PAKISTAN

Dual flood threat to Muzaffargarh and Multan

Imran Gabol 

September 4, 2025

DAWN

• Preparations in place for more ‘controlled breaches’ as waters from Ravi-Chenab set to converge

• PDMA chief fears renewed flooding in central Punjab as Indian dams near max capacity; says ‘Ravi flowing backwards’ instead of merging with Chenab

• 3.7m affected across province, death toll jumps to 46; another massive surge expected at Multan tomorrow

LAHORE: As the confluence of the swollen Ravi and Chenab rivers near Khanewal threatens the districts of Multan and Muzaffargarh, provincial authorities on Wednesday braced for an unprecedented disaster in light of a “dual threat”, which persisted despite several controlled breaches over the past week.

The water level at Muhammadwala and Sher Shah was recorded at 412 feet, only five feet below critical level. The authorities termed the next 12 hours critical, as the pressure at the breaching points continued to increase after the convergence of the Ravi and Chenab rivers near Khanewal.

In order to save urban centres along the eastern rivers, the Punjab government has been following a policy of controlled breaches to relieve pressure on barrages and main embankments to protect densely populated cities. A decision on whether to conduct a breach at Head Muhammadwala, Sher Shah Flood Bund, and Rangpur is expected within hours to save Multan and Muzaffargarh, with 17 points identified.

However, the situation in these two districts is compounded because of an enormous surge of approximately 550,000 cusecs that crossed the Marala and Khanki Headworks and was recorded passing through Qadirabad Headworks with an intensity of 530,000 cusecs. Officials projected that this powerful surge would reach Trimmu Headworks on Thursday and is expected to arrive in the Multan region by Friday.

“The next 12 hours are extremely critical,” stated a Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) official closely involved in crisis management. “We are facing a dual threat: the existing high water from the confluence of the rivers and a new, massive wave heading directly for us. All resources are being mobilised,” he said.

On the other hand, the railway traffic to Karachi and vice versa was suspended from Faisalabad after a bridge on a railway track on the Chenab River came under water in Abdul Hakim.

Flood warnings

In a press conference on Wednesday ev­­ening, PDMA Director General Irfan Ali Kathia said that the flood crisis was set to intensify as all three major Indian dams were expected to reach their maximum capacity within the next 72 hours, exacerbating an already catastrophic situation in the Punjab river system. Addressing a press conference, DG Kathia revealed that his office had received three separate flood warnings in the past 24 hours alone.

He confirmed that while the water level in the Chenab River was currently stable, previously affected districts along its cou­rse were likely to face renewed flooding.

The Sutlej River has been in a flood-like condition for the past two months, while the Ravi River was experiencing rising levels at the Jassar monitoring point. “The next 72 hours are critical,” he stated.

“Thein Dam is already full and will continue to release water into the Ravi for the next two to three weeks. While the situation in Ravi will not be as severe as before, water levels will definitely increase.”

In an alarming development, the DG explained that instead of merging with the Chenab as normally expected, the Ravi’s waters are flowing backwards, preventing any decrease in its water levels. “Until water levels decrease at Ahmadpur Sial, we will not see any reduction at Sidhnai,” he clarified.

THIS map shows the locations of controlled breaches, carried out by authorities so far to save major urban centres in Punjab. According to PDMA, arrangements are in place to breach more dykes at Head Muhammadwala, Shershah and Rangpur.

The presser came after Punjab CM Maryam Nawaz conducted a personal assessment of the critical Head Muhammadwala site. DG Kathia said they were facing a major challenge here because it had only four to five feet of capacity remaining before reaching critical levels.

“At Sher Shah Bridge in Multan, there’s significant water pressure with only a two-foot margin remaining,” he revealed. “Im­­portant decisions regarding a controlled breaching in Multan have already been made to prevent uncontrolled overflow.”

Speaking about the damage, the DG said that more than 3,900 villages and a population exceeding 3.7 million had been affected across Punjab. The death toll has risen to 46 people, while over 1.4m residents and 1m animals had been relocated to sa

The relief effort has expanded to include 409 flood camps where all essential facilities are being provided to approximately 25,000 displaced persons currently taking shelter.

In the Khanewal and Toba Tek Singh districts, the flooding has already affec­ted 136 and 75 villages, respectively, with numbers expected to rise in light of renewed surges.

Punjab CM’s visit

Earlier, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz visited flood relief camps in Multan and directed the district administrations to ascertain the scale of damage caused by the floods.

She directed the deputy commissioners to conduct surveys in the flood-affected areas and also provide clean drinking water. She also ordered fumigation and dry germicidal sprays in the flood relief camps and tent cities in the flood-affected areas.

River flows

As of 11pm on Wednesday night, the Marala Headworks on Chenab reported a flow of 444754 cusecs, which was falling, while both Khanki (steady) and Qadirabad Headworks (rising) were holding steady with extremely high flows of 558,683 and 557,440 cusecs, respectively.

A point of vigilance was the Chiniot bridge, where a rising trend was noted with 291,558 cusecs, and Head Muhammadwala, which was also rising at 413.25 feet against a danger level of 417.50 feet. Rivaz Bridge was steady at 519.90 ft (max level 526 ft) and Trimmu Headworks was steady at 265,837 cusecs.

For the Ravi River, the upstream point at Jassar was falling with 82,140 cusecs, indicating a receding trend.

All subsequent points had stabilised, including Ravi Syphon (79,800 cusecs and rising), Shahdara (78,340 cusecs and rising), Balloki Headworks (114,130 cus­e­­cs), and Sidhnai Headworks (152,480 Cu­­secs and falling), reporting steady conditions.

The Sutlej River system was completely stable across all monitoring stations. Key points included G.S. Wala (319,295 cusecs and steady), Sulemanki Headworks (132,492 cusecs and steady), Islam Headworks (95727 cusecs and steady), Panjnad Headworks (159,662 cusecs and steady), and Malsi Syphon (86,085 cusecs).

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2025

Crisis in the making: Complaints of missing facilities emerge from Punjab’s flood-hit areas

Imran Gabol 

September 3, 2025 

DAWN

A flood-affected woman spends time by using mobile phone along with her children at a relief camp on Multan Road. — White Star

LAHORE: The humanitarian crisis is escalating in southern Punjab as exceptionally high flood levels in the Sutlej, Ravi, and Chenab rivers have inundated hundreds of villages, forcing thousands of families to flee their homes with minimal assistance from the state.

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) has predicted the flood situation in the rivers but affected communities complain that the response on the ground is too little, too late that has left a trail of devastation in their fields.

The government had evacuated 529,938 people from Multan division, including 351,230 from district Multan, 102,645 from Khanewal, 56,763 from Vehari and 19,300 from Lodhran.

The District Muzaffargarh administration evacuated 68,043 people from its three tehsils, including Muzaffargarh, Alipur and Jatoi.

The government has established 25 flood relief camps in different areas of Multan, including Lakwala, Muhammadpur Mahota on Head Muhammadwala, Sher Shah, Bund Bosan and Sikandri Nala.

A flood relief camp has been established at Head Muhammadwala where over 250 families are residing.

The flood-affected persons said they were living in the open for the last two days and did not receive any help from the government. They said they were forced to leave their houses without picking their belongings, which could be destroyed in water or get stolen.

Replying to a query about the commissioner and district administration’s claims to have served the food and fodder for cattle, the people said they received rice two times in the last two days and no one provided them with fodder for their animals. They complained about the absence of clean water to drink, medical help and washroom facility, saying that children and women were facing problems due to non-availability of washrooms.

Flood-affected people living at a BHU said there were two washrooms for more than 2,000 people and that they were receiving only one-time meal while their children were contracting diseases due to contaminated water.

In tehsil Shujaabad and Jalalpur, people living in low-lying areas complained about the police and district administration for issuing them threats of dire consequences for not leaving their homes. They said that there was no electricity in the flood relief centres and there were a lot of mosquitoes.

Sajjad from Shujaabad said that assistant commissioner office employees and police officials ordered him to leave the house but he refused.

“The officials asked me to leave the house or they would set it on fire. I had to leave my belongings and now I am living without a roof, food and washrooms under the sky.” He said there were several families living in the camp and some were provided with cloth tents and it did not stop rainwater.

Multan Commissioner Amir Kareem Khan visited flood-prone areas, including Basti Muhammadpur Ghota, Jhok Venus, Sher Shah, Lukwala Bund, Hajipur and Basti Langrial, to review ongoing relief operations. The number of flood relief camps across the division was increased to 90.

In Burewala, Sahoka and surrounding settlements were submerged after a breach in the Sahoka-Chishtian Road which resulted in disconnecting hundreds of villages from the city.

“Our village is now an island,” explained Ayesha Bibi from Sahoka.

“The main road is under water. We are using makeshift boats to get to safety but where do we go? We have heard about relief camps but we have not seen any.”

In Manchanabad, temporary protective embankments at Mauza Rateeka, Lala Amar Singh, and several other villages were washed away, submerging thousands of acres of agricultural land and rice, cotton and maize crops. The floodwaters also cut off road access to multiple settlements.

In the Arifwala area, Basti Saboka, Yasin Kay, Balara Dilawar, and Balara Arjan were submerged. Several villages have lost road connectivity due to broken roads.

In Vehari, rescue teams relocated people and their livestock from the affected villages, including Lakhha Saldira, Sahooka, Farooqabad, Jamlera.

More than 80 villages were submerged and rural link roads eroded after high flood in the Ravi River at Kamalia. Officials said over 60,000 people were evacuated and 890 of them were given first aid. Their 61,999 animals were also evacuated. The road leading to Chichawatni, Faisalabad and M-3 interchange was submerged with floodwater near Kalaira Adda at Kamalia.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2025

LIBERTARIAN ANTI-IMPERIAISM

The Gaza War Isn’t Over, But Israel Has Already Lost

by Thomas Knapp | Sep 3, 2025

The Israeli regime has lost its multi-front war in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Yes, really. It may not look like it, but the defeat is real and  baked into Israel’s future.

Let me first make the case for Israeli “victory”:

Since its 2023 invasion of Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces report fewer than 800 troops killed, while in turn killing tens — maybe hundreds — of thousands of mostly civilian Palestinian Arabs (and 250 or more inconvenient journalists).

Since the beginning. They’ve established their ability to attack any point in Gaza at will, driving a displaced, hungry population back and forth over piles of bodies, while seizing more land in the West Bank and Syria, liquidating Hezbollah’s Lebanese strongholds, trading missile strikes with Yemen’s Houthis, and even emerging relatively unscathed, if not particularly successful, in an intermittent war with Iran.

Top Israeli regime officials confidently assert that the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank are inevitable.

Yes, that sounds rather like multiple “victories,” accomplished and pending.

But those victories didn’t come from nowhere. They were enabled by decades of massive financial, military, and diplomatic support from the United States.

Yes, other regimes too, but most of those “allies” are moving in the other direction already — cutting off arms sales, recognizing a Palestinian state, and sanctioning Israeli war criminals.

It’s quickly coming down to the “no daylight between us” US/Israel relationship under which the former annually shovels billions of dollars, and when requested direct military assistance, at the latter, no questions asked (US law “guarantees” Israel a “Qualitative Military Edge”), while using its own sanctions power and veto on the UN Security Council to protect Benjamin Netanyahu and Friends from the consequences of their actions.

That relationship is nearing its end.

In late August, a Quinnipiac poll found that 50% of Americans now classify Israel’s operations in Gaza as genocidal, and that 60% — 37% of Republicans, 75% of Democrats, and 66% of independents — oppose continued military aid to Israel, at least while the genocide continues.

The effects of changing American attitudes toward Israel may not make themselves felt immediately, but the outcome is more “inevitable” than the fantasies of expansionist Israeli politicians.

In domestic politics, Social Security is sometimes called a political “third rail” — you touch it, you die.

The “special relationship” with Israel enjoyed the same status in foreign affairs for decades due to a well-funded lobby. American politicians who didn’t want to lose their re-election primaries to lobby-funded opponents dutifully voted for every Israeli aid demand (usually after ritual photo opportunities at occupied Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall).

That third rail is losing voltage, fast. President Donald Trump may remain bought off by the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on his behalf by Israeli interests, but sitting and future members of Congress are beginning to grok that a loyalty oath to a foreign power is no longer the absolute requirement it used to be.

And without Big Bully unquestioningly backing its every play, Little Bully’s expansionist plans will quickly come to naught.

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Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism, publisher of Rational Review News Digest, and moderator of Antiwar.com’s commenting/discussion community.

LIBERTARIAN ANTI-IMPERIAISM

Department of War?

by Ron Paul | Sep 3, 2025 |

Last week President Trump took steps to re-name the Department of Defense the “Department of War.” The President explained his rationale for the name change: “It used to be called the Department of War and it had a stronger sound. We want defense, but we want offense too… As Department of War we won everything… and I think we… have to go back to that.”

At first it sounds like a terrible idea. A “Department of War” may well make war more likely – the “stronger sound” may embolden the US government to take us into even more wars. There would no longer be any need for the pretext that we take the nation to war to defend this country and its interests – and only as a last resort.

As Clinton Administration official Madeleine Albright famously asked of Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell when she was pushing for US war in the Balkans, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

So yes, that is a real danger. But at the same time, the US has been at war nearly constantly since the end of World War II, so it’s not like the “Defense Department” has been in any way a defensive department.

With that in mind, returning the Department of Defense to the Department of War, which is how it started, may not be such a bad idea after all – as long as we can be honest about the rest of the terms around our warmaking.

If we return to a “War Department,” then we should also return to the Constitutional requirement that any military activity engaged in by that department short of defending against an imminent attack on the US requires a Congressional declaration of war. That was the practice followed when it was called the War Department and we should return to it.

Dropping the notion that we have a “Defense Department” would free us from the charade that our massive military spending budget was anything but a war budget. No more “defense appropriations” bills in Congress. Let’s call them “war appropriations” bills. Let the American people understand what so much of their hard-earned money is being taken to support. It’s not “defense.” It’s “war.” And none of it has benefited the American people.

Trump misunderstands one very important thing in his stated desire to return to a “War Department,” however. A tougher sounding name did not win the wars. Before the name change, which happened after the infamous National Security Act of 1947 that created the CIA and the permanent national security state, we won wars because for the most part we followed the Constitution and had a Congressional declaration of war. That way the war had a beginning and end and a clear set of goals. Since World War II the United States has not declared war even though it has been in a continuous state of war. It is no coincidence that none of these “wars” have been won. From 1950 Korea to 2025 Yemen and everything in between.

So go ahead and change it back to the “Department of War.” But let’s also stop pretending that maintaining the global US military empire is “defense.” It’s not.

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Ron Paul is a former Republican congressman from Texas. He was the 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for president.

 LIBERTARIAN ANTI-IMPERIAISM

The US Feds Defend Their Tortures Again

by Andrew P. Napolitano | Sep 4, 2025 |

While the public’s attention this summer has been drawn to masked ICE agents arresting folks without warrants, presidentially imposed sales taxes on goods emanating from foreign countries that have been invalidated by three federal courts, and the fruitless Kabuki dance between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, last month, the federal government continues its slow assault on the Constitution at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In April, the feds suffered a major setback when a military judge ruled that evidence obtained under and as a result of torture is inadmissible at the trial of Ammar al-Baluchi, who is one of the five remaining defendants accused in the attacks of 9/11. Al-Baluchi is the nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the so-called mastermind of the attacks. So-called because Osama bin Laden was the person designated by the feds as the mastermind until they murdered him and his family – without any 9/11-related charges having been filed against him – in his home in Pakistan.

Mohammed and al-Baluchi were to have been tried together, along with their three alleged accomplices when the feds decided that the torture of Mohammed was too egregious for them to defend in a public courtroom.

So, the prosecutors then initiated plea negotiations with Mohammed’s defense lawyers, which resulted in a plea agreement that was accepted by the court, the defense, the prosecutors and their bosses in the Department of Defense. Then the Secretary of Defense at the time, Lloyd Austin, overruled the general in charge of the prosecutions and directed the prosecutors who had initiated, drafted and publicly accepted the plea agreement to ask the court to nullify it.

Following standard rules of criminal procedure, the court declined to nullify the Mohammed plea agreement since, by the time Sec. Austin objected to it, it had become a binding contract. An appeals court disagreed, and the Mohammed case is now back in the military trial court without a trial date.

There is no trial date because there is no trial judge assigned to the case. The trial judge who accepted Mohammed’s guilty plea has since retired, and no judge has been assigned; nor are any judges volunteering for the case. The case docket consists of 40,000+ pages of documents for a judge to read prior to trial.

Whoever the judge is will be the fourth on the case. The prosecution team has changed as many times as well.

Why is this happening? Largely because military justice is to justice as military music is to music – slow, heavy, ponderous, unending and repetitive. Had President George W. Bush not created, and his successors not accepted, the crafting of a Devil’s Island 90 miles from Florida and instead permitted the Department of Justice and civilian federal judges to handle these cases, they would have been resolved 20 years ago.

But Bush believed that at Gitmo his torturers could do as they wished. He argued that because Gitmo is in Cuba, the Constitution didn’t apply, federal laws couldn’t be enforced and those meddlesome federal judges couldn’t interfere.

The Bush administration struck out on all three arguments before the Supreme Court, which held that wherever the feds go for more than a fleeting moment, the Constitution goes with them. Still, Bush & Co. didn’t trust the federal judiciary or their own Department of Justice to handle these cases. So, the cases are stuck in a system ill-equipped to address cases of this magnitude, and subject to military procedures that regularly rotate judges and prosecutors onto and off of assignments.

Now, back to al-Baluchi. The recently retired trial judge who accepted the Mohammed guilty plea and who is familiar with the 40,000+ pages of documents in that case, ruled that al-Baluchi had been tortured egregiously more than 1,000 times. He had been waterboarded, sodomized, denied sleep for long periods, and chained up like a pretzel so his muscles were continuously stressed. Apprentice CIA agents even took turns smashing his head against a wall. Some apprenticeship.

He was even denied water for 48 hours as a punishment. His offense? While alone taking his one shower per week, he scrawled his name in the steam as it accumulated on a shower wall. Only a prison guard saw the name. Like I said, this is Devil’s Island.

The argument in al-Baluchi’s case is whether the torture lasted beyond the 1,000+ sessions. Medical professionals for the defense and reluctantly for the government testified that al-Baluchi had been so brutalized that he was helpless to resist the suggestions of his post-torture interrogators. Just as the government’s torturers had planned. Just as their emails had predicted.

Thus, the court ruled, his statements to his post-torture interrogators were so tainted by his fear of more torture and his persona was so malleable that his statements to them were unreliable. The torturers were CIA agents and their foreign collaborators and their apprentices. The interrogators, who had nothing to do with the torture, were FBI agents. It was to those FBI agents that al-Baluchi made the confession that the court barred from the courtroom.

Last week, the feds filed their appeal of the suppression of the confession. They argued that torture stops when the torturers leave the torture room and anything said to a non-threatening FBI agent thereafter is reliable. This defies caselaw and scientific analysis of the mental disposition of long-term torture victims, and it defies the writings of the outside contractors whom the CIA hired to supervise the torture. So said the same appellate court to which this case has been appealed in a similar ruling last year.

What government claims such control over a legally innocent person that it can with impunity painfully wreck his body and destroy his mind? What government employs torturers knowing their results will be legally useless? What government lacks all sense of natural rights, humanitarian dignity and due process? Ours.

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Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel and anchor of FreedomWatch on Fox Business Network. His most recent book, It Is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong, was released in October 2011.