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Dear Jan,
A lot of thanks for your email. Actually I have been waiting for your email. Actually I have spent last few days in great trouble as my home has been destroyed in the cross-firing of security forces and terrorists. Now my children and Fatima are living under the open sky. I am trying to manage the things, but now I have been receiving threats from terrorists and officials.
I am still jobless. I have tried my best to get a job to ensure the provision of basic necessities of life to my wife and my children. But now I think I am unable to provide them even food. I have been facing multiple crises. I have discussed my problems with my Mr. Rob Kall. I have told him to please write a letter to the US embassy in Pakistan and Pakistan Embassy in the US asking them to provide me the help and security. After all I am also a journalist and working for the US papers. I think my wife and children have also the right to get food and other necessary items.
How can you help me? I want to tell you that I do not want to make myself burden on you, but sometime I leave with no other option, but seek the help of my friends. I am ready to accept any help from you and my other friends as at the moment I am needing the help.
You can write a letter to the US Embassy in Islamabad that you have a representative in Bajaur Agency. You can tell them that he is facing threat to his life. You can also write letter to the US Consulate in Peshawar.I think you can also write a diary or article about my situation. You can involve other members in my affairs. I think you can do a lot for me. I want to tell you that you have already done a lot for me and my family.
Please accept regard from Fatima, my daughter Sania, Muhammad Kamran, Muhammad Danyal and Muhammad Ilyas. I think you will not mind for creating problem for you. But I hope you will not mind as you are my friend. I Shall praying for your peace and prosperity.
Again thank you very much
Yours friend Muhammad Khurshid
Amanda Lang, along with a network of online, concerned professional journalists, journalist citizens, journalist educators, and OEN readers willing to make a phone call or reach out with an email to aid their counterparts on the frontlines reporting the damage these wars are delivering on innocent civilians and their families; infrastructure destruction, injury and death, was the first to make contact with individuals now working on behalf of Muhammad. In response to Amanda’s request for help, the following reply from Mr. David Dastych of Davids Media Agency in Poland:
“Nice to receive your answer to my short letter. I have been following the plight of some Pakistani journalists for a long time. Some of them have been killed, either by terrorists, or by special services "kidon" (killing) squads. It's awful to admit, we couldn't do much to help these brave people.”
“I work close with ****, who is an experienced journalist, Pakistani and international reporter and a political activist, who often defends his fellow journalists. His show, "****” was closed several times by Musharraf's administration and also now GEO TV is being curbed by the government for taking up popular issues that do not fit into official policy.”
“Pakistan is a strange cluster of tribal and national minority regions, a country run by the Army and the Intelligence (ISI). The loyalty of the Pakistani officialdom is changing and the only leverage the United States has over the Pak governments is the military aid that they badly need. But, on one hand, pushing the Pakistani government and the Army to a war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and American drone attacks might help to fight the war, but on the other hand, American - sometimes brutal - intrusion into the Pakistani affairs created hatred of the almost 200 million-strong population against the U.S.A. A difficult dilemma, indeed.”
Dastych continues:
“My friend in Washington D.C., Mr. ****, informed me about your request to help Mr. Muhammad Khurshid in Bajaur Agency, Pakistan. I wrote to my friend, the Editor-in-Chief of GEO TV in Islamabad. I asked him to advise me about a possible way to help Mr. Khurshid and his family.”
“The policy of the United States versus Pakistan, the most important U.S. ally in the region, is based on military objectives and not on a true understanding of the people living there. But Pakistan is a key to the situation in Afghanistan, where the NATO forces are waging a war against the Taliban and, in fact, loosing that war.”
“Several US Administrations have failed to capture Osama bin Laden and to disrupt al-Qaeda. OBL is probably hiding the North of Pakistan, well protected by local rebel forces.”
