Homeland Season 2 Finale "The Choice"

DISCLAIMER: SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't watched the season 2 finale of Homeland, don't read the post as it contains spoilers!

OHMYGOD.

What an episode! It was enough to bring be back from my 8 month long hibernation on my blog!

My head is still spinning from watching the 65-minute finale of Homeland. Running 25 minutes shorter than the season 1 finale this episode has a lot more variation of pace and emotions. Let's quickly dissect what it was all about! 

Going for the militants' jugular

During a recent press briefing in Islamabad, the Capital City Police Officer Malik Ahmed Raza Tahir claimed that they had important leads on the gang responsible for the kidnappings of Shahbaz Taseer and American national Warren Weinstein. CCPO Tahir also revealed that this group was planning on abducting the children of the affluent class for high ransom.

Overhauling the Anti-Terrorism Act

Ten years since Pakistan came in the grip of ever-increasing terrorism, the longstanding issue of amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 1997 is far from resolved. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, last Tuesday, directed the Law and Interior ministries to go back to the drawing board and report back with a fresh proposal to amend the ATA.

Carnage in Mastung

The spate of sectarian violence, continuing in Balochistan for over a decade, has recently increased in frequency of attacks and their intensity. A most brutal example of this was seen on Tuesday, when unidentified gunmen intercepted a bus near Mastung, which was carrying Hazara Shia men to Iran on a pilgrimage. Operating in a most ruthless and calculated manner, the assailants told the pilgrims to disembark, identified them through their identity cards, segregated the Hazaras and mercilessly gunned them down.

Saving Pakistan’s progeny

Children are the biggest victims of war and conflict in terms of the lost opportunity they represent for the future. This was proven again when the news surfaced of a nine-year-old girl, Sohana Javed, who was abducted from Peshawar and forced into becoming a possible suicide bomber in Lower Dir. Initial reports reveal remarkable presence of mind on Sohana’s part when, seeing an opportunity, she ran away from her captors and sought help from the Frontier Corps personnel at a nearby check-post—the alleged target of her attack. This incident has revealed a possible shift in the strategy of the terrorist groups who, till now, had relied primarily on men and teenage boys to carry out their attacks. It has also highlighted the lengths to which the militants will resort in carrying out their agenda with no regard of the universal and Islamic principle of safeguarding children from acts of war.

Saleem Shahzad—another voice silenced

Tuesday, May 31^st, 2011, was yet another black day for journalism and free speech in Pakistan. Syed Saleem Shahzad, bureau chief of Asia Times online and a fine investigative reporter, paid the highest cost for his unwavering commitment to his profession—his life. Two days after he had been abducted from Islamabad, Saleem Shahzad was found dead near Mandi Bahauddin.

The day I became an “Ahmadi”

28 May 2010.

I was about to eat lunch in my office’s conference room with two friends. A colleague walked in asking if I knew there had been an attack on the Ahmadi mosque in Garhi Shahu. I checked my phone but there was no sms or missed call. I told him he must be mistaken but got up anyway to turn on the television; as I was walking out of the room, he mentioned that the Model Town mosque had been attacked too. 

The news hit me with a sheer, naked wave of panic. My brother goes there for prayers. Half of my family goes there on Friday.

Time to clean our house

In the aftermath of the attack on PNS Mehran Naval Base in Karachi, there are conflicting reports emerging about the attack itself and the operation. Initially the media reported that up to 15 terrorists attacked the naval base simultaneously from three different sides. However, after the operation ended, Interior Minister Rehman Malik declared that the base was attacked from one vulnerable area; in a surreal scenario, four to six militants apparently used a ladder and cut barbed wires to climb over the wall near Malir tributary. The next day, police officials, citing the initial case report, said there were up to 12 militants involved in the attacks. It will take a few days to establish what exactly happened at the naval base for those 17 hours. But the implications of this attack are already clear and, unfortunately, staggering.