Govt urged to clarify report about Osama’s presence at K2
Forwarded by: Didar Hunzai
ISLAMABAD, May 29: An internationally-renowned Pakistani mountaineer has asked the government to publicly contradict a media report about the alleged presence of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Karakurum mountain range, an allegation that can badly damage the economy of the Northern Areas by scaring away foreign and local visitors from the region during tourist season.
Nazir Sabir, the first Pakistani mountaineer to conquer Everest who also heads the Alpine Club, warned on Thursday that the report of an Arabic television network attributed to an unnamed source who alleged that Osama was present in the Karakurum mountain range needed to be immediately clarified by the Foreign Office in strong words.
The appearance of such baseless news item when our mountain tourism season is about to start and a number of expedition teams have made their final arrangements to reach Pakistan for their onward destination to Karakurum and its surrounding mountain ranges is most damaging to our fragile tourism at the very outset of the season, he said.
“This news item can be as baseless and outrageous as someone claiming to have spotted a person hiding in a cave on moon,” he observed.
It is most unfortunate that some of the local and international media is often associating terrorist activities taking place along the Pak-Afghan border to the Northern Areas out of their sheer ignorance and total lack of knowledge. They are not aware of the fact that the Northern Areas is over 500km away from the troubled Afghan border area.
This seems to be a planned conspiracy by some vested interests who are enemies of the peaceful people of the Northern Areas and they do not want to see Pakistan heading towards normalcy while gaining confidence of our international clients to visit Pakistan, Mr Sabir said.
“Our mountain region of Gilgit and Baltistan is known for peace and tranquillity and remains extremely peaceful even during the most disturbed times elsewhere,” he observed. (Courtesy: Daily Dawn)
This is nonsense and pathatic. How would a the worlds most wanted man-millions bounty on his head would rush to K2 and face the hostile weather? K2 is the symbol of love and pride of the Northen Areas of Pakistan. This area would never accept terrorists,monsters,extremists,fanatics,obscurantist and religious thugs. K2 would rather welcome the terrorists with avalanche and strom.
The so called war on terror is fueling fanaticism and spreading the venom of religious extremism;counter productive to the already endangered country. The fiasco of US jihad in Afghanistan ruined the whole society and brought nothing,but Klashankov and drug. OBL,the world’s most feard terrorist is a by product of US jihad in Afghanistan-fought against the Red Army. It was the US and her allies Wahabi Saudis,Salafis thgus who were adamant to destroy Afghanistan as well Pakistan at the expense of the people of Pakistan. The fall of Soviet Union changed the the whole scenario of the cold war era, and the friends became foes and terrorists. OBL was trained by the CIA to wage proxy war against the Soviets with the help ISI and other notorious spy agencies.
The US must find his friend (now terrorist) in the Tribal Areas-save heaven for the terrorists and extremist Talibans. The US media also high light the first destructive Afghan war and go for the repurcussions. K2,the highest peak of the world invites peace loving people not terrorits.
This irresponsible report on the arabic TV channel must have been the created by the enemies of Pakistan with teh design to damage the country in whatever possible way.
The Foreign Office must react very strongly to this baseless news and clarify before time
Given the sensitivity of the issue there is need to immediate clarification or refutation of the news by Foreign office. Such news has strong implications for tourism industry in the entire Northern Areas. Northern Areas Legislative Council and people associated with the tourism industry should press for official refutation of such baseless news. Otherwise it may directly affect hundred of thousands of individuals associated with tourism industry; ultimately it would suffer the whole region. In the backdrop of Pak-China relations and reconstruction work on the KKH, this baseless news might have long-term political implications as well.
Iqbal Barcha
AKU-IED
Karachi