ISLAMABAD: The United Arab Emirates-Pakistan Assistance Program (UAE-PAP) is working on more than 100 largescale projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan, said the top diplomat of the Gulf state in Islamabad while talking to Arab News, adding that the organization was primarily focusing on education and health care sectors during the third phase of its program.
“Last year in May, we signed a $200 million cooperation agreement to execute Phase III of the UAE-PAP. This was for more than 100 bigger projects in Balochistan and KP focusing on education and health care,” UAE Ambassador Hamad Obaid Ibrahim Salem Al-Zaabi said.
The UAE-PAP was launched in January 2011 with the objective of providing help and humanitarian assistance to the people of Pakistan and support their development initiatives for a better future.
The program’s third phase complements the previous two phases in which 165 development and humanitarian projects were completed at the cost of $365 million.
Al-Zaabi said one of the main projects of UAE-PAP was to eradicate polio in Pakistan, though there were also several other programs to improve the country’s water and agriculture sectors.
He added that UAE’s charity institutes, such as Sheikh Muhammad bin Rashid, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, and Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan foundations, were also managing several projects in Pakistan.
“In Kashmir, the Sheikh Muhammad bin Rashid Foundation has built many schools and hospitals in small villages of Muzaffarabad. They built hospitals, medical clinics, mobile clinics and schools in those areas where even vehicles cannot go,” he continued.
Al-Zaabi pointed out that Pakistan and the UAE had always maintained a strong diplomatic relationship. “I always call it classical relations between the UAE and Pakistan because the leaders of the two countries have the same vision of looking to the future.”
The ambassador said his mandate required him to explore new areas where both countries could work together, identify investment opportunities for entrepreneurs in his country, and facilitate Pakistani business people who wanted to benefit from the UAE market.
The envoy added that special emphasis was also placed on improving visa facilities in Karachi and Islamabad to help Pakistani laborers who were looking for work in his country.
Al-Zaabi was awarded the “UAE Medal of Pride” for enhancing bilateral relations between Abu Dhabi and Islamabad by building new partnerships and broadening the scope of economic and trade cooperation in all areas of common interest between both the countries.
“We at the embassy believe in teamwork and this medal is not for me but it’s for my team at the embassy,” he said, adding: “Every other day we have a new initiative and idea to improve relations with Pakistan, enhance bilateral trade and also to facilitate Pakistani community in the UAE. I count myself not only as the UAE ambassador in Islamabad but also as Pakistan’s ambassador in Abu Dhabi.”
UAE investing $200 million in mega projects in Balochistan, KP
UAE investing $200 million in mega projects in Balochistan, KP
- Says he also considers himself as Pakistan’s ambassador in Abu Dhabi
- Previously, the UAE-PAP completed 165 development and humanitarian projects at the cost of $365 million
Pakistani man convicted in US in political assassination plot tied to Iranian paramilitary
- Asif Merchant, 47, worked for Pakistani banks for decades before going into clothing and other businesses
- He testified he met a Revolutionary Guard operative who gave him countersurveillance training, assignments
NEW YORK: A Pakistani business owner who tried to hire hit men to kill a US politician was convicted Friday in a trial that showcased allegations of Iran-backed plotting on American soil.
As the Iran war unfolded in the Mideast, Asif Merchant acknowledged in a US court that he sought to put an assassination in motion during the 2024 presidential campaign — a plot that was quickly disrupted by American investigators before it had a chance to proceed.
A jury in Brooklyn convicted Merchant on terrorism and murder for hire charges.
The verdict after only a couple hours of deliberations followed a weeklong trial that included remarkable testimony from Merchant himself.
Merchant told the jury he was carrying out instructions from a contact in the Islamic Republic’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. According to Merchant, the handler never specified a target but broached names including then-candidate Donald Trump, then-President Joe Biden and Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador who was also in the race for a time.
The Iranian government has denied trying to kill US officials.
The nascent plot fell apart after Merchant showed an acquaintance what he had in mind by using objects on a napkin to depict a shooting at a rally. He asked the man to help him hire assassins. Instead, he was introduced to undercover FBI agents who were secretly recording him, as had the acquaintance.
Merchant told the supposed hit men he needed services that could include killing “some political person” and paid them $5,000 in cash in a parked car in Manhattan.
“This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement released after the conviction.
Merchant’s attorney, Avraham Moskowitz, didn’t immediately reply to a message seeking comment.
Merchant, 47, worked for Pakistani banks for decades before going into clothing and other businesses. He has two families, in Pakistan and Iran, and he sometimes visited the US for his garment business.
Merchant testified that he met a Revolutionary Guard intelligence operative about three years ago. The contact gave him countersurveillance training and assignments including the assassination scheme, Merchant said.
He maintained that he had to do his handler’s bidding to protect loved ones in Iran. The defendant said he reluctantly went through the motions but thought he’d be arrested and explain his situation to authorities before anyone was killed.
“I was going along with it,” he said, speaking in Urdu through a court interpreter.
Prosecutors emphasized that Merchant admitted taking steps to enact the plan on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard, which the US considers a foreign terrorist organization, and he didn’t proactively go to authorities.
Instead, he was packing for a flight to Pakistan when he was arrested on July 12, 2024, a day before an unrelated attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania. Officials said it appeared the Butler gunman acted alone but that they had been tracking a threat on Trump’s life from Iran, a claim that the Islamic Republic called “unsubstantiated and malicious.”
When Merchant subsequently spoke to FBI agents to explore the possibility of a cooperation agreement, he didn’t say he had acted out of fear for his family.
Prosecutors argued that he didn’t back up a defense of acting under duress. Merchant sought to persuade jurors he simply didn’t think the agents would believe him because they seemed to “think that I am some type of super-spy,” which he said he was “absolutely not.”
