PESHAWAR: While the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of religious parties, has formally announced its election campaign, it remains to be seen if the alliance will achieve success in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), which the alliance leaders claim is their traditional stronghold.
Addressing a news conference on Saturday in Peshawar, MMA KP senior vice president Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said that MMA was revived for enforcement of the Islamic system in Pakistan.
“If MMA comes to power, we will restore Friday as weekend, instead of Sunday, curb usury, Islamization, and the dispensation of immediate justice will also be our priority as currently 1.8 million cases are pending in courts in Pakistan,” said Mushtaq, flanked by JUI-F KP spokesman Abdul Jalil Jan, JI KP general secretary and MMA spokesman Abdul Wasi and other leaders.
Mushtaq said the MMA government would also work to raise the issues of Kashmir, Palestine, Burma and other Muslims at international forums and also to bring back billions of dollars deposited by Pakistanis in overseas accounts, which can generate jobs and make Pakistan a tax-free country.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), which strongly opposed the KP-FATA merger, now said it can re-reconsider its stand. “We will from now take every decision with mutual consultation with our allies, whether to support it or keep opposing it,” said Abdul Jalil Jan spokesman for JUI-F.
Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said that the MMA would not be an ally of any other party for elections.
“We neither want to forge an alliance with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, nor with Pakistan Muslim League-N and others. In fact, we are in the field against all other secular parties because our aim is different from the other parties,” said Senator Mushtaq, who is also head of Jamaat-e-Islami for KP.
In the 2002 elections, MMA had emerged as a powerful force by forming governments in KP and also a coalition government with Pakistan Muslim Leque ( PML-Quaid ) in Balochistan province while it also got a significant number of seats in the Sindh province and became a strong opposition in the federal government.
An analyst based in Peshawar, Rahimullah Yusufzai, said that MMA had more chances to get seats and form a coalition government in KP. However, he said this time the alliance may not get as much seats as it had received in the 2002 elections.
“The situation in the 2002 elections was favorable to MMA. Maulana Samiul Haq, who heads Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-S, was also part of MMA. Secondly, people voted for MMA because it raised slogans against the US attack on Afghanistan, which was then a burning issue. Also, people voted for them in 2002 to give them a chance for the first time to see if they can deliver,” Yusufzai added.
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MMA announces election campaign in Peshawar but still waits for success in KP
MMA announces election campaign in Peshawar but still waits for success in KP
- Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said that the MMA would not be an ally of any other party for elections
- An analyst based in Peshawar, said that MMA had more chances to get seats and form a coalition government in KP
Mexico and El Salvador make big cocaine seizures at sea as US continues lethal strikes
MEXICO CITY: The navies of El Salvador and Mexico announced drug seizures in the Pacific Ocean this week of more than 10 tons of cocaine, in contrast to deadly strikes by the US government that just this week left 11 people dead on three boats suspected of carrying drugs in Latin American waters.
The latest announcement came Thursday, when Mexico said it had seized nearly four tons of suspected drugs and detained three people from a semisubmersible craft, 250 nautical miles (463 kilometers) south of the port of Manzanillo.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said via X that the seizure from the sleek, low-riding boat with three visible motors brought the weekly total to nearly 10 tons, but he did not provide detail on the other seizures.
Mexican authorities said the seizure was made with intelligence shared US Northern Command and the US Joint Interagency Task Force South.
On Sunday, El Salvador’s navy announced the largest drug seizure in the country’s history of 6.6 tons of cocaine. The navy had intercepted a 180-foot boat registered to Tanzania, 380 miles (611 kilometers) southwest of the coast. Navy divers found 330 packages of cocaine hidden in the boat’s ballast tanks. Ten men were arrested from Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador.
On Thursday, Salvadoran authorities gave access to the seized ship FMS Eagle, which had just arrived in the port of La Union. More than 200 wrapped bundles were lined up on the deck.
The Trump administration has pressured Mexico to make more drug seizures over the past year. The trafficking of drugs like fentanyl was the president’s justification for tariffs on Mexican imports.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded with a more aggressive stance toward drug cartels than her predecessor, that has included sending dozens of drug trafficking prisoners to the United States for prosecution.
Sheinbaum has also expressed her disagreement with strikes by the US military in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean against boats suspected of carrying drugs.
At least 145 people have been killed in those strikes since the US government began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” last September.
The US strikes this week included two vessels carrying four people each in the eastern Pacific Ocean and another boat in the Caribbean carrying three people. The administration provided images of the boats being destroyed, but not evidence they were carrying drugs.
The latest announcement came Thursday, when Mexico said it had seized nearly four tons of suspected drugs and detained three people from a semisubmersible craft, 250 nautical miles (463 kilometers) south of the port of Manzanillo.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said via X that the seizure from the sleek, low-riding boat with three visible motors brought the weekly total to nearly 10 tons, but he did not provide detail on the other seizures.
Mexican authorities said the seizure was made with intelligence shared US Northern Command and the US Joint Interagency Task Force South.
On Sunday, El Salvador’s navy announced the largest drug seizure in the country’s history of 6.6 tons of cocaine. The navy had intercepted a 180-foot boat registered to Tanzania, 380 miles (611 kilometers) southwest of the coast. Navy divers found 330 packages of cocaine hidden in the boat’s ballast tanks. Ten men were arrested from Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador.
On Thursday, Salvadoran authorities gave access to the seized ship FMS Eagle, which had just arrived in the port of La Union. More than 200 wrapped bundles were lined up on the deck.
The Trump administration has pressured Mexico to make more drug seizures over the past year. The trafficking of drugs like fentanyl was the president’s justification for tariffs on Mexican imports.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded with a more aggressive stance toward drug cartels than her predecessor, that has included sending dozens of drug trafficking prisoners to the United States for prosecution.
Sheinbaum has also expressed her disagreement with strikes by the US military in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean against boats suspected of carrying drugs.
At least 145 people have been killed in those strikes since the US government began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” last September.
The US strikes this week included two vessels carrying four people each in the eastern Pacific Ocean and another boat in the Caribbean carrying three people. The administration provided images of the boats being destroyed, but not evidence they were carrying drugs.
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