Wahhabi Islam’s Egyptian Success Reveals the Pseudo-Religion As A Threat To True Islam

[Contrary to conventional wisdom (formerly a domain of the "legitimate media"), like this wisdom offered by CNBC (SEE: Commentary: Saudis Gain Upper Hand on Syria’s Battlefields), the Saudis, backed by Obama, have misread their fellow Muslims, causing them to overplay their hand full of "Islamist" cards.  Their pushing of the shadowy Muslim Brotherhood into the revealing light of day in Egypt and their sponsorship of "Al-Qaeda" in Syria, as well as their brutal crushing of the Shia in Bahrain and in Eastern Saudi Arabia, have all helped to paint in broad red strokes a very clear picture of the true nature of Saudi "Islam."  

In my opinion, giving this victory to political Islam in Egypt was a brilliant stroke by whoever is watching over the human race and over the repressed people of Egypt and all of the Middle East.  By giving the Brotherhood (the Ikhwan) the power to enforce their plans, these plans have been revealed as the true crimes against man which they truly are.  By trying to enforce the false "Shariah" of Saudi Islam on the educated middle class and the poor of Egypt, the people were made aware of the idiocy that they were being forced to abide by and to submit to.  Using the analogy of the wisdom given in the article below, hoping that Egypt would not become Pakistan, it becomes very easy to see the dangers of giving the bloodthirsty pseudo-Islamists a little power.  

In Pakistan's Swat Region, once the pseudo-"Islamists" were given power over the people there, the people eventually demanded that the authorities bring them all to real justice, even though the people themselves were the ones who voted for Sufi Muhammad's "Shariah" courts.  Thankfully, in Egypt, the people wised-up very quickly to the Brotherhood's plans for them.  In Egypt, as in all such experiments that dabble with the Ikhwan, their false "Shariah" turns-out to be virtual carbon copies of that which has been historically enforced by the Taliban.  

All Talibanized "Shariah" reflects these teachings of the original "Ikhwan," who emerged from the deserts of Saudi Arabia to seize the Great Mosque in Mecca.  Their leader,  Juhayman al-
Otaiba, preached a form of "rejectionist Islamism," which was later embraced and protected by the Saudi authorities after the siege was ended, to be exported wherever the vile seeds of Wahhabism could be successfully transplanted.

From the "the letters of juhayman"

1. "FULL COVERING, THE BODY IS TABOO".
2. "STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS ARE
SINFUL."
3. "PICTURES IN HOMES ARE ANTI-RELIGIOUS."
4. "EMPLOYMENT IS A SIN."
5. "AVOID THE CHRISTIANS AND ALLOW THEM NOT

Using the template provided by the Saudis, Wahhabi acolytes have since been sent-out all over the Muslim world, to murder their fellow Muslims, those who refused to conform to the the false Saudi "Shariah."  Witnessing the Taliban (Students of Wahhabi "Islam") as they brutally enforced their ideas about God's Law, seeing atrocities that they never, ever expected to see, such as public floggings, beheadings and the bombing of Mosques, it does not take long to turn stomachs and to change minds.

Give the corrupt, murderous Saudi and Qatari regimes enough ropes and someone will eventually use it to hang all of the so-called "Royal" psychopaths.]  

Islam’s enemy!

Mahmoud Salem

It goes without saying that the Egyptian crisis is now beyond repair. None of the parties involved, including the military, have the power to resolve the conflict that the country seems destined to engage in. At some point there was hope for such a solution, but it now all seems that we are heading to an unprecedented economic and political disaster of epic proportions, with the complete collapse of all state institutions, alongside with the economy.

On the flipside, such disasters offer some unique opportunities for those entrepreneurially minded; for example, anyone starting a private security company now will be making insane money in the near future.

Given that I mainly work in the area of social media, my new business of choice will be a dating website for former Muslims to find like-minded partners in their countries. I bet that by the end of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule of Egypt, I can have as many users as Facebook does in this blessed country. As the old saying (that I just made up) goes “Wherever there is a crisis of faith, there is an opportunity”.

I am not the first or the last person to write about Egyptian Muslims’ crisis of faith that started the moment Islamists took power and enlightened Egyptians on the fantastic legislations and policies they wanted to implement in the name of Shari’a, with Islamic jurisprudence to back it up. I also will spare you anecdotal evidence on the rise of atheists in Egypt, or the kind of conversations that are now acceptable to have in Egyptian society.

I will simply propose the following argument: What is happening in Egypt, no matter how unfortunate, seems to have a single silver lining, which is the complete and utter defeat of the political Islam project worldwide. At this point, it seems that Egypt’s destiny is to either defeat or contain Islamism, thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood, who is now officially the most ferocious enemy that Islam as a faith has ever seen.

Locally it is easy to make that case. The utilisation of Islam and Shari’a as the sine qua non for all political events and legislation- no matter how absurd, corrupt or self-serving- was bound to run out of effectiveness eventually. Once that started happening, the intellectual bankruptcy of the Islamist ideology became clear.

Their Islamic state is nothing but a reshuffling of the Mubarak state, without actually reforming or fixing it in any real way, nor an actual vision of how an actual model for an Islamic state would function. Their “Shari’a constitution”, while centralises power, preserves corruption and removes checks and balances, does not truly represent or openly preach Shari’a, much to the chagrin of many Salafis.

Their Islamic economic plans and policies are notions or fantasies that show that they have the understanding of economic policy of an eighth grader, and their social policies, especially when it comes to women, seems to truly aim at bringing back the middle ages.

Having that level of failure associated with Islam generally, and political Islam specifically, is bound to make them both lose credibility even amongst the truest of believers, half being in shock of what can be done in the name of their religion and the other half openly wondering where is the divine blessings that are supposed to be showered upon them from heaven due to supporting Allah’s people. As disenchantment with political Islam grows, so does disenchantment with the religion itself, which many believers are finding both distressing and inescapable. Secularism would have saved you that trouble.

On the international level, it is safe to say that what is happening in Egypt is destroying the international Muslim Brotherhood project, as Egypt is becoming less of a role model and more of a cautionary tale. While Pakistan infamously announced that they do not intend to follow the Egyptian model, this was only the harbinger of what was to come.

Moroccan politicians have openly warned of the Egyptianisation of Morocco as they attack talking points against the Moroccan Brotherhood. The UAE government is now openly at war with Brotherhood cells, along with Kuwait, who are calling the local branch as agents of Egypt.

The Jordanian government has effectively used what is happening in Egypt to discredit and marginalise their local branch, and the Syrian opposition is becoming equally wary with aligning with any Islamist, whether Brotherhood or others.

When it comes to the west, the damage is even greater.  In the US, the myth that the Muslim Brotherhood are democratic reformers is all but dead, and the notion that they are reliable partners is also being equally challenged. Europe, on the other hand, only had one question that they needed answered: Is Islam compatible with Democracy and human rights? The answer that they received from observing the situation so far has been “No”.

The effect of them reaching that realisation will have serious consequences in regards to European immigration policies and laws, let alone elections of parties with extreme, if not prejudiced views, towards Muslims. A friend of mine who is a professional Islamic apologist, who spent the past 10 years jet-setting Europe being invited to inter-faith dialogue conferences where he would argue Islam’s democratic heritage and values, informed me that the invites to such conferences have stopped coming for a while now. “They are not interested in listening anymore,” were his exact words.

Of all three Abrahamic religions, Islam seemed to be the one with the most staying power, and the one destined to take over Europe over the next half century. This is no longer the case, with every enemy or critic of Islam or Islamism now has all the evidence they ever needed to back their fair or unfair arguments thanks to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

As for Egyptian citizens, they are very close to an open civil conflict with the Islamist forces, which will either end in the defeat of the Islamists and their rhetoric forever, or with the Islamist forces hanging by a thread to power here as the entire society shifts away from the religion, much like Iran did, but on a much faster pace.

Egypt’s Islamists have waited 80 years to get into power, and now that they have, the countdown to their now-inevitable fall has begun. One day we will all live in a secular Egypt, and it will all be thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood.

About the author

Mahmoud Salem

Mahmoud Salem is a political activist, writer, and social media consultant. His writings could be found at http://www.sandmonkey.org and follow him @sandmonkey on Twitter

View all articles by Mahmoud Salem »

Another UnIslamic Pakistani Preacher Incites Mob Attack Upon Christians, Dozens of Homes Burned In Lahore

[SEE:  Almost Rwanda?]

Alleged blasphemy: Mob burns scores of Christian homes in Lahore

Rana Tanveer

A protester burns belongings from Christian houses in Lahore on Saturday. PHOTO: ABID NAWAZ/ EXPRESS

LAHORE: A highly-charged mob of thousands burnt more than 40 Christian houses in Badami Bagh area of Lahore on Saturday to “take revenge of the blasphemy” allegedly committed by a Christian two days earlier.

Express News had earlier reported that around 100 houses were burnt by the mob.

Eyewitnesses said that the mob broke into the houses, looted them and burnt the remaining belongings on the roads.

SSP Operations Suhail Sukhera and the SHO of Badami Bagh were also reportedly injured when the mob pelted a police party with stones.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told Express News that he saw no reason for the mob’s violence especially after the person accused of blasphemy had been arrested on Friday. He added that cases have been registered against those responsible for Saturday’s vandalism and that they will be prosecuted.

Sanaullah added that all those whose property had been damaged will be compensated within five days.

Shahi Imran, who had filed the blasphemy FIR, told The Express Tribune that he was not responsible for the incident and he had left the area when the mob arrived to burn the houses. He maintained that the accused should be taught a lesson but the other Christian families should not be harmed.

SSP Sukhera, when contacted, denied that the houses were set on fire and said that the police personnel was present in the area.

President Asif Ali Zardari took notice of the incident and sought a report from authorities,reported Radio Pakistan.

On Friday, a mob of almost 3,000 people forced the Christian community to flee for their lives, leaving behind their houses and possessions unprotected.

The charged group had gathered around Joseph Colony on Noor Road, led by Shafiq Ahmed, who was in search of the accused Savan, alias Bubby. The mob then attacked Savan’s house, setting it on fire and pelting it with stones. Other houses in the locality – home to about 150 Christian families – were also attacked.  Many residents, including women and children, hastily fled to save themselves.

Savan was arrested and shifted to an undisclosed location.

White House Continually Hampered By Pentagon Sabotage of Administration Foreign Policy

[The following article details how Gen. James Jones derailed Ambassador Holbrooke's intended $50 billion investment in Pakistani development, with an insincere bluff of a secret civilian nuclear deal.  The photo used below is of Jones and the head of Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), the Iranian terrorist outfit, before testifying before Congress for taking Washington and Saddam Hussain's favorite terrorists off the State Dept. terror list.  The MEK are the hands of the CIA and Mossad within Iran.  They are responsible for bombings, assassinations of nuclear scientists and obtaining photos which are to be used to create convincing, false propaganda about Iranian programs.  Apparently, Gen. Jones was tasked with sabotaging all roads which did not lead to war with Iran, or war on Pakistan.]

Holbrooke wanted $50bn for Pakistan

Anwar Iqbal

Gen. James Jones and Maryam Rajavi (President elect, wife of Massoud Rajavi, founder of terrorist MEK).

WASHINGTON: A former US National Security Adviser offered Pakistan an ‘off script’ civilian nuclear deal in exchange for its counter-terrorism cooperation, a former member of Richard Holbrooke’s team wrote on Wednesday.

In an article he wrote for the Foreign Policy magazine, Vali Nasr said his time in the Obama administration “turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience”.

He recalled how former National Security Adviser James Jones travelled to Pakistan for high-level meetings without informing the State Department or Mr Holbrooke, who was the special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He said that during one trip to Pakistan, Gen Jones “went completely off script and promised Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani… a civilian nuclear deal in exchange for Pakistan’s cooperation”.

“Panic struck the White House. It took a good deal of diplomatic tap-dancing to take that offer off the table.”

Mr Nasr said that Mr Holbrooke wanted Washington and the international community to commit $50 billion to stimulate Pakistan’s economic development and convinced former secretary of state Hillary Clinton of forging a strategic partnership with the country.

“The true key to ending the war, Mr Holbrooke often told us, was to change Pakistan… but to convince Pakistan that we meant business, we first had to prove that America was going to stay,” he wrote.

Mr Holbrooke understood that the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA wanted Pakistan to cut ties with the Taliban and do more to fight terrorism. “That would never happen, however, without at least some semblance of a normal relationship between Pakistan and the United States,” Mr Nasr wrote.

He said that in 2009, half the US diplomatic mission in Pakistan worked on intelligence and counter-terrorism rather than diplomacy or development.

“The US Consulate in Peshawar was basically bricks shielding antennas. And it paid big dividends,” Mr Nasr wrote.

Based on the information it received from intelligence sources, “the Obama administration began carrying out drone strikes in Pakistan on an industrial scale”.

Pakistani Taliban execute, behead soldiers in South Waziristan

[Sorry that I was unable to post the video included at Long War, but since the discontinuation of the "Vodpod" service, we, here at WordPress sites, can only post from YouTube.]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f12_1362419460

By Bill Roggio

 

Warning: the video below contains graphic footage of the aftermath of the Taliban killing several Pakistani soldiers. The Taliban remove the heads of the Pakistani soldiers.

The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan released a videotape on the fighting in the Mehsud areas of South Waziristan which includes graphic footage of the mutilation of several Pakistani soldiers who appear to have been killed in a firefight last summer.

The videotape, which was sent to The Long War Journal by a spokesman from Umar Media, the media arm of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, is titled “Strike of a Believer.” It focuses on the Taliban’s fight against the Pakistani military in the tribal agency of South Waziristan, and includes a statement from the terror group’s emir, Hakeemullah Mehsud.

A three-minute segment shows what appears to be the aftermath of a clash with Pakistani soldiers in a mountainous area of South Waziristan. The Taliban are seen taking the soldiers’ weapons. The soldiers are seen with their Pakistani Army-issued weapons, body armor, and helmets.

At least three of what appear to be six soldiers who were killed and beheaded are shown. Their heads are displayed on top of rocks. The body of one Pakistani soldier, who was not beheaded, was thrown down the mountainside.

Although the date of the Taliban attack on the Pakistani soldiers was not provided in the video, a spokesman for Umar Media told The Long War Journal that “this fight was held on 22 June 2012.”

The Pakistani media did not report the deaths of Pakistani soldiers in South Waziristan within three days before or after June 22, 2012. The nearest report of Pakistani soldiers killed in South Waziristan was on June 18, 2012, when two soldiers were said to have been killed in an attack on the Ladha area of South Waziristan.

Hakeemullah threatens the US and Britain

In addition to the graphic Taliban clip, a speech by Taliban emir Hakeemullah Mehsud was also featured in the lengthy tape. Hakeemullah vowed to continue to attempt to execute attacks on US and British soil.

“At present we are waging defensive jihad but our resolve is very strong,” Hakeemullah said, according to a translation of the videotape which was provided by the SITE Intelligence Group. He continued: “We resolve to enter Britain and America. They come here and target us, so we will go to America and Britain and target them. These will be blessings of jihad. Allah willing, we will have access there and avenge inside America and Britain.”

The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan nearly detonated a car bomb in Times Square in New York City on May 1, 2010. The bomb was placed by Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen who was born in Pakistan and returned home to train for an attack on the US. Both Hakeemullah and Qari Hussain, another Taliban commander, claimed credit for the attack. Hakeemullah was later seen on tape with Shahzad, boasting about the plot.

Videotape the latest to show Taliban executions of Pakistani security forces

In the past, the Taliban have released several videos of the execution and beheading of Pakistani troops. Most recently, in September 2012, the Taliban released a videotape of the aftermath of the beheadings of several Pakistani soldiers who were captured after fighting in Bajaur.

In June 2012, a video showing the heads of 17 Pakistani soldiers who had served in the district of Dir, which is near Bajaur, was released by the Taliban. [See LWJ report, Pakistani Taliban release video of beheaded Pakistani soldiers.]

In June 2011, the Taliban released a video of the execution of 16 Pakistani policemen in Dir. The Taliban lined them up, and executed them via firing squad. The policemen had been captured after the Taliban crossed the border from Kunar. [See LWJ report, Video of brutal Taliban execution of Pakistani policemen emerges.]

In February 2011, Hakeemullah released a videotape of the execution of a former Pakistani military intelligence official known as Colonel Imam. Although Imam, a senior officer in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, was a favorite of the Afghan Taliban for his support of Mullah Omar, the Pakistani Taliban accused him spying against the terror group. [See LWJ report, Video: Pakistani Taliban execute Colonel Imam.]

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/03/pakistani_taliban_ex_1.php#ixzz2Mmb4mbI4

Afghan Govt. Condemns Pak Army Support for Cleric’s Blessing of Afghan, Kashmir and Palestinian Suicide-Bombing

[SEE:  Afghan president lashes out at Pakistan ]

“Palestine is occupied by Israel, Kashmir by India, and Afghanistan by the US. So if the Muslims don’t have the atomic bomb, they should sacrifice their lives for God,” Tahir Ashrafi, the head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, told TOLOnews.

 

Afghanistan condemn Pakistani Ulema’s Fatwa on suicide attack

By Ghanizada

Maulana Tahir Asharfi—This is the fat Wahhabi bastard who issued the “fat” wa.  He is not only notorious for his advanced capacity for gluttony, but for being caught passed-out drunk and covered in puke in the back seat of his car, after tying one on at the German Embassy in Islamabad.  The lying fuck claimed that he was not drunk, but had been “kidnapped” by mysterious individuals, who had “injected him with intoxicating medicine.”Afghan National Security Adviser criticized Pakistan religious scholar Maulana Ashraf Tahiri’s remarks regarding the suicide attack and holy war which is permitted in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Palestine.

Maulana Tahir Ashrafi said suicide attack and Jihad (holy war) is permitted in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Palestine which was widely condemned in Afghanistan.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, national security adviser for president Hamid Karzai on Saturday said the Fatwa by Pakistani religious scholar chief shows the mainstream of violence which threatens the peaceful lives of the Afghan people.

Maulana Tahir Ashrafi’s remarks were also widely condemned by various political movements, religious clerics and civil activists in the country.

Afghan religious scholars said such attacks are not allowed in Islam and accused Pakistan’s military intelligence for being involved in issuing such a Fatwa.

In the meantime Rangin Dadfar Spanta called on various political and civil movements in the country to stand against the Pakistani religious scholar’s Fatwa.

He said, “Our political opposition movements, the civil society and other prominent Afghan leaders should unitedly stand to defend our country and our soil and let those know, who are sending the suicide bombers that the Afghan people will never be defeated by these bombers.”

The National Coalition of Afghanistan — main political opposition coalition of the Afghan government also condemned the Fatwa by Pakistani religious scholar and said such remarks will further boost war in the region.

This comes as the Afghan security institutions, specifically the National Directorate of Security (NDS) warned that all the suicide bombers coming in Afghanistan are being trained in Pakistan.

The Fatwa by Pakistani religious scholar chief comes amid Pakistani clerics decision to boycott a regional Islamic conference in capital Kabul. The religious scholars of the two nations were due to discuss suicide attacks and Jihad (holy war) during the conference.

On the other hand there are concerns that the latest Fatwa by Pakistani religious scholar chief will flame more violence in Afghanistan.

Allegedly “Unbiased” US Congressman Pushes Break-up of “Vicious, Murderous, Gangster Regime In Pakistan”

[SEE: Congressman Rohrabacher’s Balochistan Hearing/Political Stunt–(reposted after disappearing) ; Rohrabacher: Obama Administration Favors Taliban Over Allies ;  US Congressman Pushing Another Terrorist Army In Another Plan To Cause Another Civil War  ;  Pentagon Calls for Free Balochistan–ChallengesPakistani Sovereignty with Baloch Symposium ]

US Congressman Rohrabacher demands referendum in Balochistan

UNPO convened an international conference at The Royal Society, London entitled ‘Global and Regional Security Challenges in South Asia: What Future for Balochistan?’. -Press Release Photo

BRUSSELS: In an effort to shed light on the key role Balochistan plays in South Asia, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) convened a conference entitled “Global and Regional Security Challenges in South Asia: What Future for Balochistan”, which took place at The Royal Society, London on 24 February 2013.

Key speaker at this conference, US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, gave a poignant speech urging the right to self-determination for the Baloch people.

The Congressman requested a referendum to be held in Balochistan on the question of independence, which would challenge the claims by Islamabad that the Baloch want to be part of Pakistan.

“As you may know, I have a resolution I submitted following hearings last year. This resolution basically says that the people of Balochistan have a right to control their destinies through the ballot box and we support a referendum for them to decide whether they stay part of Pakistan or not,” he said.

“Unfortunately, it has been American money and American support for a vicious, murderous, gangster regime in Pakistan that has kept this violence and horrendous reality as part of the lives of so many millions of people who live in South Asia,” Rohrabacher said in his speech.

He called for Pakistani officials to be tried for war crimes.

“First and foremost, we have to quit giving any military aid, and I would suggest we should quit giving any aid, to Pakistan who then uses our aid to murder and suppress people like the Baloch people, who are longing to have basic freedoms.

“We have to make sure that the evidence of this is clear to everybody and that the monstrous violence that is being laid upon the people of Balochistan is horrendous, he said.

Congressman Brian Higgins (D-NY) was also present.

The conference was opened by Marino Busdachin, General Secretary of UNPO, and Paulo Casaca, former MEP and Director of the South Asia Democratic Forum, who denounced above all the Pakistani government’s use of a ferocious ‘kill and dump’ policy in Balochistan.

The first panel, chaired by Noordin Mengal, discussed Balochistan’s role in the world power game.

Athar Hussain, Director of the Asia Research Centre at LSE, Dr. Naseer Dashti, Baloch writer, and Mohammad Ali Talpur, columnist at the Daily Times, addressed issues such as Pakistan’s inability as a state to protect its citizen and the brutality with which it has addressed tensions with Balochistan.

The second panel brought together Burzine Waghmar from the Centre for the Study of Pakistan at SOAS, journalist Anna Reitman, Nasser Boladai, President of the Baluchistan People’s Party, and Hammal Haider Baloch, spokesperson of the Baloch National Movement.

This panel addressed the talibanisation of Balochistan, the rise of islamic radicalism in South Asia, security in Iranian Balochistan, the key role energy and mining resources play in Balochistan, and the influence of Iran, Pakistan, India and China in the region.

The third panel concentrated on Balochistan’s future and the different ways forward, a subject strongly backed by US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

The Congressman stated that Pakistan is not a friend of the United States and of those who believe in peace, prosperity and freedom for the people of the world.

The Khan of Kalat, Mir Suleman Daud called for a united Baloch front in the struggle against the horrors imposed on the Baloch people by Islamabad.

Tarek Fatah gave a vigorous speech, pointing at the curse of colonialism and the lack of international support to Balochistan, while Pakistan keeps on betraying its international allies.

Prof Joshua Castellino of Middlesex University, spoke about the right to self determination of peoples, and Abubakar Siddique of RFE/RL, addressed issues of enforced disappearances and human rights in Balochistan.

The conference was concluded by Peter Tatchell, political activist and spokesperson for human rights of the Green Party (UK), who outlined his proposals for a way forward for Balochistan, stressing on the importance of forming a united Baloch front capable of convincing the international community.

Noordin Mengal concluded the conference by stating that a sovereign state of Balochistan would not only benefit the Baloch people, but the entire region.

This day-long conference produced the “Conference Declaration on the Restoration of the Rights of the Baloch People in light of Regional and Global Security”.

the Militants Floodgate Into Waziristan

[The recent arrest of Maulvi Faqir inside Nuristan, Afghanistan was certainly unexpected, apparently, it was no accident (SEE:  Pakistan to contact Interpol over Maulvi Faqir: Rehman Malik ).  From the reading of the tea leaves escaping from behind at least three curtains of military censorship and psywar, it seems that Afghan intelligence grabbed Faqir as a bargaining chip with Pakistan, probably intended to obtain access to Mullah Baradar (still being held by Pakistan), the only legitimate source for real peace negotiations with Mullah Omar.  Now, if they would just grab Fazlullah, Pakistan might reciprocate by reining-in the Haqqanis, the forces of Mullah Wazir, and anyone else who is actually attacking across the border.  The claim by the Karzai government that Faqir was planning attacks within Afghanistan are highly unlikely (SEE REPORT BELOW), given the history of past intrigues (SEE: Dissecting the Anti-Pakistan Psyop).  The fact that Afghanistan is refusing to hand Faqir to Pakistan could be written-off because of an absence of any extradition treaties, but it is more likely that both Faqir and Fazlullah have secrets to tell about their stay in Nuristan which Afghan intelligence wishes they would not reveal.  After all, it was the untimely removal of multiple border posts which made the territory along that section along the Durand Line which is adjacent to Waziristan, a real "no man's land" that no one's army any longer tries to tame. .  This one bad decision was a malicious bit of  strategy that was hatched by commander of ISAF, Gen McChrystal's, which made it possible for the Pak. Taliban to find safe sanctuary in Afghanistan.  The strategy was to create a rear staging area in Afghanistan, which would be a mirror image of the Pakistani sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban, only this safe staging area would be for the TTP.(SEE: McChrystal Opens the Militants Floodgate Into Waziristan, Removes Six Border Posts--10-19-2009)]

“ISLAMABAD: The US-led Nato forces vacated more than half a dozen key security checkposts on the Afghan side of the Pak-Afghan border just ahead of the major Pakistan Army ground offensive (code named: Rahe Nijaat) against Taliban-led militants in the volatile tribal area of South Waziristan, it is learnt.

It is feared that the American decision will facilitate Afghan Taliban in crossing over to Pakistan and support militants in striking back at the Pakistani security forces in the troubled tribal area.

Sources close to the NWFP government and military strategists involved in the planning of S Waziristan operation told The News over the weekend that the Americans vacated eight security checkposts on the Afghan side of the border just five days before the Army operation. Four of these close to South Waziristan including one each at Zambali and at Nurkha, and four in the north in the area of Nuristan where American forces recently came under violent attacks by the militants.

Latest reports indicate that the Americans have also removed some posts close to North Waziristan, which could encourage even more Afghan Taliban fighters to cross over to the Pakistan side. This has raised many eyebrows in government and military circles with points being made about “conflicting interests” and dubious American designs.”

“…Recent communication intercepts by Pakistani intelligence outfits have revealed that Taliban commander in Nuristan Qari Ziaur Rehman has invited TTP leader Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, former deputy of late Baitullah Mehsud, to come to Nuristan and operate from there if he finds space in Wazristan shrinking.

Experts believe the American move of vacating security checkposts on the Afghan side close to Pakistan’s border could undermine the military action by Pakistan Army. While on one hand it could offer an easy escape route to some militants, it is believed that this would facilitate movement of Afghan Taliban into Pakistan side to join hands with the al-Qaeda-backed local Taliban and other locals as well as foreign militant groups against the military action there.

Some observers see it as a tactical move by the US to ward off pressure from its own forces in Afghanistan that have been under severe attacks by the Afghan Taliban. Hence they want to provide them unhindered passage to Pakistan side, as it would help shift the main theatre of war from Afghanistan to inside Pakistan.

[Since the American plan was to duplicate the Waziristan situation in Eastern Afghanistan (in reverse), then this arrest of Faqir represents another potential disruption of a major operation which cannot be to the CIA's liking.  This situation is comparable to the 2007 exposure of the MI6 attempts to create a "Taliban split," in Helmand, to use in S. Waziristan, making use of Mansoor Dadullah, brother of Taliban hero Mullah Dadullah and designated by Mullah Omar himself as the heir to his brother's role as "Emir" of the original Pakistani Taliban.  This revelation resulted in the expulsion of British spies Mervyn Patterson and Michael Semple, who were building the first anti-Taliban network in Helmand.  All of Pakistan's efforts since then, to emulate the "Taliban split" tactics in Waziristan, have been thwarted by American drones, beginning with the Predator killing of Dadullah (SEE:  Waging War Upon Ourselves).  The latest drone "victory," the killing of Mullah Nazir (the ultimate "anti-Taliban"), is just the latest instance of America exercising its CIA veto over the strategy of the Pakistani Army, or is it just another glimpse of the ongoing ISI/CIA waltz?  One fact seems certain--the CIA owns the  ISI.]

Faqir planned attacks on senior Afghan officials

By Mahbob Shah Mahbob Feb 23, 2013 – 15:22

JALALABAD (PAN): Dreaded Pakistani insurgent commander Maulvi Faqir Ahmad had sneaked into eastern Afghanistan for consultations with the Afghan Taliban, an intelligence official revealed on Saturday.

The former Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan No 2 was arrested six days ago along with four associates in the Basawal area of the Momand Dara district in Nangarhar province. He is currently under investigation at a detention centre in Kabul.

Ever-since the high-profile rebel leader’s detention — seen as a key step in bilateral cooperation between Pakistani and Afghan spy services — both security officials as well as militant leaders have been reticent, given the sensitivity of the nature.

However, a National Directorate of Security (NDS) agent in the east confided to Pajhwok Afghan News that the most-wanted militant was nabbed in week after he crossed from the restive Bajaur tribal into Nangarhar.

The operation, based on actionable intelligence, was precisely planned and executed by elite units of police and NDS, according to the source, who said Faqir and an Afghan Taliban commander in the Tirah Valley — Shamsul Arifeen — had twice been sighted on this side of the border.

The guerrilla commanders, who had lately teamed up, wanted to attack important targets, including senior Afghan leaders, the official said.  However, he would not elaborate on who was the militants’ hit-list.

Also arrested during the raid were Maulana Hakim, Shahid Khan, Maulvi Turabi and Fateh Khan.

A day earlier, Afghanistan declined handing over Faqir Mohammad to the Pakistan government, arguing there was no extradition treaty between the neighbours.

On Thursday, Islamabad said it had asked Kabul to extradite the man involved in terrorist activities inside Pakistan. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar asked for the insurgent commander’s handover during a telephonic conversation with her Afghan counterpart Zalmai Rassoul.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office told a weekly media briefing Islamabad: “We hope he (Faqir) would be handed over to Pakistan as soon as possible because he has the blood of many innocent Pakistanis on his hands,” Foreign Office spokesman Moazzam Khan told journalists.

But his Afghan counterpart Janan Musazai, when approached for his comments, turned down Islamabad’s request. “During the recent tripartite meeting in London, the Afghan government requested the Pakistani side to return Afghan Taliban prisoners held by it so that they could participate in and support Afghanistan’s peace efforts.”

Musazai recalled the Pakistani side responded it could not hand over Taliban prisoners to the Afghan government because there was no prisoner exchange agreement between the two countries.

A political analyst, meanwhile, charaterised Islamabad’s demand as unjust, because the two sides have no yet concluded an agreement to the effect. Nangarhar University teacher, Prof. Abdur Rashid Malikzai, said Pakistan was yet to transfer a single Afghan fighter.

Another political commentator, Mohammad Anwar Sultani, blamed the Pakistani establishment for patronising insurgents who later turned against their mentors. “They placed a huge bounty on Faqir Mohammad’s head only after he started defying his supporters within the government.”

Sultani slammed Islamabad’s call as illogical in that many Afghan militants, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, were still being held in Pakistani jails.

mud

Hyderabad Bombing Leaves 16 dead and 120 injured

Specific alert was sent to Hyderabad yesterday morning: Govt

PTI

The two blasts on February 21, 2013 left 16 dead and 120 injured.

NEW DELHI: A specific alert warning attack by Pakistan-based terrorist group was shared by central security agencies with Hyderabad police on Thursday morning, home ministry officials said on Friday.

Twin blasts ripped through a crowded market in Hyderabad on Thursday, leaving 16 dead and 120 injured.

The ministry had sent specific alert yesterday morning to four cities — Hyderabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Hubli — warning them of probable attacks by terrorists, they said.

Besides, Maharashtra and Gujarat police forces were also sent the alert, the officials said.

According to home ministry officials, the alerts were also sent to all states on February 19 and 20, that Pakistan-based terrorist groups may carry out attacks in a major city to avenge the hanging of 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

They said the central security agencies had sent an advisory on Tuesday asking all states to tighten security in sensitive places as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen may launch attacks.

The security agencies sent another advisory on Wednesday saying banned Indian Mujahideen may carry out terror attacks to avenge the hanging of Kasab and Guru.

Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde had on Thursday said all states were alerted about a possible terror strike by militant groups.

However, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy had said those were general alerts which often keep coming from the Centre.

Lahore High Court Sets Bail for Shaitan–To Hell With Hazara

[What greater proof could you need that this latest so-called "operation against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi" is just more Pak Army lies (SEE:  Pakistan targets militants, Shiites end protest).   In reality, LeJ, and by extension, all of the "Punjabi-Taliban", work for Kayani and friends, so why would the govt. of Pakistan seriously interfere with their terroristic plans?  If LeJ is behind all the genocide of Hazara in Pakistan (and everyone knows that it is), then it is actually the Army's proxy terrorists who are killing all the Shia.   The Hazara of Quetta must not understand or believe this fact, since they have demanded that the Army takeover Quetta.  Until the armies of Sunni murderers of the Saudi/Qatari/CIA terror alliance are stopped, then there will be no safe ground in either Pakistan or Afghanistan for the Shia Hazara.]

Extremist leader Malik Ishaq freed from jail

AFP

The Chief Monster of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Malik Ishaq was released from prison today. -File Photo

LAHORE: Pakistan on Tuesday released the head of a banned extremist group after a court granted him bail, following his arrest on suspicion of inciting sectarian hatred, his lawyer said.

Malik Ishaq, the leader of the feared Lashkar-e-Jhangvi organisation, which is said to have al Qaeda links, was held for making a “provocative” speech earlier this month.

Ishaq has been implicated in dozens of cases, mostly murder, and was accused of masterminding a 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, which wounded seven players and an assistant coach and killed eight Pakistanis.

“The court has accepted his bail application and later he was freed from jail,” Arif Mehmood Rana, his lawyer told AFP.

Ijaz Shafi Dogar, a senior police officer confirmed to AFP that he was being freed as he was not wanted in any other case.

“He was set free this evening from Kot Lakhpat jail,” Dogar said.

Ishaq was detained over a speech he made at a religious school on August 19 in the wake of a rise in sectarian violence between majority Sunni and minority Shia Muslims.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is regarded as the most extreme Sunni terror group in Pakistan and is accused of killing hundreds of Shias after its emergence in the early 1990s. -AFP

Hazara killers — supported from Punjab to the Middle East

[SEE:  The Stunning Investigative Story on the Birth of Balochistan Liberation Army]

Zofeen Ebrahim

 

The February 16 bombing that killed over 90 people and injured more than 160, many of them critically, was the second major attack on Pakistan’s minority Shia Hazaras this year. — AP/File Photo

In the aftermath of the Quetta massacre, the arrests of a few Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militants have been looked upon warily as nothing more than a ploy to placate an angry nation.

If there was sincerity and strategic considerations behind this move, however, the headquarters of the Sunni extremist group in Punjab would have been dismantled much earlier.

But with elections approaching, a full-fledged and whole-hearted operation against such militant groups seems highly unlikely, especially in the Punjab, the breeding ground of sectarian militants. This has much to do with the fact that in Punjab, extremist and militant groups have a strong electoral presence.

“I doubt that there will be a real crackdown,” says author and journalist, Zahid Hussain, talking to Dawn.com: “The Punjab government has been looking the other way for too long and pursues the policy of appeasement.” He added that it had even made a covert deal for the release of LeJ leader Malik Ishaq.

Seconding Hussain, defence analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi added: “The Punjab Government is known for patronising the LeJ and (its predecessor) Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).”

But it’s not only the Punjab government complicit in the inaction against extremist sectarian outfits. The centre hasn’t appeared earnest about the issue either.

Hussain has serious reservations about Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority, for example. The authority was created in 2009 under an executive order. “It remains dormant and a toothless body because the bill has yet to be passed in the National Assembly. There is also the unresolved matter of whether it should fall under the umbrella of the interior ministry when in the original charter, it was to be under the prime minister,” he explains.

And so the scourge of extremism will continue, as was seen last week when terror revisited the Shia Hazaras on Kirani Road in the south-western Pakistani city Quetta. The attack was also a grim reminder that without a national consensus in Pakistan on how to deal with domestic terrorism, the next attack is not far behind.

The bomb that killed over 90 people and injured more than 160, many of them critically, was the second major attack on Pakistan’s minority Shia Hazaras this year. A twin-suicide attack at a snooker club on January 10 had killed 92 and wounded 121. With the Hazara community living huddled together in certain localities, they have become an even easier prey and large numbers can be annihilated in minutes.

Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) Chairperson Abdul Khaliq Hazara told Dawn.com that the terror and fear had reached such a crescendo that the Hazaras had stopped venturing out of their locales. “There is no place left in Quetta that remains safe for Hazaras, be it an educational institution, school, bus stops, government offices or a marketplace. Public space is increasingly shrinking for us,” he said.

Where the LeJ derives power from

The LeJ, which claimed responsibility for these attacks, is born out of SSP. It also has ties with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In fact, some of the top TTP leaders, like the current spokesperson, Ehsanullah Ehsan, were all members of LeJ in Punjab, before they became part of the TTP.

“These groups morph and gel and even support each other,” says Rizvi, who fears that “unless the government adopts a tough position and keeps up the pressure over an extended period of time” these attacks will continue.

Equally, if the government decides to pull the rug from under them, and has some successes to show to the people, it will gain legitimacy. “Nothing succeeds like success, and we saw that in Swat once the government decided to go all out; their efforts were lauded not criticized,” he points out.

The HDP chairperson agreed that “The state is more powerful than the militants. We believe the state knows who the culprits are and if it wants it can round up the militants, cleanse the city off them, even kill them, in just three days.” But, he adds, “They don’t want to.”

According to Rizvi, “Organisations like the LeJ, the SSP and the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat (ASWJ) are politically convenient, especially for all the Punjab-based political parties and even the present Punjab government – and they will not go beyond a certain point to enrage them.”

“So while they will condemn acts of sectarian attacks and militancy, they will never muster the courage to condemn a particular group,” he explains.

In addition, says Rizvi, these groups have embedded themselves in society by setting up schools, hospitals, mosques and other welfare organisations and created a strong support base, including those in the lower ranks of the police and the intelligence agencies.”

“There is no place left in Quetta that remains safe for Hazaras, be it an educational institution, school, bus stops, government offices or a marketplace. Public space is increasingly shrinking for us.”

It is very easy for the LeJ, a predominantly Punjabi group to thrive in Balochistan, he further explains. “With a non-existent provincial government and the support of the Taliban, the place became a safe haven.”

The LeJ made inroads in Balochistan and had steadily spread its wings (since 2004-05), where the ethnic Hazara community has been their main target. Talking to Dawn.com, senior journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai said: “Call it infiltration, or what you will, but the LeJ has succeeded in recruiting many Baloch, once considered quite secular.”

According to Hussain, the Baloch have “been indoctrinated into hating the Hazara community.”

Khaliq points out that the whereabouts of the militant camps was common knowledge. According to reliable sources, the training camps are run in Mastung and Khuzdar, from where earlier attacks on Shia pilgrims going to Iran have taken place. Those who are apprehended, meanwhile, are released for want of enough evidence – and if the evidence is there, it’s not produced in the courts.

The desire to eliminate Shias altogether is also constantly fed from the outside. “A proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia is being waged in Balochistan.” says Khaliq. It is widely held that these anti-Shia militants receive funding from the Sunni-Wahabi sheikhdoms of the Arab world. The Shias, on the other hand are perceived to be supporting Iran.

Hussain, meanwhile, expresses surprise over the mushrooming of madressas in Balochistan, which lacks “even the most basic facilities for locals”. The senior journalist adds that it’s common knowledge such ‘nurseries’ of extremism were being financed by Sunni-Wahabi leaning Middle Eastern countries.

So where do the agencies come in?

Some experts are also of the view that these assaults are carried out to deflect international attention from the ongoing separatist movement in Balochistan.

The HDP spokesperson insists that such acts of terrorism are carried out in collusion with the security and intelligence agencies.

Yusufzai, however, does not believe in this commonly held viewpoint. “These agencies would never allow their own country to get destabilised and they would never want to eliminate the Shia community. After all there are many Shias within these organisations too,” he points out.

According to Yusufzai, the intelligence agencies’ ‘incompetence’ can be attributed to “overwork”.

“Their hands are full with the ongoing separatist movement in one province, and the attacks by the TTP in others – and then these other militants fanning sectarianism. And if that were not all; these agencies are also being used for political purposes!” says Yusufzai.

Hussain plays down the involvement of the agencies, but adds, “They have the knowledge of who the culprits are but they are not focused on fighting these groups. So while they may not be in direct collusion; by their inaction they are helping these extremists gets stronger.”

“Throw the Shias out of the fold of Islam!”–Pak. Wahhabi Apologist

“Throw the Shias out of the fold of Islam!” Ansar Abbasi justifies #ShiaGenocide through his column in Jang

More than 21,000 Shia women, men and children have been killed in Pakistan by Takfiri Deobandi “Soldiers of the Companions”.”

Author: Mahpara Qalandar

In his column of 21 February 2013 published in Urdu daily Jang, Ansar Abbasi (pro-Taliban journalist) has continued his subtle justification of the Shia genocide at the hands of Takrifi Deobandi groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (aka ASWJ) and their sponsors such as the PML-N and some media houses such as the Geo-Jang group itself.

Writing his column against the background of the latest Shia carnage in Quetta in which 113 Shia men and women of every age were killed and hundreds injured by Takfiri Deobandi terrorists of Sipah-e-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Companions of Prophet aka ASWJ-LeJ), he starts in his usual style by quoting from the Quran and the Hadith by pleading for the unity of Pakistani Muslims. (Read the columns here: http://jang.com.pk/jang/feb2013-daily/21-02-2013/col16.htm)

In essence, Ansar Abbasi repeats the typical Salafist-Wahhabi Nazi-puritanical theory that sects are not allowed in Islam. In other words, all Shias, Sunni Barelvis etc should convert to Deobandi-Wahhabi sect in order to make Islam one and pure.

After urging the people to become just one group of Muslims, and not a collection of sects, Ansar Abbasi says,

(i) Allah is pleased with the Companions (Sahaba) of the Prophet (peace be upon him)

(ii) In the Koran, Allah says that He is as much happy with the Companions as they are happy with Him

(iii) According to the hadith, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that all of his companions are like the stars in the sky. This inauthentic (Zaeef) Hadith is often quoted by LeJ-ASWJ terrorists and neo-Nazis of Islam in order to silence all historically recorded criticism of the conduct of certain Sahaba after the Prophet’s death, particularly those who physically and politically hurt the Family and descendants (Ahle Bait and Aaal) of the Prophet Muhammad.

After this, Ansar Abbasi takes out his Sipah-e-Sahaba (ASWJ-LeJ) dagger and attacks the Shias: “How can one be so consumed in sectarian hatred that one starts saying indecent words about the companions and the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him)?”

Then he demands of the government and supports what has been previously demanded by Ahemd Ludhianvi, Malik Ishaq and pro-establishment Fake Liberals eg Ali Chishti, “The government should do legislation against those who insult the companions and the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and punish them to the maximum.”

Ansar Abbasi is a liar and a hypocrite. He claims that the companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) are sacrosanct and those who insult them should be severely punished. But he does not tell his readers who are Islamofascists like him that in the very Quran, Allah tells the Prophet (peace be upon him) that there are hypocrites around him. These are the words of Allah,

“If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and the alarmists in the city do not cease, We verily shall urge thee on against them, then they will be your neighbors in it but a little while.  Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter” (33: 60-62).

“And some of the illiterates around you are hypocrites; and some of the people of Medinah; hypocrisy has become ingrained in them; you do not know them*; We know them; We shall soon punish them twice – they will then be consigned towards the terrible punishment.(Until now or as well as We do. In life and in the grave of hell.)” (9:101)

In another place, Allah says,

“Already Allah knows the hinderers among you and those [hypocrites] who say to their brothers, ‘Come to us,’ and do not go to battle, except for a few” (33: 18).

Muaviya bin Abu Sufian, a companion of the Prophet (peace be upon him) whom Ansar Abbasi and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi idealize, was the one who started the evil tradition of cursing Imam Ali, the cousin, heir, and son-in-law of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in every Friday sermon. The cursing of the Imam Ali (the fourt Rashidun Caliph) continued for hundreds of years till the Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz put an end to it. What Muslim will not condemn a man who started the tradition of cursing a personality about whom the Prophet said, “I am from Ali and Ali is from me!” There are countless statements by the Prophet (peace be upon him) which glorify Imam Ali.

Hazrat Abu Bakr (RA) narrates,

“The Prophet of Allah [peace be upon him] once said to me, ‘Even to look at Ali is an act of worship!’”

And this is what Allah says about the hypocrites,

“O Prophet, fear Allah and do not obey the disbelievers and the hypocrites. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise” (33:1).

Ansar Abbasi has in a very cunning way justified the genocide of the Shias. Not a single word about the Shia genocide appears in his column. Not a word of condemnation of the genocide or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s crimes appears in his column. Like a true Yazidi and Jhangvi, he has blamed the victims, infants and little children included, for being Shia.

One hopes that the Muslims of Pakistan—of course excluding Takfiris like Ansar Abbasi himself—will condemn those in the media who justify the Shia genocide.

Exerpts from Caliphate and Monarchy (Khilafat-o-Mulookiat) by Syed Abul Ala Maudoodi

Maulana Maudoodi (famous Sunni scholar) reached to this conclusion AFTER years of research and reading/examining hundreds of books. Unlike self serving mullahs of today’s Pakistan who do not care about facts at all, Maulana Maudoodi did acknowledge how certain Sahaba (Companions) of the Prophet engaged in greed and mischief after the Prophet’s death and caused irreparable damage to Islam and violated the honour of the family and descendants of the Prophet.
http://worldshiaforum.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/exerpts-from-khalafat-and-monarchy-by-syed-abul-ala-maudoodi/

Related:
http://criticalppp.com/archives/233379

Suicide Squad Attacks Peshawar Office of Govt. Political Authority During Tribal Meeting

  source

[The attack took place during a meeting of local political figures, as well as another meeting between Pak. P.A. and Niaz Ahmed Khan tribal reps.]

Unabated violence: Bombers mount brazen attack in Peshawar cantt

By Riaz Ahmed

Published: February 19, 2013

Pakistani army soldiers move at the office of the top political official of Khyber tribal region after the militants attack in Peshawar PHOTO: AFP

PESHAWAR: In yet another high-profile attack, two suicide bombers stormed the office of the political agent of Khyber Agency in the high security zone of Peshawar on Monday, killing five people and injuring over a dozen more.

Political Agent Mutahir Zeb was unhurt but his deputy, Assistant Political Agent Khalid Mumtaz Khundi, was wounded in the attack that was not immediately claimed by any militant group.

According to police, two bombers, dressed as Levies personnel, first opened fire at the gate of the PA office located on Bara Road in the garrison area, killing and injuring some guards. Then they entered the building and a gunfight erupted.

“One of the bombers blew himself up when hit by bullets. The other, however, managed to reach the control room, destroying the building and the adjacent office,” SSP Operation Imran Shaid told The Express Tribune. 

Before detonating his bomb, one of the attackers tried to break into the part of the building where Additional Political Agent Attaur Rehman was presiding over a meeting of tribal politicians.

Jamil Shah, spokesman for the Lady Reading Hospital, said five people were killed and seven others admitted with serious injuries. Four security officials – Bakhatar, Barkat Dad, Hakimullah and Misri Khan – and an unidentified civilian were among the dead, he added.

APA Khundi was driven to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) for the treatment of his wounds.

Office-bearers of all political parties in Khyber Agency were discussing preparations for the next general election when the complex reverberated with heavy gunfire, Shah Hussain Shinwari, the president of ANP’s Khyber Agency chapter, told The Express Tribune.

“The firing continued for 15 minutes, after which we heard two loud explosions,” said Shinwari. “Within 20 minutes, army troops reached the spot, cordoned off the complex and started searching for the attackers’ bodies.”

Muhammad Iqbal Afridi, the local leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said the militants also hurled some grenades. “Security forces evacuated us from the building. While leaving, I saw two dead bodies and blood everywhere,” he told AFP.

“We have found two bodies in pieces. The bombers were about 20-years old and armed with automatic rifles as well as suicide vests,” said AIG Special Branch Sahfqat Malik who is also the head of the Bomb Disposal Squad. He added that the bombers were carrying up to eight kilos of explosives.

The meeting participants believe they were not the target. “It is easier for militants to target our public rallies than break into our offices. They were definitely looking for something else,” said one of the participants.

The complex contains the PA office, police cells to detain suspected militants, and residential quarters. And there were reports that attackers were trying to reach the detention cells where suspects are held.

It was the second high-profile terrorist attack in three days. On February 15, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti escaped a suicide attack in his hometown of Mardan. The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack.

The group had also claimed the December 22 assassination of senior provincial minister Bashir Bilour in a suicide bombing at a political meeting in Peshawar.  (With additional input from Agencies)

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2013.

Govt. Paramilitary Forces Begin Major Operation Against LeJ In Balochistan, Hazara End Protest, Bury Their Martyred

A Pakistani Shiite girl takes part in a sit-in protest with others to condemn the Saturday bombing which killed scores of people, in Quetta, Pakistan on Monday, Feb. 18, 2013. The families of the bombing victims have refused to bury their loved ones until authorities take action against the militants who were responsible. Mispelled and partially shown writing reads, “don’t kill me. I am Shia.” Arshad Butt / AP Photo

Pakistan targets militants, Shiites end protest

BY ABDUL SATTAR

ASSOCIATED PRESS

QUETTA, Pakistan – Thousands of Shiite Muslims ended three days of protests in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday after the government launched a paramilitary operation against militants responsible for a weekend bombing targeting the minority sect that killed 89 people.

The protesters in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, began preparations to bury the bombing victims after Shiite leaders announced an end to the demonstration. Relatives had refused to bury their loved ones until the army took control of Quetta and launched a targeted operation against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the group that claimed responsibility for Saturday’s bombing.

Shiites have criticized police and paramilitary forces under control of the Interior Ministry in Quetta for failing to protect the minority sect, which comprises up to 20 percent of the country’s population of 180 million.

There was no indication the army would take control of the city. But the government announced that paramilitary forces began an operation against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other militant groups Monday night.

Four members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, including a senior commander, were killed in a shootout Tuesday, and over 170 other suspected militants were arrested, said Baluchistan’s home secretary, Akbar Hussain Durrani.

The government also replaced the top police officer in Baluchistan on Tuesday, said Fayaz Sumbal, deputy police chief in Quetta. Sumbal has also been ordered to replace the chief of police operations in Quetta, he said.

“Our demands have been accepted,” a top Shiite leader in Quetta, Amin Shaheedi, told reporters after holding talks with a government delegation sent from Islamabad. “We appeal to our people to go to their homes in a peaceful manner.”

It remains to be seen what impact the government’s actions will have on the problem of sectarian violence in Quetta. Suspected militants are notoriously difficult to prosecute in Pakistan, and it’s unclear if the operation against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and others will be sustained.

Radical Sunni militants have stepped up attacks against Shiites over the past year because they do not consider them to be real Muslims. Violence has been especially bad in Baluchistan province, which has the highest concentration of Shiites in the country. A double bombing at a billiards hall in January in Quetta killed 86 people.

Pakistan has launched numerous military operations against militants in recent years, but the focus has been on the Pakistani Taliban, who have been waging a bloody insurgency against the state that has killed thousands of people.

Rights organizations have criticized the government for not doing enough to target militant groups attacking Shiites. They explain this apathy by pointing to past connections between the country’s military and anti-Shiite militants, and also allege the sectarian groups are seen as less of a threat than the Taliban because they are not targeting the state. Political parties have also relied on banned sectarian groups to deliver votes in elections.

The four Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants killed Tuesday in a suburb of Quetta included Shah Wali, a senior commander involved in attacking Shiites and police officials, said Durrani, the home secretary. Others included Abdul Wahab, a key planner and recruiter; Naeem Khan, a logistics expert who provided explosives; and Anwar Khan, a rank and file militant, said Durrani.

Seven other Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants were arrested in the operation Tuesday, said Durrani. The more than 170 suspected militants arrested earlier included Haji Mohammed Rafiq, a prominent member of another Sunni extremist organization, Ahle Sunnat Waljamaat, said the home secretary.

Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf first announced the operation in a statement issued by his office Tuesday that said it “aimed at eliminating those responsible for playing with lives of innocent civilians and restoring peace and security in Quetta.”

Last year was the bloodiest in history for Pakistan’s Shiites, according to Human Rights Watch. Over 400 were killed in targeted attacks across the country, at least 125 of whom were died in Baluchistan.

With two massive bombings targeting Shiites in as many months this year already, 2013 looks like it could be even worse.

The government promised to take action against sectarian militants following protests in January against the billiards hall bombing. Shiites brought the bodies of the victims into the street at the time and refused to bury them unless the government took steps to protect them.

After four days, Islamabad decided to dissolve the provincial government and put a federally-appointed governor in charge. The government said paramilitary forces would receive police powers and launch an operation against the militants behind the billiards hall attack. But officials refused to put the army in control of the city, as they have done this time around.

Around 15,000 Shiites took to the streets to protest near the site of the recent attack Tuesday, before their leaders called an end to the demonstration. Others stayed beside the bodies of the bombing victims inside a nearby mosque. Some chanted “God is great.” Others held placards that said “Stop killing Shiites.”

Shiite leaders made speeches to the crowd saying their demands had been accepted and urged them to disperse peacefully after the talks with the government delegation. They also urged Shiites in other parts of the country, such as Karachi and Islamabad, to end smaller protests held over the past few days.

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed, Zarar Khan, Asif Shahzad and Sebastian Abbot contributed to this report from Islamabad.

Prime Minister Ashraf Orders Targeted Operation Against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) In Quetta

PM orders targeted operation in Quetta

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.—File Photo

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has ordered on Tuesday the security forces to begin targeted operations in Quetta, DawnNews reported.

According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s spokesperson, Prime Minister Raja ordered for the initiation of targeted operations in Quetta adding that those responsible for the Quetta carnage should be targeted.

The statement further said that immediate action should be taken in those areas where information indicates presence of terrorist elements and that security forces should conduct targeted operations.

The spokesman further said that the prime minister would monitor the Quetta operation.

Moreover Prime Minister also ordered for the removal of Balochistan’s Inspector General of Police, Tariq Umer Khatab, and replaced him with Mushtaq Sukhera media channels reported. The prime minister also ordered the transfer of various other police officials posted in Balochistan.

Meanwhile, thousands of Shia protested for a third day in Quetta, demanding the army take control of the city and launch a targeted operation against sectarian militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

The group claimed responsibility for the bombing Saturday that killed 87 people and one in January that killed at least 93.

US-Saudi funded terrorists sowing chaos in Pakistan

Pakistani Shia Muslims gather around the coffins of bomb attack victims as they demonstrate in Quetta on February 18, 2013.

Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province, bordering both US-occupied Afghanistan as well as Iran, was the site of a grisly market bombing that has killed over 80 people.

According to reports, the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. Billed as a “Sunni extremist group,” it instead fits the pattern of global terrorism sponsored by the US, Israel, and their Arab partners Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was in fact created, according to the BBC, to counter Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the 1980′s, and is still active today. Considering the openly admitted US-Israeli-Saudi plot to use Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups across the Middle East to counter Iran’s influence, it begs the question whether these same interests are funding terrorism in Pakistan to not only counter Iranian-sympathetic Pakistani communities, but to undermine and destabilize Pakistan itself.

The US-Saudi Global Terror Network

While the United States is close allies with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is well established that the chief financier of extremist militant groups for the past 3 decades, including al-Qaeda, are in fact Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While Qatari state-owned propaganda like Al Jazeera apply a veneer of progressive pro-democracy to its narratives, Qatar itself is involved in arming, funding, and even providing direct military support for sectarian extremists from northern Mali, to Libya, to Syria and beyond.

France 24′s report “Is Qatar fuelling the crisis in north Mali?” provides a useful vignette of Saudi-Qatari terror sponsorship, stating:

“The MNLA [secular Tuareg separatists], al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and MUJAO [movement for unity and Jihad in West Africa] have all received cash from Doha.”

A month later Sadou Diallo, the mayor of the north Malian city of Gao [which had fallen to the Islamists] told RTL radio: “The French government knows perfectly well who is supporting these terrorists. Qatar, for example, continues to send so-called aid and food every day to the airports of Gao and Timbuktu.”

The report also stated:

“Qatar has an established a network of institutions it funds in Mali, including madrassas, schools and charities that it has been funding from the 1980s,” he wrote, adding that Qatar would be expecting a return on this investment.

“Mali has huge oil and gas potential and it needs help developing its infrastructure,” he said. “Qatar is well placed to help, and could also, on the back of good relations with an Islamist-ruled north Mali, exploit rich gold and uranium deposits in the country.”

These institutions are present not only in Mali, but around the world, and provide a nearly inexhaustible supply of militants for both the Persian Gulf monarchies and their Western allies to use both as a perpetual casus belli to invade and occupy foreign nations such as Mali and Afghanistan, as well as a sizable, persistent mercenary force, as seen in Libya and Syria. Such institutions jointly run by Western intelligence agencies across Europe and in America, fuel domestic fear-mongering and the resulting security state that allows Western governments to more closely control their populations as they pursue reckless, unpopular policies at home and abroad.

Since Saudi-Qatari geopolitical interests are entwined with Anglo-American interests, both the “investment” and “return on this investment” are clearly part of a joint venture. France’s involvement in Mali has demonstrably failed to curb such extremists, has instead, predictably left the nation occupied by Western interests while driving terrorists further north into the real target, Algeria.

Additionally, it should be noted, that France in particular, played a leading role along side Qatar and Saudi Arabia in handing Libya over to these very same extremists. French politicians were in Benghazi shaking hands with militants they would be “fighting” in the near future in northern Mali.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is Part of US-Saudi Terror Network

In terms of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as well as the infamous Lashkar-e-Taiba that carried out the 2008 Mumbai, India attack killing over 160, both are affiliates of Al Qaeda, and both have been linked financially, directly to Saudi Arabia. In the Guardian’s article, “WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists,” the US State Department even acknowledges that Saudi Arabia is indeed funding terrorism in Pakistan:

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton.

“More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups,” says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” she said.

Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has also been financially linked to the Persian Gulf monarchies. Stanford University’s “Mapping Militant Organizations: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,” states under “External Influences:”

LeJ has received money from several Persian Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates[25] These countries funded LeJ and other Sunni militant groups primarily to counter the rising influence of Iran’s revolutionary Shiism.

Astonishingly, despite these admission, the US works politically, financially, economically, and even militarily in tandem with these very same state-sponsors of rampant, global terrorism. In Libya and Syria, the US has even assisted in the funding and arming of Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups, and had conspired with Saudi Arabia since at least 2007 to overthrow both Syria and Iran with these terrorist groups. And while Saudi Arabia funds terrorism in Pakistan, the US is well documented to be funding political subversion in the very areas where the most heinous attacks are being carried out.

US Political Subversion in Baluchistan, Pakistan

The US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been directly funding and supporting the work of the “Balochistan Institute for Development” (BIFD) which claims to be “the leading resource on democracy, development and human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan.” In addition to organizing the annual NED-BFID “Workshop on Media, Democracy & Human Rights” BFID reports that USAID had provided funding for a “media-center” for the Baluchistan Assembly to “provide better facilities to reporters who cover the proceedings of the Balochistan Assembly.” We must assume BFID meant reporters “trained” at NED-BFID workshops.

There is also Voice of Balochistan whose every top-story is US-funded propaganda drawn from foundation-funded Reporters Without Borders, Soros-funded Human Rights Watch, and even a direct message from the US State Department itself. Like other US State Department funded propaganda outfits around the world – such as Thailand’s Prachatai – funding is generally obfuscated in order to maintain “credibility” even when the front’s constant torrent of obvious propaganda more than exposes them.

Perhaps the most absurd operations being run to undermine Pakistan through the “Free Baluchistan” movement are the US and London-based organizations. The “Baloch Society of North America” almost appears to be a parody at first, but nonetheless serves as a useful aggregate and bellwether regarding US meddling in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. The group’s founder, Dr. Wahid. Baloch, openly admits he has met with US politicians in regards to Baluchistan independence. This includes Neo-Con warmonger, PNAC signatory, corporate-lobbyist, and National Endowment for Democracy director Zalmay Khalilzad.

Dr. Wahid Baloch considers Baluchistan province “occupied” by both the Iranian and Pakistani governments – he and his movement’s humanitarian hand-wringing gives Washington the perfect pretext to create an armed conflagration against either Iran or Pakistan, or both, as planned in detail by various US policy think-tanks.

There is also the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad, or BSO. While it maintains a presence in Pakistan, it has coordinators based in London. London-based BSO members include “information secretaries” that propagate their message via social media, just as US and British-funded youth organizations did during the West’s operations against other targeted nations during the US-engineered “Arab Spring.”

And while the US does not openly admit to funding and arming terrorists in Pakistan yet, many across established Western policy think-tanks have called for it.

Selig Harrison of the convicted criminal, George Soros-funded Center for International Policy, has published two pieces regarding the armed “liberation” of Baluchistan.

Harrison’s February 2011 piece, “Free Baluchistan,” calls to “aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression.” He continues by explaining the various merits of such meddling by stating:

“Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.”

Harrison would follow up his frank call to carve up Pakistan by addressing the issue of Chinese-Pakistani relations in a March 2011 piece titled, “The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis.” He states:

“China’s expanding reach is a natural and acceptable accompaniment of its growing power-but only up to a point. ”

He continues:

“To counter what China is doing in Pakistan, the United States should play hardball by supporting the movement for an independent Baluchistan along the Arabian Sea and working with Baluch insurgents to oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar. Beijing wants its inroads into Gilgit and Baltistan to be the first step on its way to an Arabian Sea outlet at Gwadar.”

While aspirations of freedom and independence are used to sell Western meddling in Pakistan, the geopolitical interests couched behind this rhetoric is openly admitted to. The prophetic words of Harrison should ring loud in one’s ears today. It is in fact this month, that Pakistan officially hands over the port in Gwadar to China, and Harrison’s armed militants are creating bloodshed and chaos, attempting to trigger a destructive sectarian war that will indeed threaten to “oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar.”

Like in Syria, we have a documented conspiracy years in the making being carried out before our very eyes. The people of Pakistan must not fall into the trap laid by the West who seeks to engulf Baluchistan in sectarian bloodshed with the aid of Saudi and Qatari-laundered cash and weapons. For the rest of the world, we must continue to uncover the corporate-financier special interests driving these insidious plots, boycott and permanently replace them on a local level.

The US-Saudi terror racket has spilled blood from New York City, across Northern Africa, throughout the Middle East, and as far as Pakistan and beyond. If we do not undermine and ultimately excise these special interests, their plans and double games will only get bolder and the inevitability of their engineered chaos effecting us individually will only grow.

TC/JR

Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer. He has been published on many alternative media websites, including Alternative Thai News Network and LocalOrg. His writings deal with world events from a Southeast Asian perspective as well as promoting self-sufficiency as one of the keys to true freedom. His website is Land Destroyer Report. More articles by Tony Cartalucci

Time for Shias to leave Pakistan?

Murtaza Haider

It is a massacre alright. Sunni extremists, aligned with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, are killing Shias by the dozens in Pakistan.

I was yet to compile the list of the 106 (mostly Shias) killed in the twin bomb blasts in Quetta last month, that the news of another bomb blast killing yet another 84 (mostly Shias) in Quetta came over the wire. As the Shia massacres in Pakistan gain momentum, the State, including the Superior Courts, appear completely impotent.

In such troubling times some Shias may have a choice. They may sit and wait for a messiah or relocate to a Shia-exclusive enclave elsewhere, or to escape from Pakistan altogether. It may sound harsh, but it is an inescapable truth that Pakistan has been run over by the extremists and life is going to be even tougher for the minorities and moderate Sunnis in the near future.

In the two consecutive months this year, bomb blasts have killed hundreds of Shia Hazaras in Quetta, a Garrison town where each and every street is manned by intelligence operatives. Still, the militants operate with impunity. Saturday’s bomb blast, which has killed over 80 and injured hundreds, occurred almost within a month of the last bomb blast that delivered even a higher death toll.

Space is fast running out in Shia graveyards in Quetta. It may be the time for Shias to relocate to protect their next generation.

Many naively believe that peace will prevail in Pakistan and Afghanistan after the scheduled withdrawal of Nato troops from Afghanistan in 2014. While I vehemently oppose prolonging the stay of the Nato forces in the region, still I believe this would spell even a bigger disaster for the minorities in Pakistan. The battle-hardened veterans of the Afghan war will return to Pakistan to target Shias, Ahmadis, and other religious minorities. Even Barelvis may not escape the wrath of the mostly Deobandi-led militancy.

There are reasons for my pessimism. I saw the same happen in the late nineties when the Afghan war veterans were pushed into Indian-administered Kashmir. The resulting militancy left over 70,000 dead in Kashmir but failed to make any tangible progress towards the resolution of the dispute that has pitched India, Pakistan, and Kashmiris in a deadly decades old conflict.

What looked like a gory beginning of a new millennium in Indian-administered Kashmir, the security landscape however suddenly transformed in 2002 when the militants started to relocate to Pakistan and Afghanistan to join the Pashtun Taliban. The result was a decline in militancy which is evident from the graph below that shows the drop in the number of news reports about militancy in Srinagar starting after 2002.

Source: Tabulations by the author using the Factiva (2013) database.

A spike in militancy in Pakistan however is observed at the same time when militancy subsided in Indian-administered Kashmir. See the graph below that documents the number of civilians and security force personnel who became victims of terrorist violence in Pakistan. Since 2003, Pakistan has been the target of terrorism orchestrated by the very agents who once afforded the state its strategic depth.

Source: http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/casualties.htm (Feb. 15, 2013).

Shias and other religious minorities are the most targeted in Pakistan. No city is safe anymore. The past few weeks saw the targeted killing of Shia lawyers, doctors, and other professionals in Peshawar. Shia legislators were shot dead in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi. While the State is struggling to suppress violence against Shias, the deep-rooted support for militants in society and the inadequate judicial system in Pakistan has created the situation where hardly any terrorist has been convicted of sectarian or other terrorism in Pakistan. In the past few years, several known militants have been set free by the courts because of the archaic judicial system that is incapable of convicting those involved in the modern-day guerilla warfare.

Some, not all, Shias have a choice. They can abandon the death traps in Quetta and Peshawar by relocating to the Shia majority areas in Karachi, Lahore, and other cities. A better option is to plead with the embassies in Islamabad for asylum for the Shia, especially the Hazara, youth.

Seeking asylum abroad may not win the approval of Pakistan’s superior courts, who have recently mocked those who held dual citizenship. However, it is better to be alive in exile than to be splattered on a wall in Pakistan.

---

Murtaza Haider, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto. He can be reached by email at murtaza.haider@ryerson.ca

The Direct Cost of American/Saudi Sponsorship of Sunni Terrorism Can Be Measured In Shia Lives

A Pakistani man comforts another mourning for a family member who died in a bomb blast, at local hospital in Quetta, Pakistan on Saturday.(Photo: Arshad Butt, AP)

Baghdad

36 killed, 100 injured in Iraq car bomb attacks targeting Shias

Quetta blast death toll reaches 84

Shiites lash out after Pakistan bombing kills 81

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Angry residents on Sunday demanded government protection from an onslaught of attacks against Shiite Muslims, a day after 81 people were killed in a massive bombing that a local official said was a sign that security agencies were too scared to do their jobs.

Saturday’s blast at a produce market in the city of Quetta also wounded 160 people and underlined the precarious situation for Shiites living in a majority Sunni country where many extremist groups don’t consider them real Muslims.

Most of the dead and wounded were Hazaras, an ethnic group that migrated from Afghanistan over a century ago. Shiite Muslims, including Hazaras, have often been targeted by Sunni extremists in the province of Baluchistan where Quetta is the capital, the southern city of Karachi and northwestern Pakistan.

At the blast site, members of the Hazara community helped authorities dig through rubble to find the dead or survivors. Most of their efforts were focused on a two-story building that was completely destroyed. More than 20 shops nearby were also demolished.

Clothing and shoes were scattered through the concrete rubble, broken steel bars and shattered wooden window frames littering the streets.

One of those helping, 40-year-old Qurban Ali, was instructing young people to be patient and careful while removing the rubble, lest they hurt themselves or survivors still buried in the debris. His cousin Abbas was still missing after the blast.

Like many Hazaras, he lashed out at the people who perpetrated the violence.

“Who are these people who made us Hazara so grim and sad? Why are they after us?” he asked. “Not one month or week passes here without the killing of a member of the Hazara community … Why is the government — both central and provincial — so lethargic in protecting Shiites?”

Near the rubble, a group of more than 50 women were wailing and beating their heads in mourning.

On the road to the neighborhood where the attack occurred, Hazara youth burned tires and chanted for the arrests of the killers. A number of Shiite groups also staged a sit-in and were demanding the immediate removal of the chief secretary of Baluchistan and the top police official, said Rahim Jaffery, who heads a Shiite organization called the Council for the Protection of Mourning.

“We are demanding the city (protection) be handed over to the army so that the killing of Hazara Shiites can be stopped,” he said.

Jaffery said a mass funeral for the victims had been planned for Sunday afternoon but all Shiite groups were meeting to decide whether to stage a protest similar to one in January when they refused to bury their dead for four days.

That protest led the prime minister to sack the chief minister of the province and his cabinet and put Governor Zulfiqar Magsi directly in charge of the region — a move that many Shiites thought would help protect their community. But the governor’s comments revealed his frustration at a job growing ever more difficult.

Magsi said the blast was the result of a failure of the security and intelligence agencies in the province.

“Officials and personnel of these institutions are scared (of the terrorists). Therefore they don’t take action against them,” he said in comments that were broadcast on local television.

A militant group called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi called one local television station to claim responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan’s intelligence agencies helped nurture Sunni militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the 1980s and 1990s to counter a perceived threat from neighboring Iran, which is mostly Shiite. Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 2001, but the group continues to operate fairly freely in their war against Shiites.

Last year was particularly deadly for Shiites in Pakistan. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 400 were killed in targeted attacks across the country. The human rights group said more than 125 were killed in Baluchistan province, most of whom belonged to the Hazara community.

Human rights groups have accused the government of not doing enough to protect Shiites.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

More American Pretend Negotiations with the “Taliban”–(who knows who they are really talking with, or if they are)

[The Taliban are denying that the meeting took place.  The following report claims that the meeting was allegedly with former or current Taliban leader, Tayyab Agha, the guy that the Americans have been pretending to meet with (SEE:   TOWDE KHABARE: Who Is Fazlur Rehman Representing?), claiming that he was the personal representative of Mullah Omar.  The alleged meet between Rahman and Agha, was another American production (SEE:  JUI-F Chief Fazlur Rehman Invited in US-Taliban Qatar Peace Talks: Hafiz), just the latest edition of the fake "reconciliation" talks which had been set in motion by Amb. Holbrooke and Hillary.  It is no wonder that the Pak government is disassociating  itself from the sham process (even though Rahman is known to be a Zardari puppet and an "opportunist posing as an Islamic leader") and keeping Mullah Baradar (Brother) in the wings until the real Mullah Omar is ready to talk.]

Taliban deny meeting Pakistani Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman

By GHANIZADA

The Taliban militant group in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied reports regarding Taliban negotiators meeting with Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Fazlur Rehman in Qatar.

According to reports Fazlur Rehman travelled to Qatar in a bid to meet with the Taliban group representatives and “encourage the negotiators to talk to the Afghan government.”

However Taliban militant group in Afghanistan following a statement dismissed the report and termed it incorrect.

The statement further addded, “Several media outlets have reported that the head of Pakistan’s Jamiat Ulama Islam, respected Maulana Fazl Rahman, visited Qatar to meet with the respected chief and other dignitaries of Islamic Emirate’s Political office so to play the role of an intermediary for talks with the Kabul administration.”

“We must state that no members of Islamic Emirate’s Political Office nor has its respected chief met with anyone and neither do they plans to meet in the near future. All current and future reports in this regard are the personal views of the publishers which do not have any bases.” Taliban said following the statement.

In the meantime Taliban group spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, “We want to make it categorically clear that the honourable head of the political office of the Islamic Emirate and any other member of the office in Qatar has neither met anyone nor any such meeting had been under consideration.”

However, sources close to the Taliban in Qatar, have confirmed to Pakistan’s The Express Tribune that Rehman held one round of talks with the Taliban negotiators in Qatar and that more talks are planned.

The JUI-F chief – who was earlier scheduled to return home on Tuesday – has also extended his stay in the Gulf state, the sources said.

Another JUI-F source in Pakistan, had earlier told The Express Tribune, that Rehman had gone to Qatar to meet representatives of the Afghan Taliban to “reduce gap” between the Taliban and the Karzai government.

Taliban has so far refused to hold talks with the Afghan government, which they say is powerless and installed by foreigners.

Sipah-e-Sahaba Murder A Shiite Who Had Recently Converted from Sunni Faith

Pakistan Shia Killings: Wahhabi Terrorists Kill 4, Including a Father and Son

Saudi-funded terrorists shot martyred 4 Shia Muslims in different areas of Pakistan on Saturday and Sunday. Amjad Ali Zaidi and Asif Ali Zaidi and Qamar Raza martyred in Karachi, Basheer Bacha, a Sunni Muslim recently converted to Shia, in Khyber Pakhtunkhuwa.

Father and son martyred in attack of Sipah-e-Sahaba in KarachiSaudi-funded terrorists of Sipah-e-Sahaba shot martyred a Shia father and his son in Orangi Town district west of Karachi on Sunday.

The excommunicator terrorists opened fire upon Amjad Ali Zaidi and Asif Ali Zaidi in Raees Amrohvi Colony Orangi Town.

Due to targeted firing Amjad Zaidi and Asif Zaidi embraced martyrdom. The martyrs were father and son. Similar murders of father and son had taken place in recent past in Orangi and some other areas of Karachi.

Karachi: Shiite Teacher murdered by Sipah-e-Sahaba

A Shiite named Syed Qamar Raza Naqvi was shot dead by terrorists of Sipah-e-Sahaba near Karachi Golimar’s Liaqat Chowk.

The 29 year-old Syed Qamar Raza Naqvi was targeted when he went to Golimar to tuition children. Eye-witnesses claim the terrorists came from the Wahabi-Mosque Bab-ul-Salam and shot the martyr 3 times in the head. His body was then left on the road for over 20 minutes. The martyr has now been moved to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and will be taken to the Rizvia Imambargah after legal procedures.

The Shiite Genocide is being conducted all over the Pakistan by a handful of terrorists under the supervision of questionable Colonels and Generals of the country. The security agencies and the government are, still, asleep. The International Human Rights Commission has said more than once that State Agencies are behind the Shiite Genocide.It is very regrettable to say that, Shiite religious scholars just sit in their houses and condemn the government and such terrorists acts and nothing else.

Charsadda: Sipah-e-Sahaba break into Shiite house, 1 Shiite killed

Saudi-funded terrorists of Sipah-e-Sahaba broke into the house of a converted from Sunni to Shiite, Basheer Bacha, in Charsadda’s village Tana Parang and killed him, on Friday 9.2.2013.

The Martyr was a local Shiite Leader. He had converted to Shiite Islam a few years ago. The terrorists killed him inside his own house.

Charsaddah is situated in Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa province.

Judge Issues Arrest Warrant for Lal Masjid Mullah/Troublemaker

Non-bailable warrants for Lal Masjid cleric

Malik Asad

Shehzad Khan civil judge cum judicial magistrate resumed hearing of the case registered against Maulana Aziz and his other associates in April 2007 for threatening the owners of CD shops and forcibly closing their businesses in F-7 Markaz and Aabpara Market. —AFP Photo

ISLAMABAD: A local court on Saturday issued non-bailable warrants for Maulana Abdul Aziz, Khateeb of Lal Masjid, and four witnesses, including a police officer.

The orders were passed after the court found the above mentioned individuals absent during the proceedings of a case involving harassment of owners of CD shops.

Important to note that after acquittal from 26 cases, the only case pending against Maulana Aziz is the said case, which is also in its final stage.

Shehzad Khan civil judge cum judicial magistrate resumed hearing of the case registered against Maulana Aziz and his other associates in April 2007 for threatening the owners of CD shops and forcibly closing their businesses in F-7 Markaz and Aabpara Market.

The order was passed, when during the hearings, it transpired that neither Maulana Aziz nor any of the witnesses, including a deputy superintendent of police Mohammad Ashraf Shah were present in the court.

The judge expressed annoyance over the absence of the accused and the witnesses of the case and issued the warrants.

However, Maulana Wajihullah, counsel of Maulana Aziz, appeared before the judge and informed that the cleric because of other engagements was not in Islamabad and, therefore, could not appear in the court.

The counsel assured the court that Maulana Aziz would appear in the court on the next date of hearing.

The judge, however, issued the non-bailable arrest warrants for Maulana Aziz as well as for the witnesses and adjourned the matter till February 14.

It may be mentioned that Maulana Aziz has been acquitted in over two dozen cases in the last couple of years.

These cases were registered against the cleric in 2007, when relations between Lal Masjid and the government deteriorated and led to the July 3 operation.

Among them the famous cases registered against the cleric were of abducting Aunti Shamim and her daughter, abduction of police officials and seizing of official vehicles, launching FM Radio without obtaining prior permission of the government, CD
burning case, killing of a Rangers official and sabotaging and damaging government property.

The Pak Army’s Alternate Reality Awaits Returning Tribes In S. Waziristan

In Former Taliban Sanctuary, an Eerie Silence Takes Over

By DION NISSENBAUM

KOTKAI, Pakistan—In the midst of a sprawling desert stands a small town that has the look and feel for some of a prefab Potemkin village.

The military has tried for three years to transform this onetime Taliban sanctuary into a model village. Well-concealed caves once used by militants have been supplanted by cliff-side army outposts. Teens who might have become insurgent recruits now play soccer with soldiers on a refurbished sports field. Jobless men linger at a half-empty, army-subsidized roadside market nestled below a hillside peppered with abandoned homes.

Photos: Rebuilding Kotkai

View Slideshow

Dion Nissenbaum/The Wall Street JournalResidents who have returned to South Waziristan spend hours at the army-subsidized town markets, which the military hopes will become small economic hubs for the area.

This is counterinsurgency, Pakistan-style. In 2009, the Pakistani government staged a major offensive to retake Kotkai and the rest of South Waziristan from al Qaeda militants and Taliban fighters who had turned the Delaware-size region into a perilous stronghold. Now, the government is waging a different campaign—trying to convince a wary population to return to a home they abandoned during the fighting.

The effort has produced some surreal scenery, with shuttered markets in virtual ghost-towns set alongside deserted stretches of highway. So far, the military has discovered that luring people back to a battle-scarred area—particularly while the fight goes on—may be as challenging as pushing the militants out.

“People want to go back, but they don’t want to go back when they are afraid for their lives,” said Reza Nasim Jan, a researcher at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who is studying the Pakistan counterinsurgency campaign.

The U.S. has a stake in the strategy, which is part of a stark reality of modern warfare, as countries try to stabilize risky battle zones before once-embedded militants can return. Since 2007, it has dedicated more than $1 billion in civilian aid to South Waziristan and the broader region. U.S. officials are hoping the military will use the 2009 offensive as a springboard to launch a major offensive in North Waziristan, now the most important sanctuary for the Taliban and anti-American militants.

[full size HERE ]

In an effort to promote its campaign to reshape South Waziristan, the Pakistan military granted The Wall Street Journal rare access to the restricted military zone that has long been off-limits to international reporters. Pakistan said it was the first time in years that an American reporter had been given permission to enter the tightly controlled area.

Pakistani military leaders here say reviving impoverished towns remains the centerpiece of the country’s evolving campaign to convert longtime insurgent havens into tranquil sanctuaries where militants can no longer hide. The campaign mirrors the strategy embraced by the U.S. itself in Iraq and Afghanistan, where American troops spent years rebuilding forsaken insurgent strongholds.

“That’s the way out,” said Brigadier General Hassan Hayat, the commander of Pakistani forces in-and-around Kotkai. “If you don’t follow the counterinsurgency model of winning hearts and minds, you can keep fighting for years to come.”

Though quieter now, the rocket-pocked cliff-side homes and hidden caves of South Waziristan were once used by al Qaeda and the Taliban as a staging ground for attacks against Pakistani officials, American soldiers in neighboring Afghanistan and adversaries across the globe. Armed CIA drones frequently buzzed overhead, searching for targets as some of the world’s most sought-after terrorists trained suicide bombers, cultivated double agents and orchestrated political assassinations.

Faced with new Taliban leaders turning their deadly focus more toward Pakistan, the military sent 28,000 soldiers into the region in 2009, launching airstrikes and sending in paratroops to overwhelm the insurgents in two months. As the conflict unfolded, two-thirds of South Waziristan’s 590,000 residents fled.

“They say even the birds left the area,” General Hayat said during the tour of South Waziristan. “It was a challenge to bring people back.”

To a large degree, that challenge remains. In the small rehabilitated zone around Kotkai, military leaders say three-quarters of residents have returned. But in all of South Waziristan, only about 10,000 families have come back, according to Pakistan government statistics; another 41,000 families, which could be more than 300,000 people, still live as de facto refugees in their own country. United Nations officials said many have settled with family nearby or are still living in refugee camps.

For those who do return, access in the zone is strictly regulated. Only Pakistanis who have gone through a formal repatriation process are allowed to freely come and go, military officials said. All other visitors, be they U.N. consultants or family relatives, must get military permission.

The process includes a long registration, and returnees must carry identification cards. They are given $250 and a card that entitles them to six months of food rations. They are not allowed to own weapons, prompting the more-creative residents to carry wood slingshots instead. Telephone service is also tightly regulated; military leaders worry that regular phone access could help the Taliban to reorganize there.

More than 10,000 members of the Pakistan military secure the area around Kotkai, officials said, a ratio of one soldier for every five civilians. The intensive security bubble gives the military so much confidence that commanding generals drive around without wearing flak jackets and officers pick up hitchhikers on the main road.

“South Waziristan is far better than Karachi,” said Captain Fahim, head of a new military cadet college, in comparing the region to the major Pakistan port city that has been engulfed by political and sectarian violence. “There’s no crime here.”

The two-day Journal trip, conducted with armed military escorts and Pakistan officers monitoring virtually every interview, offered a unique window into the counterinsurgency campaign. Ground zero is Kotkai, which sits amid barren saffron and chocolate colored hillsides above a snaking river cutting through South Waziristan. The town was one of the first targets of the 2009 strike and now is at the heart of the military’s rehabilitation zone.

General Hayat commands his forces from a nearby cliff side compound once used by Taliban leaders. Looking out on the surrounding scenery, he has high hopes, envisioning a day when tourists come to enjoy the red rock canyons that once served as insurgent sanctuaries.

To win support from residents, soldiers have established new training schools and computer labs. They have built a series of roadside markets, each with individual stalls that have a green-and-white Pakistani flag painted on sliding metal doors. Across the region, Pakistani officers spend their days teaching local residents where to set up rudimentary fish farms, how to manage chicken coops, and even take what it takes to become successful beekeepers.

But the government has given little to help individuals rebuild homes that were damaged or destroyed during the offensive. Some Kotkai residents were so discontented that they took the risk of publicly challenging the Pakistan military—as armed soldiers listened to their interviews.

“We were happy when the Taliban were here,” Kotkai teacher Noor Rehman said during an interview in the sparsely filled library as half dozen Pakistani soldiers listened. “They created no problems for us in teaching.” Only 150 boys have returned to the school, he said, compared with the 400 it once educated.

Like most residents of South Waziristan, Mr. Rehman fled the area before the 2009 offensive. Mr. Rehman returned in 2011 to help teach in Kotkai. But he hasn’t been able to visit his home because it is in a part of South Waziristan still considered too dangerous.

At the central market, residents gathered around to complain that they had been lured back with unfulfilled assurances of a better life. “I was given six months of food and now that is finished, so now we don’t know what to do,” said Sadar Jan, an elderly Pakistani with a scruffy beard dyed with orange henna. “We are all unemployed and facing a lot of problems.”

Pakistani generals acknowledge that the going is slow. But they say that they are expanding the security bubble across South Waziristan. “We are in the holding stage with no judicial system and no political system,” said General Hayat. “This is only one area, but it is a model that is being replicated.”

A spokesman for the country’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, who has nominal control over the military, declined to comment.

Ultimately, said Joshua Foust, a fellow at the American Security Project familiar with the region, Pakistan must address the broader sense of political disenfranchisement that originally fed the insurgency. “It seems like all they have done is create a few showcases,” he says. “There a lot of questions about repatriating people to an area of active insurgency for the sake of a photo op.”

Beyond South Waziristan, Kotkai has emerged as a symbol in an international campaign against controversial U.S. drone attacks. Last October, dozens of American activists joined legendary cricket hero Imran Khan as the aspiring Pakistani presidential candidate unsuccessfully attempted to lead a convoy of 200 cars into the South Waziristan village to protest American drone strikes.

Drone strikes remain one of the most polarizing issues in Pakistan, where many view the American program as an assault on their country’s sovereignty. U.S. officials defend armed drones as one of the most effective weapons against terrorists. Since 2004, as many as 600 civilians in Pakistan have been killed by American drone strikes, according to think tanks and human rights groups.

But the civilian death toll has fallen sharply since the Obama administration tightened up rules for such strikes, some analysts say.

In South Waziristan, the view of drones is divided. For some, their use only cultivates more anti-American animosity, and many in the military consider them anti-productive. “The whole nation is against drones,” said General Hayat. “How can you say drones are winning the battle? You will produce hundreds of others to keep fighting.”

But out of earshot of the soldiers, a few South Waziristan residents privately endorsed the American operation. While killing civilians, drones have also have played a key role in helping Pakistan drive the Taliban leadership out of South Waziristan.

Baitullah Mehsud, founder of the Pakistani Taliban, was reportedly killed by an American drone strike in 2009 as Pakistan prepared for the South Waziristan offensive. A similar U.S. strike in 2010 reportedly killed Qari Hussain, the Taliban deputy from Kotkai who American officials accused of training the suicide bomber who killed five Central Intelligence Agency officers at a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan.

“I am a government servant so I can’t say it publicly, but I really want the drones to increase because they have eliminated all of the bad people,” said one man. “There should be more drone strikes.”

Some residents of South Waziristan remain wary of their own military, which is sometimes seen as the heavy hand of the nation’s dominant Punjab class used against the country’s Pashtun population, a large ethnic group from which the Taliban draws most of its fighters.

For years, South Waziristan residents have accused the military of conducting a campaign of harassment, beating and extrajudicial killings that is alienating the population. Amnesty International released a recent report raising similar accusations of “unchecked abuses” in South Waziristan. The military has flatly denounced such claims.

Fear of the military is palpable. Many Pashtun Pakistanis were afraid to openly criticize the army, even when offered guarantees that their identities wouldn’t be publicly revealed. In one case people were willing to discuss, residents told The Wall Street Journal that Pakistani soldiers opened fire on a car driving through South Waziristan last fall that didn’t pull over as a military vehicle approached from behind, killing the driver. The military later apologized, they said, and paid the family $3,000.

Military officials would not comment on the specific case. But General Hayat said that the military needs to use tough tactics in the area to ensure that the insurgency doesn’t regain an advantage.

“In case somebody fights me, I would still like to have a heavy hand,” he said. “I would not like to spare them. The whole game plan revolves around peace.”

Pakistan’s gambit has also drawn grumbling from American officials, who continue to press for a major military offensive to rout out the Taliban in North Waziristan, which itself has a population of more than half a million.

But Pakistan commanders here are resistant to the U.S. calls for an operation that doesn’t yet have widespread public support.

“From a Western perspective it may look like an immediate necessity,” said General Hayat. “But from a Pakistani perspective, I think time should dictate.”

If the remote region can be revived and terrorism is chased out, there is hope for an economic revival of sorts. The U.S. has been spearheading a “New Silk Road” initiative to establish a trade network through South Asia. America has spent $140 million for the Pakistan military to build new roads in South Waziristan that could become part of a new trade network with Afghanistan. Currently, Pakistan officials say they export about $2 billion in goods to Afghanistan, and both countries are hoping to double that in the coming years.

For now, the checkpoint-clogged roads are primarily used by Pakistani soldiers traveling across North and South Waziristan. “The real change will come once this route is fully functional,” said Brig. Gen. Azhar Abbas, a commander of Pakistani forces in South Waziristan.

It is one goal that most residents enthusiastically endorse. Standing among scores of men accepting free blankets and clothes from the Pakistan military, Liaqat Ali Mehsud, a teacher, said the road is so good that he’s forgotten that his home was destroyed.

“Tell Barack Obama to give $1 billion more to Pakistan,” he said.

After the Fighting: The Return Home

As part of warfare, some countries try to rout embedded militants, then rebuild abandoned regions before the enemy returns. Two examples:

Operation Phantom Fury (Iraq)

In 2004, more than 10,000 American troops joined Iraqi and other forces in a campaign to drive out insurgents from Fallujah, Iraq. An estimated 80% to 90% of the city’s 300,000 residents fled before the operation began.

Nearly 100 Americans were killed, making it the most deadly operation of the Iraq war. More than 1,200 insurgents were also killed, according to U.S. military estimates.

One-quarter of the city’s 39,000 homes were destroyed and residents were slow to return. Returnees were given up to $200, but had to undergo biometric screening and carry identification cards. Ultimately, American forces spent $100 million to help rebuild the city.

Operation Moshtarak (Afghanistan)

In 2010, coalition forces, including 4,000 U.S. forces, launched a major operation against the Taliban in the small farming community of Marjah.

About four dozen members of the coalition were killed in the initial weeks and about 40% of the population fled as the fighting accelerated. Most families returned soon after the major fighting ended, but thousands of other Afghans were afraid to follow suit.

The U.S.-led coalition gained control of the area, but insurgents continued to attack. U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of coalition forces, called Marjah a “bleeding ulcer” that was undermining the fight against the Taliban.

Today, American forces say that Afghan and coalition forces have established a fragile peace in the area.

Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
The last name of Reza Nasim Jan was incorrectly given as Jam in an earlier version of this article.

Hafiz Saeed Petitions Lahore High Court To Force Govt. To Defend Him In Chicago Mumbai Trial

[SEE:  White House Hides Culpability for Mumbai Attacks Beneath Judicial Immunity for ISI]

Hafiz Saeed: Lahore High Court appoints amicus curiae

File photo of Hafiz Saeed. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday appointed an amicus curiae for assistance on a petition filed by Jamatud Dawa (JD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed seeking a direction to the government to defend him before a US Court which had issued summons to him, former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha and other officials in a law suit filed by relatives of US citizens killed in Mumbai attacks.

LHC Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial adjourned the hearing till February 8.

US nationals Rabbi Gabriel Noah Holtzberg and his wife Rivka were killed by militants in Mumbai attacks. Their son Moshe survived the attack and along with others filed nine claims against Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s (LeT) Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Azam Cheema and Sajid Majid as well as two former ISI chiefs Nadeem Taj and Ahmed Shuja Pasha and two others, Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali, who they allege were part of the ISI. All the defendants were accused of providing material support for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. For each of the claims, the plaintiffs have sought damages of $75,000.

Hafiz Saeed, through his lawyer AK Dogar, submitted that he is the head of Jamatud Dawa, a charitable organisation, and has no link with LeT.

He said the government had detained him in 2009 and a full bench of the LHC had ordered his release. Saeed said the bench had observed that there was no evidence that he had any links with Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organisation which could be a danger to Pakistan.

The petitioner said that on December 16, 2010 he was served with a summons from a United States district court in connection with a case relating to the Mumbai attacks. He said on December 31, 2010, the federal government announced that it would defend the suit against other parties including then ISI head Pasha.

Saeed said that he is a citizen of Pakistan and the government should defend him in the same manner as it was defending others.

The petitioner said under Article 25 of the Constitution all citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of the law.

Published in The Express Tribune

Large Cache of Explosives and Detonators Seized In Quetta, Baloch Hazara Relieved

Heavy cache of explosives seized

by Parvez Jabri

 QUETTA: A law enforcement agency (LEA) has seized heavy cached of explosives from a car at Balili check-post on outskirts of the city late Tuesday night.

LEA sources told that security personnel deployed on Balili check-post signalled an 86-Car to stop but the driver tried to accelerate the vehicle, left it and managed to escape when the LEA vehicles chased it.

During search, LEA personnel along with bomb disposal squad recovered explosives from the car including 400 Detonators, one piece Explosive Wire, 200 meter roll, one piece explosive cotton weighs 125 kg and 1500 kg ball baring.

The seized explosives were to be used in sabotage act.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2013

Paying-Up for All of Those Years Contracting-Out US Foreign Policy To the Barbaric Saudi Royals

[Some of the "news" in the report below is wrong, but it makes an important point about US regrets about its latest experiments with radical "Islamism."  This report from PressTV claims that the younger Zawahiri was arrested/captured in Syria on Jan. 6, but other reports (all leading back to Mossad front, MEMRI TV) show photos and video allegedly from a January 18 Salafi protest in front of the French Embassy in Cairo.  So, Mr. Al-Z wasn't captured in Syria, but the thrust of the article is the important point, America's "Islamists" are more trouble than they are worth.  

Those fanatic jihadis are extremely predictable, so there is no excuse for our government having used them in Libya and Syria in the first place.  That was all Bandar's doing.   (That is what we get for letting him run our covert operations for us.)  The terrorists are like a bunch of mad dogs, chomping at the chains which hold them back, or better yet, they more closely resemble a bunch of termites.  You can count on them to undermine an enemy's position, along with everything else.   At some point,  you have to flush them out and repair everything that they have damaged and they have damaged everything.  Wherever we use these guys, nothing but desolation is left--look at Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria.  I guess nobody considered the possibility that they would destroy Syria without destroying the Syrian government.  

Zawahiri has been on the American payroll for decades, just like his brother, the infamous "Number 2" of "al-Qaeda."  One organized the flow of "Islamists" ("al-Qaeda") and guns through America's smuggling pipelines, leading to Bosnia and Chechnya, Egypt, Syria and Libya, while the other Zawahiri brother organized the flow of heroin and money.  Their parent organization, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, provided the foundation for everything we ever called "al-Qaeda."  Whatever Bandar has in mind for Egypt, it will surely make the Benghazi incident look like a fistfight.

It should be pretty obvious to everyone by now just how bad an idea it was to contract America's covert war policy out to the Saudis.   

Just today, Prince Turki was quoted whining in the British press that the solution to the Syrian conflict was to give his boys better anti-tank rockets and sophisticated surface-to-air missiles.  Look at the militant Wahhabis armed with similar Libyan weapons in Mali and the trouble that they are causing there to understand just how warped are the minds of Prince Turki al-Faisal and his cousin, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and the rest of the Saudi royal family.  

They are the true enemies of the West.]

Fundamentalism fears pushing US to change course on Syria

 Jan. 18, 2013

Photo from the Salafi-Jihadi Protest at the French Embassy

Al-Zarqawi, Al-Zawahri and Jabhat Al-Nusra: terms that have two things in common: Al-Qaeda and lately Syria. Recently two leading Salafists who joined the armed Syrian opposition were killed by Syrian forces. One of them was the brother in law of Abou-Mesaab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed by US forces in Iraq in 2006. Al-Zarqawi was Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq and considered by the US as one of the most wanted terrorists responsible for killing US soldiers. Reports have also said that Syrian forces have arrested the brother of Ayman Al-Zawahri, the leader of Al-Qaeda. In addition the so called mufti of Jabhat Al-Nusra was also recently killed in a Syrian air raid in Deraa. All this has raised questions about future US policy towards Damascus.

What’s more is that in his inaugural speech US president Barack Obama did make it clear that foreign military intervention in Syria was not on the agenda.

Experts believe that the US will eventually pressure its allies to change their course in the campaign against Bashar Al-Assad. Among these allies are Israel who labeled Assad as part of an axis of evil along with Iran and Hezbollah. Israel’s ambassador to Washington Michael Oren even went so far as to say that Assad is worse for Israel than Al-Qaeda. Other countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been the main providers of weapons and financing for the armed opposition.

Major US media outlets have said that the support provided by some Arab states to armed groups in Syria runs contrary to Washington’s interests. And last December the State Department blacklisted Jabhat Al-Nusra.

Many of those who were predicting the end of Bashar Al-Assad are now having second thoughts. One major factor behind this is the US position. The rising fundamentalist trend in Syria is a grave concern and comes at a time when the US congress is holding hearings on the killing of the US ambassador in Benghazi at the hands of extremists. That incident would probably have not occurred were it not for Nato military intervention in Libya

Afghan Spy Who Killed Mullah Nazir with Gift of Digital Quran Containing Tracking Chip, Dumped In Wana

[SEE:  They Had A Funeral In Wana for Mullah Nazir and 10,000 People Showed-Up–(where were the drones then?)]

Body of ‘Afghan spy’ dumped in South Waziristan: Officials

AFP

Two militants from pro-government warlord Mullah Nazir’s group accused the ‘spy’ of giving Nazir a digital Quran, fitted with chips to track his movements. Nazir was killed in a US drone strike earlier this month.—AFP Photo

PESHAWAR: Militants on Wednesday dumped the mutilated body of a purported Afghan spy accused of collaborating on US drone strikes that killed prominent warlord Mullah Nazir in South Waziristan this month, officials said.

The body of the man identified as Asmatullah Kharoti was found in Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan tribal district, which borders Afghanistan.

Local officials said he had been shot dead and there were wounds on his neck.

Two notes on the body ordered the remains to be left on the roadside until 10:00 am “so that everyone could see the fate of spies”, and the second accusing him of being a spy and being responsible for US drone attacks.

“He is a spy and was giving information to US and Isaf forces in Afghanistan about our activities,” a local official quoted the note as saying.

“He is responsible for the killing of five of our senior members, including Mullah Nazir, in drone attacks. He confessed that he installed chips in digital Qurans,” the note added.

Nazir was killed in a US drone strike on Jan 2. He was the main militant commander in South Waziristan and was known to be ‘pro-Pakistan’, focusing his attacks across the border to fight US, Nato and Afghan government troops in Afghanistan, and was accused of sheltering Al Qaeda.

He was one of the most high-profile victims of US drone strikes in Pakistan, which Islamabad publicly criticises as a violation of sovereignty but which US officials believe are a vital weapon in the war against extremists.

Two militants from Nazir’s group who spoke to AFP accused Kharoti of giving Nazir a digital Quran, fitted with chips to track his movements, during a meeting at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.

“He presented Nazir and others digital Qurans as a gift which were fitted with chips which help US drones strike their targets,” one of the militants said.

“When Mullah Nazir was returning, US drones fired missiles at him in a Pakistani area,” he said.

Hurriyat in tight-spot for meeting Saeed and Salahuddin

[SEE:  Lashkar e-Taiba Leader Hopes To Revive Jihad In Kashmir After US Leaves Afghanistan]

Gowhar Geelani

Hizbul Mujahideen Supremo, Syed Salahuddin (left) and Jamaat-ud-Dawa Chief, Hafiz Saeed (right). – File photo

The moderate faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference [APHC] led by the Kashmir Valley’s head priest, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, is under the scanner for ‘meeting’ Hafiz Saeed — India’s wanted man for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and Syed Salahuddin — the supreme commander of the United Jihad Council [UJC], an alliance of various militant outfits operating from Pakistan-administered Kashmir [PaK]. Sections of the Indian media termed Hurriyat’s recent visit to Pakistan as “terror conclave on Indian passport”.

Prior to their trip to Pakistan, the Hurriyat leaders claimed “they will talk business” but many perceived their visit as “remote controlled” in the first place. Now the Indian media is astounded after reports emerged that a Hurriyat delegation also met the alleged “26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed and Chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, Syed Salahuddin, on Pakistan soil”.

India is firm that Saeed is the “Mumbai attacks mastermind”, but Pakistan maintains there is “lack of evidence” to “prove his guilt” in the court of law.

Even the supporters of the larger autonomy to the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir like Dr. Kamal A. Mitra Chenoy, well-known expert in International Affairs, felt “outraged” by the reported meeting of Hurriyat leaders with Saeed and Salahuddin.

Prof. Chenoy — Chair, Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, School of International Studies, Jawahar Lal University, New Delhi – opined that it is a case of “bad judgment” on the part of the Hurriyat to meet “terrorists”. “Not only is Hafiz Saeed wanted by India in connection with the Mumbai terror attacks, he is also an international terrorist wanted by the Americans. I’m a supporter of the larger autonomy to Kashmir, but I will be outraged to hear that the Hurriyat leaders from Kashmir have met Saeed in Pakistan,” Prof. Chenoy told Dawn.com on phone from the Indian capital, New Delhi.

“If indeed they [Hurriyat leaders] have met the Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT] chief in Pakistan, they would be losing friends. They have been going to Pakistan on a regular basis. I don’t think that is an issue. But what benefit would they get by meeting an international terrorist?” he remarked.

A delegation led by Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq last month visited Pakistan and reportedly met Jamaat-ud-Dawa Chief, Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen Supremo, Syed Salahuddin, there. It could well be the case that the Hurriyat wanted to build a broader consensus on the issue of Kashmir, keeping in view the importance of all the major stakeholders of peace vis-à-vis Kashmir.

“Several leaders of Hurriyat are married to Pakistani women. They have their family connections with Pakistan. That again is not an issue. Some people in Kashmir were sympathetic towards Hurriyat’s visit, hoping for something positive. But it seems that the Hurriyat has been badly advised by their friends in America and the United Kingdom. Their reported meeting with Saeed has not served any purpose,” Prof. Chenoy added.

India’s weekly magazine Tehelka quoted one of the Hurriyat delegates as “confirming” this controversial meeting. “Both Saeed and Salahuddin told us [Hurriyat delegation] that militancy in Kashmir would escalate after the US-led international troops depart from Afghanistan in 2014,” Tehelka reported while quoting an unnamed Hurriyat delegate.

According to Tehelka, the Hurriyat delegation also met Pakistan Army Chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who reportedly ruled out his country’s support for armed uprising in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir in future. The magazine also said that the meeting with the Pakistan Army Chief in Islamabad was well-publicised, but interactions with Saeed in Lahore and Salahuddin in Islamabad were kept private.

The Hurriyat Conference, meanwhile, is mysteriously tight-lipped on this issue. The APHC leaders are neither divulging details of their ‘meeting’ with two militia commanders nor denying meeting them. Their silence is only contributing to the ambiguity surrounding the ‘meeting’.

“Whoever we meet, we speak our mind right unto his heart, why should people make noises for just nothing…How does it matter who we meet? Who we meet is not important, what you talk about there is important,” Prof. A G Bhat, a senior Hurriyat leader, was quoted by India Today having said so.

Pakistan had invited Hurriyat’s top brass to visit the country last month. The Hurriyat delegation that visited Pakistan from December 16-28, 2012, included its chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Prof. Abdul Ghani Bhat, Bilal Ghani Lone, Maulana Abbas Ansari, Mukhtar Ahmad Waza, Musadiq Adil and Agha Syed Al-Hassan.

The APHC is an amalgam of various political, social and trade organisations based in the summer capital Srinagar favouring a ‘palatable’ resolution to the Kashmir dispute. Earlier, Hurriyat’s visit to Pakistan drew flak from various quarters. Many well-meaning political pundits dismissed their exercise as “futile”. Now the alliance finds itself in a tight-spot for a different reason.

There is an outrage in the Indian press with regards to the Hurriyat’s controversial decision to ‘meet’ Saeed and Salahuddin.

This media hype and rage startled some analysts like Dr. Sheikh Showkat Hussain, who teaches international law at the Central University of Kashmir. “There is nothing new in such meetings. Hurriyat leaders have been meeting them in the past, too. Even the photographs of such meetings would appear in the press. It is a non-issue. It seems that the charged Indian media is now trying to deflect the attention of the masses from domestic discontent and shameful cases like the Delhi gang rape. Indian media is deviating attention from the real issues,” Dr. Showkat told Dawn.com from his home in the Kashmir Valley.

On the contrary, some leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP], the principal opposition in India, are demanding action against the Hurriyat leaders for meeting militant commanders. The BJP has accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance [UPA] federal government for “encouraging Hurriyat leaders to hobnob with anti-India elements abroad by allowing them to visit Pakistan.” The Hindu nationalist party leaders have held Congress responsible for encouraging “Hurriyat’s anti-India tirade, not only on Indian soil but also in Pakistan”.

But Dr. Showkat terms such a statement from the BJP as “sheer hypocrisy”. “These are clear double-standards from the BJP. People do remember very well how the then Indian External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh [senior leader of the BJP], had accompanied three top guerrilla commanders — Moulana Masood Azhar, Sheikh Omar and Mushtaq Zargar — for their release in exchange for hijacked passengers of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999,” he said. The episode is remembered as the Kandahar hijacking.

Meanwhile, Congress party spokesperson Sandeep Dikshit has also lambasted the Hurriyat delegation for ‘meeting’ the two radical S’s: Saeed and Salahuddin, in Lahore and Islamabad. “People going to Pakistan is not a problem with us but if the groups from here [India] go and breach trust and meet the agencies of people in Pakistan who are particularly anti-Indian, that needs to be stopped,” Dikshit told reporters.

Irrespective of the media excitement and mystery surrounding the controversial meeting with Saeed and Salahuddin, the Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq should actually clear the air for the sake of its own credibility amongst the people in Kashmir, India and Pakistan. Hurriyat’s silence could add to the confusion, invite volley of questions from various quarters, and possibly allow some to cast doubts over the amalgam’s standing too.

The writer is a professional journalist with international experience. He has worked as the Editor at Deutsche Welle in Bonn, Germany. Previously, he has also contributed features to the BBC website. Send your feedback at: gowhargeelani@gmail.com

Saudi beheads Pakistani

Saudi beheads Pakistani for drug trafficking

 

Saudi Arabia beheads a Pakistani man for ‘smuggling heroin and hashish’ into the Gulf kingdom

AFP

 

Saudi Arabia beheaded a Pakistani man in the eastern Khubar province on Wednesday after he was convicted of drug trafficking, the interior ministry announced.

Arshad Mohammed was arrested for smuggling heroin and hashish into the kingdom, the ministry was quoted as saying by the official SPA news agency.

His execution brings to four the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia so far this year.

Last year, the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom beheaded 76 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. The US-based Human Rights Watch put the number at 69.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia’s strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.

The Slow Second Coup d’tat By Pakistani Generals

[The generals never do anything directly, if they can help it.  They only make lateral moves in their political games, meaning that they always move to the side, or at a tangent away from anything that works its way into the press, using proxies or "cut-outs" to take the heat for them.  It is better for them if it is the Supreme Court that is seen decapitating the Pakistani government, by arresting Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.  Conveniently.  Then, we have the sudden, simultaneous appearance in a bulletproof/bomb proof trailer, of controversial Canadian/Pakistani "Islamist" leader, Tahirul Qadri, who left Pakistan and moved to Canada under a gray cloud, leaving behind him some sort of legal problems.  In the past, he has been accused of being extra friendly with Iran and preaching some sort of anti-Deobandi/anti-Ahmadi doctrine.  In his early years in Pakistan, he was instrumental in making the legal arguments for Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws, focusing upon the anti-Ahmadi prohibitions against calling Ahmadi "Muslims," or their temples as "mosques."  To have him suddenly leading a march of thousands to Islamabad, calling for the resignation of the civilian government and the PM getting arrested the same day, is one coincidence too many.  The situation is Kashmir (also arising suddenly) is an indication that the Army leadership has decided to set its own priorities, regardless of apparent responsibilities to deal with militancy in the Tribal Region.  Also coincidentally, all of Pakistan's militant leaders suddenly turn their attention towards ending the Pakistani/Indian dialogue by blowing-up Kashmir.  

It is more than likely, that the Pak Army is pulling a second Coup.]

Pakistan inches toward political uncertainty

Sajjad Haider

Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.—AFP (File Photo)

KARACHI: Pakistan appeared to be treading toward an uncertain political terrain on Tuesday as arrest orders were issued for a sitting prime minister in a corruption case and a populist cleric called for the government’s resignation leading tens of thousands of protesters into the federal capital.

During the early hours of Tuesday, the Pakistani-Canadian chief of the Tehrik-i-Minhajul Quran (TMQ), Dr Tahirul Qadri, followed by a large motorcade and thousands of supporters on foot, called for the “corrupt” and “inefficient” sitting government to step down. He threatened that the people would otherwise “take matters into their own hands”.

“This president and prime minister…they are now ex-presidents and prime ministers. Their time is over. Dissolve the national and provincial assemblies by the morning. I am giving you until 11 am to step down or else the people will start making their own decisions,” said Qadri, who many believe to be backed by the country’s military establishment. “These millions of supporters have spoken. They have rejected your so-called mandate. You are no longer their representatives.”

The protesters — according to some estimates numbering between 25,00 to 50,000 — relocated towards D-chowk in front of the Parliament, where Qadri spoke to them again from behind a bullet-proof shield at around 1 pm, unveiling his charter of demands, and praising the country’s military and the judiciary. The cleric threatened to remain camped in front of the parliament along with his supporters until his demands were met.

Profile: Tahirul Qadri

“(The government) has wasted and brought a bad end to our armed forces, those armed forces who are highly sincere, highly competent and highly capable and highly professional,” News agency Reuters quoted Qadri, who alternated between Urdu and English in his speech. “Even they can’t do anything because the political government isn’t able to deliver anything from this land. Judgments are being passed by our great, independent judiciary but the government is not ready to implement them.”

But as Qadri praised the two state institutions, the Supreme Court of Pakistan announced orders for the arrest of 16 individuals, including Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, in the rental power projects case.

Prime Minister Ashraf was accused of receiving kickbacks and commissions in the RPPs case during his previous stint as federal minister for water and power.

“The chief justice ordered that all concerned, regardless of their rank, who have been booked in the case be arrested and if someone leaves the country, then chairman of National Accountability Bureau will be held responsible along with his investigating team,” said Aamir Abbas, lawyer for the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). “The sixteen include Raja Ashraf.”

Profile: Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf

Nearly an hour later, Fawad Chaudhry, an aide to the embattled prime minister, accused the military and the Supreme Court of conspiring together to topple the government.

The uncertainty also took its toll on the country’s equity markets, with the benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange 100 index plummeting 3.16 per cent during the days trading, closing 525 points lower at 16,107.89.

The ruling coalition government battles its latest challenges just a day after Prime Minister Ashraf invoked Article 234 of the Constitution, dissolving the provincial government and imposing governor’s rule in the restive Balochistan province. The government was forced to give in to hundreds of protesting ethnic Shia Hazaras who had been refusing to bury the victims of bombings in Quetta, the provincial capital, to protect government inaction over attacks targeting the community.

Nek Muhammad and General Safdar Hussain Embracing At Shakai Peace Treaty Signing

[Right here is where it all went wrong for Pakistan.  Was it the peace deal with Taliban itself that ruined Pakistan, or was it the American drone assassination of the man who signed it, Nek Mohammed?  It is fairly obvious that it was the Pakistani surrender to the American assassination program that fueled the Taliban insurgency.  Pakistan's attempts since then to appease the American paymasters, while continuing attempts at some sort of peaceful resolution of the conflicts, only serve to sow the seeds of mistrust.  Sabotage of Pakistani peace plans is the American goal.  What is the Pak Army goal?  Is it to cater to American whims, or is it to defend the people of Pakistan from outside attack?]

“We are all Pakistani soldiers.” –Nek

Pakistan reaps harvest of poisoned peace deals

By BILL ROGGIO

 

Nek Mohammed, the former leader of the Taliban in South Waziristan, speaks to his followers after being showered with gifts by the Pakistani Army after a peace agreement on April 24, 2004. Nek was later killed in a US Predator strike, and was replaced by Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in another Predator strike on Aug. 5, 2009. AFP Photo.

McClatchy has a must-read article on the long-lasting negative effects of the “peace agreements” the Pakistani Army has cut with the Taliban during prior operations. The Mehsud tribesmen who were interviewed for the article expressed “deep, corrosive cynicism” about the sincerity of the military and the Inter-Service Intelligence agency and their relationship with the Taliban. Many are convinced a new peace agreement will be signed and that the government conducts the operations to siphon aid dollars from the US. Here are some select quotes:

“The government has used the people like toilet paper, used them and thrown them away,” thundered the spiritual leader and founder of the anti-Taliban Mehsud militia, Maulvi Sher Mohammad, in an interview….

“We cannot fight alongside the army because my people do not yet know whether the army and the Taliban are friends or enemies,” said Mohammad. “When we see the army crush them (the Taliban ), then we’ll believe.”

…

Mehsuds remember bitterly how in 2005, following such a deal, a Pakistani army general literally embraced the then- Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, and called him “a soldier of peace.” A U.S. missile strike killed the militant leader in August.

…

“This fight (in South Waziristan ) is for American dollars. The government always has some deal with the Taliban . It is ordinary people who suffer,” said student Zahidullah Mehsud, who thought he was around 19 years old, as he lined up at a registration center for those displaced by the operation. “This is all an ISI game.”

 

Couple this with the wholesale destruction of villages in South Waziristan and the denial of any civilian casualties, and the military and the government have a long way to go before winning any hearts and minds in South Waziristan.

Everybody Plans A Trip To Kashmir

[This is the real threat, that the Punjabi Taliban would join with LeT, to become a force to reckon with in Kashmir.  Such a force might easily move beyond Kashmir, given time.  

The fact that this announcement came from Taliban No. 2,  Waliur Rehman and not the Numero Uno, Hakeemullah might seem to reinforce the often-heard idea of a split within the Pakistani Taliban, a struggle for dominance between Hakeemullah and Rehman.  Adding fuel to that suspicion was a TTP video tape and pamphlet from Mehsud which was released a few days earlier in North Waziristan, renouncing the use of violence against Pakistani troops, even while some of them were detonating bombs and killing 14 Pakistani soldiers near Razmak Cadet College.  It is easy to believe that there is an ongoing leadership feud within the TTP (no matter which intelligence agency they work for), with one side friendlier to the Pak Army than the other.  A split in the Pakistani Taliban would also reflect a split between the consortium of intelligence agencies which feed the anti-Pakistan terrorist outfits, like the TTP and the BLA (Baloch Liberation Army).  If there was such a feud  it would seem to be to the Army's advantage to exploit their differences, instead of simply pounding them from the air after these harsh attacks.  The barbarity of some of the TTP attacks (like the one from the video below) is so extreme that most governments might find it impossible to negotiate with such monsters afterwards, but not Pakistan.  

Pakistan has uses for the kinds of services that monsters like this can provide.  Some monster recently stole a man’s head in Kashmir.  That makes it sound like Waliur Rehman’s head-hunters are already at work there.  The next question will be whether the head-chopping monsters in Kashmir are there at the Army’s invitation, or could they possibly do this on their own?  In this propaganda war we fight along the Durand Line, it is all about fighting monsters, monsters that we blame on Pakistan, taking no responsibility for them ourselves, even though they fight for us daily in Syria and elsewhere.

The purpose of the monsters that we create then unleash upon the unsuspecting people of the world is to terrorize the innocent into believing what we want them to believe.]

Taliban vows to unleash jihad in Kashmir, implement Sharia

Top Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan leader Wali Ur Rehman, in a rare video appearance, has pledged to send fighters to Kashmir and wage a struggle for the implementation of Sharia rule in India.

The United States had earlier announced a $5 million reward against Wali Ur Rehman for his involvement in the murder of seven Central Intelligence Agency officials in Afghanistan in December 2009.

Rehman, along with the TTP chief Hamikullah Mehsud, is believed to have said this in a rare video:

“The practical struggle for a Sharia system that we are carrying out in Pakistan, the same way we will continue it in Kashmir, and the same way we will implement the Sharia system in India too. And this is the only solution for people’s problems,” said Rehman, according to the translation provided by the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor of Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

The video in Pashtu, with Urdu subtitles, has been produced by Umar Media, the broadcasting arm of the TTP.

The video is titled The False Propaganda of the Dajjali Media Revealed. It was released to internet on January 6.

According to MEMRI, TTP’s official spokesman Ehsanullah Ihsan can also be seen in the video, which devotes a section on Kashmir.

Claiming that the Jihad launched by the Pakistani government inside Kashmir has failed to yield the desired result, the TTP says that it will launch its own jihad in the valley and talks about sending its own jihadi forces there.

“Allah willing, the mujahedeen of Tehreek-e-Taliban will arrive in Kashmir and as per the Islamic Sharia will help the Kashmiris get their rights. As our ancestors sacrificed their lives for Kashmir and got Kashmir liberated by force (in 1947-48), the same way their progenies, walking in the footsteps of their forefathers, will get Kashmir liberated (from India), and will help them get their rights,” Rehman said.

“That registered (government-sponsored) jihad that Pakistan had begun cannot liberate Kashmir, and even if it were to be liberated, it will be for name only, but the system will not change (in favour of Islamic Sharia rule) and their fate will not be changed, and if it were to change, only Sharia system will change it. And it is our promise to those people (in Kashmir), that we will share their grief,” the propaganda says as per the translation provided by MEMRI.

“Insofar as Pakistan’s dirty policy (on Kashmir) is concerned, as per which Kashmiris have been ruined and destroyed under the pretext of Kashmir policy, their everything has been destroyed, we strongly condemn this policy too as much as we do India’s atrocities,” said Rehman.

Tufail Ahmed from MEMRI — a Washington-based expert who keeps a tab on the terrorist outfits of the region — said that this should not be dismissed as a propaganda video.

“Basically, it is a formal articulation of viewpoint by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan on key major issues, for example jihadi activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Arab Spring. The timing of the video is important for three reasons: First, it was released on the eve of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington DC. And the TTP commanders do reveal how they look forward to the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2014, hoping that Taliban leader Mullah Omar will hold some kind of power after 2014 and his policies will also be followed by the TTP. Importantly, Mehsud clarifies that Mullah Muhammad Omar is not merely the emir of Pakistani Taliban and Afghan Taliban, but also of Al Qaeda worldwide,” he said.

Secondly, the video is aimed at quashing rumors about a conflict among top TTP commanders, with Maulana Waliur Rehman and Maulana Fazlullah seeking to dislodge Hakimullah Mehsud from the position of TTP emir, he said.

“One thing that must worry international intelligence agencies, especially the US, is TTP Emir Hakimullah Mehsud’s statement in this video that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is an international organisation,” he said.

“This is totally unprecedented, though in the past his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud has expressed similar visions; but now it simply means that the Taliban leadership is broadening its horizons internationally, which may be due to the US withdrawal of forces by 2014 and the emerging vacuum,” Ahmed said.

“Significantly, in the video, Mehsud offers to support jihadi fighters in Arab countries. India also needs to worry because this might be the first time that the TTP is expressing a detailed diversification of jihadi battlefield to include Kashmir and the wider India,” Ahmed said.

According to the US State Department, Wali Ur Rehman is the second in command and chief military strategist of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. He commands TTP members in South Waziristan.

Lalit K Jha