Happy friendship day :)
Gen. Ashfake Kianahi, is the chief of Pakistani army. In the news recently for refusing to fight the Taliban and letting ISI run a regime of terror in the sub continent, the man is anything but repentant. Our correspondent met him in the garrison town of Rawalpindi. Heres the interview:
RS: Your army seems to be reluctant to fight the Taliban in NEFA. Taliban is calling the shots there and your authority is virtually non existent there.
AK: That’s a blatant lie. We have been fighting them and winning everywhere infact we had a few successes recently in Karachi.
RS: Oh come on Mr Ashfake, 80 of your men surrendered to them in Waziristan recently and many of them are still missing in action; so wheres the question of victory? And what is this victory in Karachi that you are referring to?
AK: We had comprehensively defeated the Taliban in a 20-20 match that we conducted recently in Karachi. They had sent a strong team but we had better players. After the match, I got a call from Pentagon congratulating us on our victory. They also promised to send more F16s to us for fighting them.
RS: How are you using F16s to fight the Taliban, may I know? You have not conducted a single sortie so far and none of your air bases in and around NEFA house any F16s.
AK: This is a very complicated issue. You see our airforce essentially has drones that we use instead of real aircraft. We have not inducted the Joint Strike Fighter fully and so we have to rely on these drones which are also deployed in Gilghit and Mushafarabad to survey the Line of Control. Now I don’t have planes to take on the Taliban if these F16s come, I can deploy them along LoC and use the drones to squish the Taliban.
RS: I am not sure if that’s how it works. Anyway, you have been meddling in Afghanistan and Karzai has been quite vocal on the role of ISI in fomenting trouble in his country.
AK: That Karzai is a perennial grumbler. If he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, he will blame that also on us. The point is that every now and then our boys do export terrorists to Afghanistan but then thats routine business. He should not worry himself over minor incidents. We will not go all out on Afghanistan as our army is the chief retailer of the opium that comes out from there. They should instead thank us and the Taliban that we put in so much effort to cultivate and sell that country’s chief export commodity.
RS: your “boys” have also broken the ceasefire across the Line of Control.
AK: A bunch of them came to me the other day and said they were bored of manning the border outposts and wanted to see some action. They were complaining that they were tired of sitting around and playing pirated video games and downloading bollywood movies from the internet. I told them just go ahead, fire some rounds across the border and come back. I didn’t know that they would take my suggestion so seriously.
RS: you are also a big fan of bollywood movies, I am told.
AK: That’s another lie. I don’t have time for such upsetting fare. The last movie I watched was something called Janey Thooo or something and that was months ago…I haven’t watched anything recently.
RS: that movie was released just a few weeks ago Mr Kianahi. Anyway, why did they name you Kianahi? Is that the name of your village or something?
AK: From my childhood days, I used to deny stuff and so they added a Kianahi to my name. When Mush decided to quit, he wanted someone who could deny plenty of things and who better to do it than someone who is named ‘Kianahi’ or didn’t do.
RS: Coming back to Taliban, what exactly is the relationship between your army and Taliban?
AK: Oh, we are just friends...infact I have just mailed them a friendship day card.
RS: Your army seems to be reluctant to fight the Taliban in NEFA. Taliban is calling the shots there and your authority is virtually non existent there.
AK: That’s a blatant lie. We have been fighting them and winning everywhere infact we had a few successes recently in Karachi.
RS: Oh come on Mr Ashfake, 80 of your men surrendered to them in Waziristan recently and many of them are still missing in action; so wheres the question of victory? And what is this victory in Karachi that you are referring to?
AK: We had comprehensively defeated the Taliban in a 20-20 match that we conducted recently in Karachi. They had sent a strong team but we had better players. After the match, I got a call from Pentagon congratulating us on our victory. They also promised to send more F16s to us for fighting them.
RS: How are you using F16s to fight the Taliban, may I know? You have not conducted a single sortie so far and none of your air bases in and around NEFA house any F16s.
AK: This is a very complicated issue. You see our airforce essentially has drones that we use instead of real aircraft. We have not inducted the Joint Strike Fighter fully and so we have to rely on these drones which are also deployed in Gilghit and Mushafarabad to survey the Line of Control. Now I don’t have planes to take on the Taliban if these F16s come, I can deploy them along LoC and use the drones to squish the Taliban.
RS: I am not sure if that’s how it works. Anyway, you have been meddling in Afghanistan and Karzai has been quite vocal on the role of ISI in fomenting trouble in his country.
AK: That Karzai is a perennial grumbler. If he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, he will blame that also on us. The point is that every now and then our boys do export terrorists to Afghanistan but then thats routine business. He should not worry himself over minor incidents. We will not go all out on Afghanistan as our army is the chief retailer of the opium that comes out from there. They should instead thank us and the Taliban that we put in so much effort to cultivate and sell that country’s chief export commodity.
RS: your “boys” have also broken the ceasefire across the Line of Control.
AK: A bunch of them came to me the other day and said they were bored of manning the border outposts and wanted to see some action. They were complaining that they were tired of sitting around and playing pirated video games and downloading bollywood movies from the internet. I told them just go ahead, fire some rounds across the border and come back. I didn’t know that they would take my suggestion so seriously.
RS: you are also a big fan of bollywood movies, I am told.
AK: That’s another lie. I don’t have time for such upsetting fare. The last movie I watched was something called Janey Thooo or something and that was months ago…I haven’t watched anything recently.
RS: that movie was released just a few weeks ago Mr Kianahi. Anyway, why did they name you Kianahi? Is that the name of your village or something?
AK: From my childhood days, I used to deny stuff and so they added a Kianahi to my name. When Mush decided to quit, he wanted someone who could deny plenty of things and who better to do it than someone who is named ‘Kianahi’ or didn’t do.
RS: Coming back to Taliban, what exactly is the relationship between your army and Taliban?
AK: Oh, we are just friends...infact I have just mailed them a friendship day card.
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Coffee is on me. It actually is...need to change my shirt now