Hello !
Recent Appearances... Rantburg

India-Pakistan
Pak: A clash between the police and devotees took place on Thursday, at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar
2021-04-04
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Link


India-Pakistan
More about ISIS in India and Pakistan
2019-05-26
[Jpost] According to the ISIS-affiliated Amaq News Agency, the terror organization on May 11 officially proclaimed the existence of "Waliyah of Hind," or India Province. Shortly afterward, on May 15, ISIS said it had established an additional stronghold called "Wilayah Pakistain."

Amaq claimed that Wilayah Pakistain had already inflicted casualties on Indian army soldiers in the village of Amshipora in the Shopian district of India-administered Kashmire. Indian police confirmed the presence of ISIS fighters in the contested area and noted that security forces recently killed Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi, an alleged ISIS operative in the region.

A recent UN Security Council counter-terrorism report revealed that ISIS has been using Pakistan-based organizations such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar to carry out terror attacks on its behalf.
According to local media reports, Sofi had been associated for more than a decade with several gangs in Kashmire before joining Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
The establishment of Wilayah Pakistain sent shock waves through local law enforcement agencies, and on May 16, Islamabad’s security forces raided suspected terrorist locales in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
 Province. The forces killed nine ISIS members during a three-hour long operation, a spokesperson for the chief of the Balochistan police told the Media Line. Four Paks maimed during the assault were rushed to a hospital.

Though this was the first direct face-off between Pak forces and ISIS, the latter has been carrying out attacks in Pakistain for years. As far back as February 2016, Pakistain's Intelligence Bureau had warned the government that ISIS was emerging as a threat.

Concern over the extent of ISIS's power resurfaced a year later following a suicide kaboom at the Shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar ‐ located in Pakistain's historic city of Sehwan ‐ which killed scores of people and injured some 300 others.

A recent UN Security Council counter-terrorism report revealed that ISIS has been using Pakistain-based organizations such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
 and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar to carry out terror attacks on its behalf.

Analysts believe that ISIS is desperate to establish new strongholds, including in Afghanistan, where it has repeatedly clashed with the Taliban
...Arabic for students...
"ISIS has been looking for new ventures after it was defeated in Iraq and Syria. Even in Afghanistan, things are not in ISIS’s favor," Rashid Hussain, a Rawalpindi-based security expert, told The Media Line. "It is now trying its luck in Pakistain, India and Sri Lanka, where it already has been outsourcing attacks."

Alarmed by ISIS's growing influence in the region, Pakistain and Russia are working together to curb the group’s activities.

"Since ISIS has challenged both nations... Islamabad and Moscow are working together to counter the group," a bigwig in Pakistain’s Counter-Terrorism Department told The Media Line on condition of anonymity.

The official said the two countries have been cooperating since 2016, adding that a "major shift in Russia’s policy... [came] after it expressed concerns about the possibility of Afghanistan turning into a refuge for Islamic State murderous Moslems fleeing from Iraq and Syria. This is why it has extended [assistance] to Pakistain and the Taliban."
Link


India-Pakistan
All perpetrators of Lal Shahbaz shrine bombing taken to task: Murad
2018-02-18
[DAWN] Announcing that the investigation of the Sehwan shrine blast has been completed, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said on Friday that the criminal mastermind and all Death Eaters involved in the Feb 16, 2017 attack were either tossed in the clink
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
 or killed in encounters.

Mr Shah said this while talking to newsmen on the occasion of first death anniversary of those killed in the suicide kaboom at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar that claimed the lives of 90 people and injuries to 300 others.

The local business community and traders closed their businesses to observe the death anniversary. People from different walks of life arrived at Sehwan Sharif from across the country to attend the event.

Link


India-Pakistan
Key suspect in Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine attack arrested
2017-11-18
[DAWN] A key suspect involved in the bloody suicide kaboom targeting the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan earlier this year was tossed in the calaboose
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
 at an unspecified date in a joint operation conducted by the Rangers and Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Manghopir, it was announced today.

CTD Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Amir Farooqi announced the arrest on Friday at a joint CTD-Rangers presser in Bloody Karachi
Link


India-Pakistan
ATC remands Sehwan's journalist for beating policeman at Lal Shahbaz Qalandar's shrine
2017-08-09
[DAWN] A Hyderabad Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Tuesday remanded a journalist into judicial custody for 14 days after he, along with his 14 accomplices, was booked by Sehwan police under terrorism charges on Monday night.

Sehwan police booked Yasin Rind, the president of Sehwan's press club, in a first investigation report (FIR) after he and his accomplices reportedly beat a policeman at Lal Shahbaz Qalandar's shrine for asking Yasin's cousin to exit the portion of the shrine's dhamal yard allocated for women.

Chanesar Rind, Rashid Rind, Wajid Rind, Aijaz Rind, Soof Kalhoro, Saddar Machhi and eight faceless myrmidons have also been booked in the case on similar charges.
Link


India-Pakistan
CTD police spot two ‘facilitators’ of Sehwan blast
2017-04-09
[DAWN] KARACHI: Nearly two months after the deadly blast at the shrine of Sufi saint Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, the Counter-Terrorism Department of police on Friday claimed to have made headway in its investigation by spotting two more suspects related to the attack.

To review the progress of the suicide kaboom case, the director general of Pakistain Rangers, Sindh, chaired a joint meeting of the law-enforcement agencies which chalked out a strategy to bring the findings before the public. The meeting, which was held at the Rangers’ headquarters, also reviewed the overall security situation.

Sharing details of the ’important progress’ in the investigation, additional inspector general of police Dr Sanaullah Abbasi, who heads the CTD in Sindh, told the media at his office that two controllers of the suicide kaboom had visited the Qalandar’s shrine in Sehwan just a day before the blast and took several photographs of the place.

The CTD chief said the two controllers of the suicide kaboom, which claimed the life of around 80 devotees on Feb 16, had finally been spotted in footage obtained with the help of 38 cameras installed at the shrine. The suspected jacket wallah and the two controllers could be seen conducting reconnaissance during their one-hour stay at the shrine on Feb 15, the additional IG said.

The controllers also took several photos of the suspected bomber, perhaps in an attempt to hide their intention to photograph different portions of the shrine, the officer said. However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
 their activity indicated that all the three suspects who had entered the shrine separately knew each other or were linked, it emerged during the investigation.

Sharing contents of the videos, the CTD chief said one of the controllers was seen wearing blue shalwar kameez while the other controller was clad in black shalwar kameez. The purported suicide bomber was also wearing blue-coloured clothes, he added.

Prior to carrying out suicide kaboom, the bomber tried to enter the premises of the Sufi shrine through two other doors but he could not succeed.

Link


India-Pakistan
Four missiles fired from Afghanistan into Kurram Agency
2017-04-03
[DAWN] Four missiles were fired from across the Pak-Afghan border into Kurram Agency
...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora...
 Sunday morning, according to local political administration.

A spokesperson of the local administration said the attack which left locals panicked did not cause any loss of life. However,
a woman is only as old as she admits...
 one missile struck a shop in the Shingak area, another landed near a mosque, and two others in a graveyard at Kachkina, he said.

The spokesperson claimed the missiles were fired from Afghanistan's Paktia province.

Kurram is one of the most sensitive tribal areas as it borders three Afghan provinces and at one point was one of the key routes for Death Eater movement across the border.

Bilateral relations between Pakistain and Afghanistan have been tense as of late, with officials from both sides traded allegations over terrorism.

Pakistain's border crossings with Afghanistan had been sealed in the aftermath of a suicide kaboom at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sindh ─ the deadliest in a series of recent attacks in the country.

Link


India-Pakistan
Nawaz orders immediate reopening of Pak-Afghan border
2017-03-21
[DAWN] Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
 on Monday ordered the reopening of the Pak-Afghan border with immediate effect, a month after it was closed following the deadly Sehwan blast said to have been carried out by cross-border terrorists, DawnNews reported.

More than 80 people, including women and kiddies, were killed and hundreds of devotees injured in the blast at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sehwan, Sindh.

The province's inspector general of police, A.D. Khowaja, had claimed that the suspected jacket wallah "appeared to be an Afghan national."

All border crossing with Afghanistan were sealed soon after the attack.
Link


India-Pakistan
Fighting extremism
2017-02-27
[DAWN] Firstly, military courts for terrorists are not the norm, but necessary for survival. In the two years they were in existence, 274 cases were referred to them by the federal government, out of which capital punishment was awarded in 161. However, in only 12 has the sentence been carried out. The rest are in various stages of appeal in civilian courts. So where is the advantage of these courts? The appellate process for civilians whose cases are referred to the military courts should also be the same as for accused in uniform. If the army can be trusted to do justice to its own ranks, it should be trusted to do justice with alleged terrorists also.

Secondly, madressahs seem to be increasing faster in our rural areas than regular schools, as exemplified by the situation in traditionally moderate Sindh, in particular the recent attack on Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine in Sehwan. Boarding house education, the hallmark of our madressahs, is far more effective in impacting a child’s personality and brainwashing him, than day schools. The child is deprived of his family’s values and ethos while interacting with those of the management overseeing his madressah. He leaves his home at a tender age, sometimes as young as four years. Why do you think a sophisticated society like England bases its elite education on boarding house schools like Harrow and Eton?

A law should, therefore, be introduced where an NOC is required to operate any form of boarding school. This would obviously not be madressah specific but apply to ordinary schools like ‘cadet colleges’ too. There would be no restriction on day madressahs where children of the locality study.

Thirdly, unless the ownership of this war against terrorism is taken to the basic policing unit, ie the police station, it will be no more than rhetoric. The police station is the level that has effective command. It also used to have intimate knowledge of all those living within its jurisdiction, but this institution has become ineffective because of population growth and increased crime. Not only must the number of police stations be increased but more training for upgrading manpower and resources provided to them everywhere.

Currently, the interior ministry specifically, and the centre generally, are blamed for their inability to control terrorism. The fact is that they have no say in actual operations. They are dependent on the political priorities of the respective provincial governments. Also, the local station house officer is not interested in confronting terrorists/facilitators in his jurisdiction as long as they do not indulge in local crime, which they usually do not.

There may be a number of long-term solutions but one step that could be taken is to have a representative of the ministry of interior/Nacta, perhaps of inspector level, in uniform, placed in every police station, specifically assigned the task of keeping a watch on terrorists and their facilitators (counterterrorism) and ensuring that local police implements the interior ministry’s policy on terrorism in letter and spirit. Implementation of this proposal would entail problems of coordination, cadre rivalry and resources but a solution will have to be found to contain this hydra-headed monster.

We will have to think out of the box to prevent being overwhelmed by the extremists.

Link


India-Pakistan
Nisar deflects blame for Sehwan bombing, places it on Sindh govt
2017-02-27
[DAWN] Interior Minister Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan on Saturday said that he is not in the habit of criticising other members of the government, but had to break his silence after the federal government was criticised for the lack of security at Lal Shahbaz Qalandar's shrine.

"'Was security at the shrine the federal government's responsibility, or was it provincial's'? I asked, after our department was blamed for the lapse," he said, narrating the incident.

"At the briefing after the Sehwan blast, I had to raise the question and ask them why there was not enough security to begin with. Why were the walk-through gates not working, and why was the power supply cut at the shrine? They had no answers to these questions," he added.

Talking about lapses on provincial governments' part, due to which several terrorist bids were allegedly not foiled in time, Nisar said: "There have been numerous times that our department has had intelligence about certain attacks and we informed the provincial governments to take measures to prevent those attacks, but they did not act on our tips."

"When those attacks that we had told them about were carried out, they shamelessly raised fingers at the interior ministry for not doing its job," he added.

Nonetheless, Nisar added that: "I have lived by two personal rules during my term as the Interior Minister: To not take credit for any win that comes our way, rather, share it with all departments; and to not criticise anyone for any lapses."

Link


India-Pakistan
Body parts of shrine ‘bomber’ preserved, says CTD
2017-02-26
[DAWN] KARACHI: Investigators have made some progress in the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine blast probe as a team of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) assigned with the job has collected 46 parts of the suspected bomber’s body, which have been preserved for further examination to ascertain his identity, a top official said on Saturday.

CTD SSP Omer Shahid Hamid, who is leading one of the investigation teams, speaking at a presser and later on speaking to Dawn, said that DNA samples of the suspected attacker had been taken for identification purpose.

However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable...
 he regretted that if there had been a nationwide DNA database, it would have helped them to ascertain the identity of the bomber more easily.

Mr Hamid said three separate teams were working on the case -- one was led by another CTD SSP, Pervez Chandio, and another by the district police of Jamshoro and Dadu.

He disclosed that several persons had been taken into custody by the CTD and the district police for interrogation but so far no ’hard and fast’ evidence had emerged during the investigation.

The CTD SSP said they had some leads and were working on them. Mr Hamid said that since 2010, suspected Death Eater Hafeez Brohi, or Pandrani, had been found involved in all terror acts in upper Sindh and that the police suspected his network’s involvement in the deadly kaboom in Sehwan. He said Brohi had remained associated with the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
"It did not mean that we are ruling out other options," he added.

The CTD official said they were also questioning a detained suspect, Usman, who was tossed in the slammer
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
 during a botched suicide kaboom in Shikarpur recently.

Earlier, speaking at a presser, Mr Hamid said the CTD team had arrested three suspected hitmen in Malir’s Jaffar-e-Tayyar Society.

"The held hitmen [have been] identified as Anwar Husain, Asif Mumtaz and Khurram Shaharyar" belonging to the "Muttahida Qaumi Movement
...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead...
-Pakistain," claimed the CTD official.

Link


India-Pakistan
Militants, facilitators behind shrine blast traced, CM told
2017-02-24
[DAWN] KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has constituted three different teams to catch the murderous Moslems, their controllers and those involved in carrying out reconnaissance for carrying out suicide kaboom at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar.

Sources said that the perpetrators of last Thursday’s blast that claimed the lives of over 88 people in Sehwan were traced from the call data records and the footage of CCTV cameras installed at the shrine.

Mr Shah formed the three committees at a high-level meeting he chaired late on Tuesday night. Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Inspector General of Police A.D. Khowaja, Principal Secretary to CM Naveed Kamran Baloch, Counter-Terrorism Department chief Sanaullah Abbasi, Brig Nadir Hussain of Rangers, Home Secret­ary Qazi Shahid Parvaiz and other bigwigs were also present.

One of the three teams was sent to Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
for arresting some people belonging to the banned Hizbut Tahrir
...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate...
 who had been identified as "controllers" of the man who went kaboom! in the Qalandar’s shrine.

The second team was dispatched to Wadh and Jhal Magsi in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
 to trace some suspects who were in telephonic contact with those carrying out the attack.

The third team, of which the Rangers were also a part, was sent to Dadu, Shahdadkot, Jacobabad and Shikarpur for the arrest of those who took part in recce before the blast and had brought the jacket wallah to the shrine for carrying out the attack.

The sources said that the meeting was told that some 10 suspects were tossed in the slammer
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
 in Dadu and Sehwan. Of them, six persons had been cleared after initial grilling and the remaining ones were being questioned.

The CM also constituted a high-powered committee led by the Rangers director general and comprising bigwigs of police and other law-enforcement agencies to make security plans, hold regular meetings and share threat alerts.

This committee would have a subcommittee, which would keep the chief minister apprised about day-to-day activities.

He also asked all the agencies to investigate the blast separately and share their findings with each other.

Earlier, the chief minister was briefed about the suspected controllers of the shrine attack who had been identified with the help of CCTV footage.

The chief minister was also informed that the Sherlocks had obtained the record of the calls made from the shrine before and after the blast. The call record gave Sherlocks solid clues to draw their conclusion.

Mr Shah was told that the police and security agencies in other provinces were cooperating with the Sherlocks probing the shrine blast. "If we successfully worked out this case then we would be able to stop such incidents in future," the CM told the meeting.

The CM also issued directives for ensuring the security of "soft targets". He was informed that the police and other agencies deployed their people in plainclothes at important places, where CCTV coverage was also being improved.

He was also informed about the details of the operation launched in different districts of the province and the number of arrests made so far.
Link


-12 More