Eid 2026: Between Raindrops and the Ghosts of Wars

A morning on Eid day. Rain in the first rakaat of Fajr. It is the 21st of March. My two lovely daughters wished me a happy birthday at the stroke of midnight last night, celebrating my 45th.

There is a certain poetry to it, isn't there? Eid ul-Fitr falls on my birthday, the sky itself choosing to weep its blessing over the first prostration of the day. It felt like a benediction I did not know I was waiting for.
The stars, as they do, are positioned around me. 

As everyone else, I think I am the center of my own universe, somehow. And isn't that normal for everyone? From our singular point of view, the entire cosmos, the joy, the grief, the geopolitical tremors, all seem to orbit our own small existence. It is a conceit, yes, but a necessary one for survival.

I have been sitting with that thought all morning, between the embraces of family and the quiet hum of a Karachi recovering from the night before. And my mind, as it always does, drifts to the wars that have marked me.

I have been marked with the 1991 Gulf War, living inside Saudi Arabia when Saddam fought with and for Kuwait. I was a child then, but I remember the scud missiles, the blacked out windows, the strange feeling of being a guest in a land that had suddenly become a staging ground for something I could not comprehend. That was my first lesson in the geometry of power: that wars are fought with oil and borders, and ordinary people simply live in their aftermath.

The second time around was living in Karachi during Musharraf's reign. That was when the war came home.

After 9/11, when the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, Pakistan's backyard became the main theatre of the War on Terror. We were suddenly the front-line state, the ally who could not say no. And as the bombs fell on Afghan soil, the terror crept inside Pakistan. The mountains of the tribal belt became the new frontline. Radicalisation seeped into our cities, our madrassas, our streets. Drone attacks began, first a rumour, then a routine. A madrassa in Bajaur would be hit, and we would count the bodies before the next dawn. Tribal areas became a normalised war zone, and we learned to live with the sound of buzzing predators in the sky.

Then came the events that would break something in the national psyche.

Damadola, January 13, 2006. The CIA fired missiles from Predator drones into a village in Bajaur, killing at least 18 people. They thought they had Ayman al-Zawahiri. They did not. They killed villagers, five women and five children. I remember the protests in Karachi, tens of thousands chanting "Death to America." It was the first time "drone" entered our everyday vocabulary, a silent assassin in the sky that our own government seemed powerless to stop.

Lal Masjid, July 2007. The siege and the army operation in Islamabad. After a six-month standoff, the military launched its assault on the compound on July 7th. Reports said 335 religious students were killed in the overnight army bombing. It felt like the state was declaring war on its own citizens. The blowback would be felt in every corner of the country. Suicide bombings would spike, and the Red Mosque became a wound that would not heal.

Salala, November 26, 2011. NATO aircraft attacked a border post, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. I remember the rage, the sense of utter betrayal. We were supposed to be allies. Yet our own soldiers were being bombed in their sleep. The government retaliated by blocking NATO supply convoys and demanding the US vacate Shamsi airbase. But the damage was done. It was a stark reminder that in this war, we were merely pawns, or worse, collateral.

By then, security was at its lowest. And through it all, Karachi, my Karachi, was living through its own reign of terror.

It happened stage by stage. First came the MQM's dominance. The party's militant wing, the Tayyar group, is running extortion rackets and target killings in the name of political supremacy. Lyari, Korangi, the heart of the city became a chessboard of bullets. Then came the rise of the Aman Committee in Lyari, a so-called peace committee that was really a front for gangs and political factions battling for control of the neighbourhood, turning it into a no-go zone for years. And then came the Taliban, creeping in from the tribal areas, establishing sleeper cells, forming alliances with sectarian outfits, and adding suicide bombings to the city's daily diet of violence.

Targeted killings became routine. I remember the case of Mohammed Atif, a young man from Korangi who was recruited from a Tayyaba Masjid and trained in Afghanistan, only to return and carry out killings at Rimpa Plaza. Kidnapping for ransom became an industry. I recall the case of SSP Nadir Khoso's son, Fida Hussain, and the son of a KBCA official, Junaid Ansari, who were prosecuted for kidnapping a builder for ransom in Clifton. The lines blurred. Criminals, militants, agency men, almost all secret agencies are playing their fields. You never knew who was pulling the trigger, or who was paying for the silence that followed.

And on top of it all was the American refrain. Hillary Clinton's old obsession, "Do more," echoed in every diplomatic meeting. In 2011, after the Abbottabad raid, the pressure was immense. Reports suggested that after Clinton and Admiral Mullen visited Pakistan, an understanding was reached for an offensive in North Waziristan. The US had been demanding it for years, targeting the Haqqani network, and the mantra was clear: "Do it now, baby."

From the Kerry Luger bill in 2009, which authorized $7.5 billion in aid over five years but came with strict conditions about fighting Al Qaeda and not interfering in Pakistan's politics, to Imran Khan's historic statement in 2021 that Afghans had broken the "shackles of slavery and occupation" as the Taliban swept into Kabul, I have seen the times of war all along. I have seen us oscillate between being the front-line ally and the pariah, always paying the price for someone else's chess game.

Now, as I turn 45, I am watching the next act unfold. Iran is launching retaliatory attacks on Arab nations as a reaction to the US and Israel in a bandwagon towards it. The equation is pretty complex, yet clear.

The message from Tehran is brutal in its simplicity. Get the US out of your soil, or see my wrath further. It is Iran's statement towards Arab countries, accompanied by occasional, almost apologetic asides. "I have to do this, but you have housed the forces which are attacking me." Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently stated that Iran has "ample evidence" that US bases on Arab territories were being used to launch attacks. He added, "This war will end when we are certain that it will not be repeated and that reparations will be paid."

Meanwhile, all Foreign Ministers assembled in Riyadh this week to give further statements. They condemned Iran's attacks on critical infrastructure and emphasised the right to self-defence, but no one is vowing to freeze the US and Israel in their own tracks, who actually started this. It is a selective amnesia. The war did not start last month. It started decades ago, and it was reignited when Israel attacked Iran last year, with US forces following up with strikes on nuclear sites.

Now Iran decides, as pundits are saying, when and how it ends. It is something they started, or were drawn into, and cannot finish, now desperately calling for unwelcome or unconsulted NATO or EU intervention. They have heard clear "No"s from Germany and others. The UK has been non-committal, with its minister for energy security saying, "the plan now has to be to de-escalate the conflict."

With concessions for Russians and the lifting of the embargo upon Iran to export its oil, the facts point to this war tilting to the other forces' end. The global energy calculus is shifting, and the isolation Washington sought to impose on Tehran is cracking.

But what the world, and what I personally, am failing to see enough of is the price the Iranian people are paying for it. That is what holds my salute to them. With bombardment and leadership elimination ongoing, with every day a new vital national asset being targeted, not only have they stood united but tough towards the US and Israeli military action now in its 4th week, reaching the first month's end.

While many suspect this could surpass the Ukraine war's timelines, I cannot shield myself as I watch this madman's force acting ruthlessly and expanding the escalation each day, unleashing its arsenal of wrath toward the Iranian people for choosing sovereignty over headless "Yes, Sir."

Bravo.

I am writing this at the end of the entire events of the day, taking my kurta off with the entire day's activities of meeting friends, family and everyone whose face looked welcoming enough for me to approach and say hello to, including this gentleman at the cake shop. 

Tonight I am thinking about Eid, my birthday, and the generational hope I carry for my daughters, hoping that somehow, the orbits of the powerful might shift away from destruction.