussain Pirzada, minister for inter-provincial coordination, told Arab News. “Nawaz Sharif is embroiled in corruption cases and won’t be able to lead the party in general elections.”
Pirzada is believed to have the backing of more than two dozen PML-N members of the National Assembly.
“We will announce our future course of action at an appropriate time,” he said, while hinting that he could formally announce a separate bloc in the party by the end of the year.
Arab News has learned that a group of more than 25 legislators who represent the PML-N in the Punjab Assembly are also demanding that Shahbaz be installed as party leader, and have held several secret meetings to discuss their future in the party.
Two disgruntled legislators confided in Arab News that they will announce a forward bloc in the party before March’s senate elections if Sharif fails to step aside.
The PML-N currently has 37 senators out of 104 in the Senate, and should be able to elect its own Senate chairman — one of the most important political positions in Pakistan — in the March elections, if the party can remain united.
But, for Raja Ashfaq Sarwar, minister for labor and human resource, that seems unlikely.
“At the moment, we are clueless and confused due to lack of a clear leadership in the party,” Sarwar, who is also an active member of the dissident group, told Arab News.
“This confusion will cost us heavily in the upcoming Senate and general elections,” he continued.
The government’s five-year term expires in June next year and general elections are scheduled to be held in August.
Sarwar also highlighted pending petitions in the Supreme Court asking that the law that allowed Sharif to be re-elected as president of the party be abolished as unconstitutional.
“We are ready to request Nawaz Sharif to relinquish the party leadership in a closed-door meeting, but only if he gives us time for it,” Sarwar concluded.
But those loyal to Sharif and his political heir-apparent — daughter Maryam, also indicted by the accountability court on Oct. 19 — will not countenance Shahbaz taking over as party leader.
Minister of State for Interior Muhammad Tallal Chaudry told Arab News: “There is only one leader in the PML-N and he is Nawaz Sharif.”
Some loyalists, Chaudry included, warn that the plan to install Shahbaz as party leader is an establishment plot to break up the PML-N.
“We know how to counter all these gimmicks,” Chaudry said. “And we are doing it effectively under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif.”
Division grows in Pakistan’s ruling party
Division grows in Pakistan’s ruling party
Iran hacking group claims attack on US medical company
- It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”
WASHINGTON: An Iran-linked hacking group claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a sweeping cyberattack on US medical technology giant Stryker, saying it had wiped more than 200,000 systems and extracted 50 terabytes of data in retaliation for military strikes on Iran.
“Our major cyber operation has been executed with complete success,” Handala said in a statement, describing the attack as retaliation for what it called “the brutal attack on the Minab school” and for “ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure of the Axis of Resistance.”
The group said it had shut down Stryker offices in 79 countries and that all extracted data was “now in the hands of the free people of the world.”
It issued an open warning to what it described as “Zionist leaders and their lobbies,” adding: “This is only the beginning of a new chapter in cyber warfare.”
Founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Stryker is a global medical device giant with some 56,000 employees and $25.12 billion in 2025 revenues, making everything from orthopedic implants and surgical instruments to hospital beds and robotic surgery systems.
The Handala group later posted that it had also carried out an attack on Verifone, which specializes in electronic and point-of-sale payments.
The outages began shortly after 0400 GMT on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Windows devices — including laptops and mobile phones connected to Stryker’s networks — were remotely wiped.
