General Petraeus introduced the idea of blacklisting the group, known as the Haqqani network, late last week in discussions with President Obama’s senior advisers on Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to several administration officials, who said it was being seriously considered.

Such a move could risk antagonizing Pakistan, a critical partner in the war effort, but one that is closely tied to the Haqqani network. It could also frustrate the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who is pressing to reconcile with all the insurgent groups as a way to end the nine-year-old war and consolidate his own grip on power.

The case of the Haqqani network, run by an old warlord family, underscores the thorny decisions that will have to be made over which Taliban-linked insurgents should win some sort of amnesty and play a role in the future of Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai has already petitioned the United Nations to lift sanctions against dozens of members of the Taliban, and has won conditional support from the Obama administration, so long as these people sever ties to Al Qaeda, forswear violence and accept the Afghan Constitution.

“If they are willing to accept the red lines and come in from the cold, there has to be a place for them,” Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said to reporters at a briefing on Tuesday.

From its base in the frontier area near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani is suspected of running much of the insurgency around Kabul, the Afghan capital, and across eastern Afghanistan, carrying out car bombings and kidnappings, including spectacular attacks on American military installations. It is allied with Al Qaeda and with leaders of the Afghan Taliban branch under Mullah Muhammad Omar, now based near Quetta, Pakistan.

But the group’s real power may lie in its deep connections to Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, which analysts say sees the Haqqani network as a way to exercise its own leverage in Afghanistan. Pakistani leaders have recently offered to broker talks between Mr. Karzai and the network, officials said, arguing that it could be a viable future partner.

American officials remain extremely skeptical that the Haqqani network’s senior leaders could ever be reconciled with the Afghan government, although they say perhaps some midlevel commanders and foot soldiers could. Some officials in Washington and in the region expressed concerns that imposing sanctions on the entire network might drive away some fighters who might be persuaded to lay down their arms.

The idea of putting the Haqqani network on a blacklist was first made public on Tuesday by Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who has just returned from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mr. Levin did not disclose any conversations he might have had with General Petraeus on the subject.

The Haqqani network is perhaps the most significant threat to stability in Afghanistan, said Mr. Levin, a powerful voice in Congress on military affairs as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Mr. Levin also advocated increasing attacks against the organization by Pakistan and by the United States, using unmanned drone strikes.

“At the moment, the Haqqani network — and their fighters coming over the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan — is the greatest threat, at least external threat, to Afghanistan,” Mr. Levin said at a morning breakfast with correspondents.

“More needs to be done by Pakistan,” he added. “The Pakistanis have said they now realize, more than ever, that terrorism is a threat to them — not just the terrorists who attack them directly, but the terrorists who attack others from their territory.”

Placement on the State Department’s list would mainly impose legal limits on American citizens and companies, prohibiting trade with the Haqqani network or its leaders and requiring that banks freeze their assets in the United States.

But Mr. Levin noted that the law would also require the United States government to apply pressure on any nation harboring such a group, in this case Pakistan.

In Kabul, a spokesman for General Petraeus said he would not comment on any internal discussions. But in public General Petraeus has expressed alarm about the network and has talked about his desire to see the Pakistani military act more aggressively against the group’s stronghold in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.

In testimony before Mr. Levin’s committee last month, General Petraeus said he viewed the network as a particular danger to the mission in Afghanistan.

He said he and other senior military officers had shared information with their counterparts in Pakistan that showed the Haqqani network “clearly commanded and controlled” recent attacks in Kabul and against the Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, which is controlled by the United States.

The focus on a political settlement is likely to intensify next week at a conference in Kabul, to be headed by Mr. Karzai and attended by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other officials. Mr. Karzai recently signed a decree authorizing the reintegration of lower-level Taliban fighters, and Mr. Holbrooke said the meeting would kick off that program, which will be financed by $180 million from Japan, Britain and other countries, as well as $100 million in Pentagon funds.

But Mr. Karzai is eager to extend an olive branch to higher-level figures as well. His government wants to remove up to 50 of the 137 Taliban names on the United Nations Security Council’s blacklist. Mr. Holbrooke, the special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said the administration supported efforts to cull the list, but would approve names only on a case-by-case basis. Certain figures, like Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, remain out of bounds, he said.

For its part, the United States is trying to keep the emphasis on the low-level fighters, rather than the leadership. The planned American military campaign in Kandahar, officials said, could weaken the position of Taliban leaders, making them more amenable to a settlement.

Still, the United States backs “Afghan-led reconciliation,” Mr. Holbrooke said. And he said the administration was encouraged by recent meetings between Mr. Karzai and Pakistani leaders, which he said were slowly building trust between these often-suspicious neighbors.

Eyewitnesses said that six other vehicles in the area were also destroyed in the incident. The tankers were parked on the Grand Trunk Road for overnight stay when unidentified persons opened firing at those from unspecified location. The tankers caught fire which also engulfed other parked vehicles.

The fire brigade was called in to extinguish the fire. Local people said that they heard huge explosion in the area. No casualty was reported.

Meanwhile, police continued search operation in different areas of the district on Tuesday and arrested 140 people including nine proclaimed offenders, officials said. Search operation was conducted in Akbarpura and Risalpur. Weapons and narcotics were also seized during the operation.http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/local/peshawar/nato-tankers%2C-other-vehicles-destroyed-in-attack-470

Deoband elders’ warning to Punjab govt
LAHORE, July 13: Alleging that the Sunni Ittehad Council is attempting to ignite sectarian riots in the country, elders of Deoband school of thought have warned the Punjab government to stop ‘patronising’ their rival sect or be ready to contest the next election on divisions along Deobandi and Barelvi sects.

“Fazle Karim (council chairman) & Co is conspiring to cause Deobandi-Barelvi riots while the khadm-e-ala (Punjab chief minister) seems to be khadm-i-Barelvi and if the Punjab government does not stop patronising (the Barelvis), a campaign will be launched to make the next elections a contest between Deobandi and Barelvi schools of thought,” declared a meeting of the Deoband leaders held here at Jamia Manzoorul Islam in Cantonment on Tuesday.

It demanded a judicial commission headed by the chief justice of Pakistan to probe Data Darbar tragedy and public hanging of those found involved in the terror act at the Minar-i-Pakistan.

Prominent among those in attendance was Maulana Muhammad Ahmad Ludhianvi, a former member of banned outfit Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and accused of having links with Al-Qaeda. His new outfit, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, had supported the PML-N in a recent Jhang by-poll.

Ludhianvi said he would accept any punishment if any arrested member of his outfit was found involved in terror activities otherwise he himself would suggest penalty for those calling him and his colleagues militants.

Alleging that some people were conspiring to pitch Deobani and Barelvi schools of thought against each other in the garb of Data Darbar suicide attack, he warned that such a scenario would be destructive for Pakistan.

Urging the government to take the situation seriously and act against the conspirators, he alleged that Fazle Karim and his colleagues were planning sectarian unrest.

Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi, Pakistan Ulema Council chief, challenged Interior Minister Rehman Malik to prove link of any militant with Deoband school of thought.