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India-Pakistan
Police nab 'hitman' involved in killing Nizamuddin Shamzai
2015-09-14
[DAWN] The city's West Zone police tossed in the calaboose
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
 a suspect allegedly involved in the killing of four religious scholars of Deobandi school of thought including Mufti Shamzai, Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
-West DIG Feroze Shah said on Sunday.

Shah said that the suspect Wasi Haider has been involved in 12 incidents of assassinations, including four religious scholars.

"The victims included Mufti Shamzai killed in 2004 and Maulana Abdul Majeed, Mufti Salih Mohammed and Maulana Ihsan who were killed in an armed attack on a van in January 2013," he added.

The officer said that the police party, acting on a tip off from the always reliable Mahmoud the Weasel, detained Haider from F.B. Industrial Area of of the metropolis.

"The detained suspect is a resident of Lines Area and belongs to a political party," said the DIG West.

His four accomplices were absconders.
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India-Pakistan
Nuggets from the Urdu press
2010-05-01
How to increase Pakistan's honour

Daily Nawa-e-Waqt editorialised that Pakistani citizens felt their honour increase (viqar mein izafa) on hearing that a delegation of nine Pakistani senators from the Tribal Areas (FATA) refused to continue their official visit in the United States after they were asked to submit to body scan (hattak amez amal). Similarly two Muslim ladies coming to Pakistan increased national honour by cancelling their journey from the UK after refusing to be scanned at the airport. The Americans have apologised for the scan but said that FATA senators could not be exempted.

Rivers will flow with blood!

Daily Jinnah reported that the UN-banned Jamaatud Dawa held a massive procession on Lahore's Mall Road to condemn India for stealing Pakistan's water. Famous leader Hafiz Said warned India (bharatio sunn lo!) that he will win Kashmir from India together with the dams India was building on Pakistani rivers. He said the rivers will run with Hindu blood.

Indus Treaty an unhappy marriage

Quoted in Jang Indus Water Commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah said in Lahore that Indus Water Treaty between Pakistan and India was an unhappy marriage over the years. He said India was preparing to build 25 to 20 dams on the rivers given to Pakistan. Although the dams were allowed by the treaty India should act on the spirit of the Treaty and agree to amend the amount of water given by the treaty to India from three Pakistani rivers. The reason was that the water flow in these rivers had decreased.

Blow up the dams!

Quoted in Jinnah chief editor and heads of journalists' organisation Khushnood Ali Khan told a meeting that the Indian dams that stole Pakistani water should be blown up with bombs. He said if India did not desist from stealing water then the philosophy of Hafiz Said should be acted upon because that was the only language India understood.

Talibanisation defined

Writing in Jang Saleem Safi stated that Talibanisation is often equated with the Taliban but it was actually rooted in the state institutions and their Indian and Afghan policies, politics of the religious parties and the hawkish anchors of the TV channels.

Jamaat has the wrong leader

According to survey published in Jinnah Jamaat Islami rank and file are unhappy with the current chief Syed Munawwar Hasan and would like to see Liaquat Baloch to be their leader. According to them former chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad too would like to have Baloch as the Jamaat leader. After a year Munawwar has not won the acceptance of the party supporters and he is not likely to win his place the second time.

Courting a terrorist party

Reported in Express PMLN leaders were courting the banned terrorist party Sipah Sahaba in South Punjab to win in elections. PMLN Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah was seen together with the Sipah leader Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi who claimed that all politicians who won their seats in South Punjab had approached Sipah for help. One federal minister of state had invited Ludhianvi to his house.

Ban on lewd gestures

Reported in daily Pakistan Lahore Home Department sent a notice of ban to actress Saima Khan for making lewd gestures on stage while acting in a play. The play was titled Ishq, Muhabbat aur Mehngai (High Passion amid High Prices). The Home Department also issued a notice of warning to Nida Chaudhry for making similar gestures.

I would have slapped him!

Quoted in daily Pakistan Governor Salmaan Taseer said that had he known that a member of Sipah Sahaba was in the same vehicle he was travelling in and had he known that he was addressing the same gathering he was addressing he would have slapped him and thrown him out of the meeting.

Target Nazir Naji

Writing in Jang, columnist Nazir Naji stated that he received a death threat once and requested the police to trace the man who had arranged to get him killed. The police found the man responsible was an imam masjid of Multan who confessed that he had planned to kill Nazir Naji on reading his columns. Naji further revealed that his latest death threats included Islamic scholar Javed Ghamidi and himself as targets of assassination.

Punjab lady MPAs exchange curses

According to Jinnah two lady MPAs in the Punjab Assembly exchanged hot words during a committee meeting and came out quarrelling and had to be provided security against exchange of blows. One Fauzia Behram called Samia Amjad ‘ghatiya' in Urdu who shot back with ‘shut up' in English.

Barber repents in Bhakkar

Reported in weekly Al Qalam a barber of the sectarian conflict prone city of Bhakkar in Punjab repented and gave up shaving people's beards. Barber Hakim was persuaded by the greatly humanitarian Al Rehmat Trust organisation to give up the sinful occupation of shaving beards. He presented himself at a local mosque and confessed that shaitan (satan) and nafs (selfishness) had deceived him into sin which he was now giving up.

Deobandi versus Barelvi in Faisalabad

Writing in jihadi publication Zarb-e-Momin Deobandi religious leader Qari Muhammad Jalundhari stated that on 12 Rabiul Awwwal the Birthday of the Prophet PBUH was celebrated in Faisalabad by Barelvi followers. When the procession reached the tomb of Deobandi dignitary Maulana Ziaul Qasimi they became violent and destroyed the library of the great man. He said there was a conspiracy afoot to rake up the old Barelvi-Deobandi vendetta and make the two fight again.

Conspiracies against Pakistan

Weekly Al Qalam reported from Islamabad that Raw, CIA and Mossad had decided to work together to deprive Pakistan of its water and turn it into registan (desert). It also reported from Islamabad that an international plot was ready to destabilise Pakistan. RAW together with CIA and Mossad had set up training camps for terrorists inside India who would be unleashed on Pakistan. For this, notorious criminals from all over the world were being scouted and inducted.

Sipah Sahaba is not terrorist!

Daily Islam reported that Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi the chief of the UN-banned Sipah Sahaba now renamed Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat said that his party should not be called terrorist as saying so would be contempt of court. He said a case in this regard was sub judice at the High Court. He said the PPP candidate in Haroonabad was supported by his party and this support was announced by member Javed Iqbal in the presence of Governor Salmaan Taseer.

Who was Maulana Jalalpuri?

Daily newspaper Islam reported that head of the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat organisation in Karachi great scholar Maulana Jalalpuri was gunned down along with his companions. He was famous for his diatribes against the Qadianis and his janaza prayer was said at Banuri Mosque. The paper reported that he was a celebrated pupil of Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi who was also killed in sectarian conflict. The head of Banuri Madrassa Mufti Shamzai was also thus killed in 2004. Earlier great scholar Maulana Ghafur Nadim of Sipah Sahaba was wounded by attackers in Karachi but his son Muawiya, provocatively named from the point of the view of the Shia community, was killed.
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India-Pakistan
Nuggets from the Urdu press
2007-08-27
Osama Bin Laden died in Pakistan
Daily Jang, quoting from the American magazine Online, reported that Osama bin Laden died of typhoid last month in Pakistan. The Saudi head of state and the President of France were secretly briefed, but the Pakistani government and the agencies didn’t confirm the news. The last time Osama appeared in a video tape was in 2004, and after that only a few audio tapes (of poor voice quality) have appeared, claiming to be the voice of Osama.

Stomach belt created panic in a bus
As reported in daily Express, a bus conductor saw a passenger with a belt under his shirt and started screaming, “Suicide bomber!” Panic ensued, and passengers jumped from the windows of the bus. In Mianwali, a local madrassah student, Hafiz Mohammad Shahzad, boarded a bus for Bannu wearing a belt under his shirt. When panic broke out, he showed his belt to the people. It was meant to reduce a sagging tummy.

Why are Shujaat and Ijaz ul Haq targeted?
Sarerahe wrote in daily Nawa-e-Waqt, that the female students of Jamia Hafsa claimed that they kidnapped the Chinese women of the massage parlor and Aunti Shamim at the behest of Ijaz ul Haq and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. Chaudhry Shujaat and Ijaz ul Haq have disguised their original brand and have coloured themselves to join enlightened moderators. Why didn’t the female students target the surgeons of this operation? Instead, they targeted these two leaders, because Chaudhry Shujaat is a religious man and Ijaz ul Haq is the son of a pious man.

Cambridge producing terrorists
As reported in daily Khabrain, it is usually assumed that religious seminaries are centers of terrorism, but all the Al Qaeda groups who have been busted so far have not had anyone educated from these madrassahs. Osama bin Laden and Dr Aymen Al Zawahiri studied from Western universities and reacted against American policies. Indian national Kafil Ahmad, who rammed his jeep into Glasgow airport, was a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

Thief let off on the recommendation of MPA
As reported in daily Nawa-e-Waqt, police arrested thieves red handed, stealing pipes from a factory in the Kot Abdul Malik area. Police left the head of the gang after sifarish from a local MPA, Gul Agha. The factory owner demanded that the head of the gang should be arrested again.

Radio license for Al Qaeda supporter
As reported in daily Jang, the PPP demanded an FM radio license from the governor of NWFP. The governor has given a radio license to the son in law of Sufi Mohammad, Maulana Fazalullah, who is poisoning people’s minds against democratic forces. The PPP wanted a radio channel to spread its party program to the people.

Crocodile tears of religious leaders
As reported in daily Khabrain, Maulana Abdul Aziz said through his lawyer that no religious leader, including Wafaq ul Madaris, is entitled to file a writ petition in the Supreme Court on the behalf of Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid. He said that these people were responsible for our problems, and now want to destroy our case to achieve their political goals. The chairman of the ulema council, Hafiz Mehmood Ashrafi, said that those who were calling the Ghazi brothers American agents are trying to take control of Jamia Fareedia and the Lal Masjid and are shedding crocodile tears to prove themselves innocent.

Blasphemy against Holy Quran
As reported in Daily Pakistan, in Holland a member of parliament and leader of the Freedom Party, Gate Bailders [that'd be Gert Wilders], demanded the banning of the Holy Quran in Holland, and compared it with the book of Hitler. His remarks have insulted Muslims, and the Public Prosecutor will decide whether to take Gate Bailders to court.

Why didn’t Al Qaeda raise the Kashmir issue?
In daily Nawa-e-Waqt, famous columnist Haroon ur Rashid asked why Osama bin Laden and Aimen al Zawahiri never raised the issue of Kashmir? Is it because they have links with a certain sect, which is still against the creation of Pakistan? Do they have links with India, and are part of an international conspiracy against Pakistan?

Lawyers beat up Khalil Malik
As reported in Daily Pakistan, Khalil Malik, the owner of a paper and a presenter on PTV, was severely beaten by lawyers in Rawalpindi. He made derogatory remarks against Chief Justice Chaudhry during the movement for his restoration. A case was logged against him by the Bar Association. He came to appear in the case against him and female lawyers showed him their shoes. He surrendered and gave an unconditional apology before the court, and lawyers withdrew their case against him.

Who was Abdullah Mehsud?
Tanvir Qaiser Shahid reported in Daily Pakistan, that Abdullah Mehsud, after failing to join the Pakistan Army, went to Karachi and was admitted on the recommendation of Mufti Shamzai, to Jamia Banoria, a famous seminary of the Deoband school. He was a favourite student of Mufti Jamil Ahmad. Both Mufti Shamzai and Mufti Jamil were supporters of the Taliban and were advisors to Mullah Omar. Abdullah went to Afghanistan and was Mullah Omar’s lover personal guard.

Government received billions for Lal Masjid
As reported in daily Jang, Maulana Sami ul Haq, head of Jamiat ulema Islam (Sami), said that the Lal Masjid operation was done on American instructions. He said that Pakistan received 10 billion dollars for this operation. He said that the presence of arms in madrassahs is propaganda. He said that we are trying to bring madrassahs into mainstream national life.

Urdu wasting students’ time
As reported in daily Khabrain, the Minister of Education, Qazi Javed Ashraf, said teaching Urdu is waste of time and that our cricketers get in trouble when they speak in English. He said that the subject of Islamiyat, which doesn’t teach brotherhood, patience and true Islamic traditions, should not be taught. Addressing a teacher training workshop, he said that female teachers would be employed for co education up to primary level schools.

Chinese kidnapping to avenge murder
As reported in Daily Pakistan by Tanvir Qaiser Shahid, Mufti Jamil was killed in Karachi along with Maulana Taunsavi of Khatam-e Nabowat in 2004. Mufti Shamzai had already been gunned down by unknown assailants. Two days after the killing of Mufti Jamil, two Chinese engineers were kidnapped, along with their Pakistani driver, Shaban, and Constable Asmatullah. Three of the kidnappers were Afghan, with two Mehsud tribemen. The leader of this group was Abdullah Mehsud.

Naeem Bukhari beaten by Lawyers
As reported in daily Nawa-e-Waqt, famous lawyer and TV host Naeem Bukhari, who wrote a letter to Pervez Musharraf against Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was beaten by lawyers in Rawalpindi. Naeem Bukhari said that he was ready to apologise, but the lawyers insisted that he should beg forgiveness in his underwear in front of the Bar Association members.

PPP can’t have contacts with the government
Nazir Naji wrote in daily Jang, that Pakistan is divided into two classes: rulers and the oppressed. Historically, the oppressed are represented by the PPP, while the ruling class is represented by the establishment. When there is a chance for the PPP to come into power, the establishment starts yelling and throw all kinds of allegations at the PPP. Those who level allegations think of serving the establishment as their right, but when Benazir contacts Musharraf then she becomes the target of allegations.
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India-Pakistan
Editorial: Nemesis of Jaish
2007-07-03
Eight terrorists belonging to the much-metamorphosed jihadi militia Jaish-e Muhammad have been arrested in Lahore. The police have confined their list of offences which range from the killing of Christians in Pakistan to carrying out terrorist acts in Afghanistan for the Taliban against the international NATO-ISAF forces. The group was located in Quetta and one can speculate that the “lead” on the terrorists with half a decade old Pakistani charges against them must have come from Afghanistan.

The eight men are believed to have been behind an attack on a missionary school near Murree in 2002, killing six; and a grenade attack on a church in Taxila four days later, in which four nurses were killed — a poor man’s answer to the invasion of Afghanistan. One of the terrorists had a bounty on his head of one million rupees. The group had in their possession material for making bombs and large quantities of arms and ammunition. The group confessed to being members of Khudam al-Furqan, the name a splinter from Jaish assumed after Jaish was banned in 2002.

Pakistan is now in the process of dismantling and eliminating — at times under duress — the proxies it had launched in the name of “freedom wars”. The jihadi underworld developed under several names, the most well known being Jamiatul Ansar which emerged as the most blood-thirsty terrorist group in Indian-occupied Kashmir in the 1990s. When the world woke up to its indiscriminate savagery targeting people not directly connected with the “freedom struggle”, it splintered and assumed different identities, one of them being Harkatul Mujahideen, led from the Deobandi seminaries in Pakistan.

Harkat came to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden and accompanied him to Sudan when he took his Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan because of mujahideen infighting. One leader of Jaish, Maulana Masood Azhar, rose as an agent of Al Qaeda with the ability to raise funds all over the world. In 1993, Al Qaeda was involved in the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in Somalia while performing duties under UN auspices, about which Osama bin Laden was to boast later. While in disguise in India, Masood was captured and imprisoned. Another operative of Al Qaeda, Umar Sheikh, was also captured in New Delhi.

In 1999, an Indian civilian aircraft was hijacked after take-off from Nepal by a group of terrorists led by Masood’s brother, Ibrahim. The plane was taken to Afghanistan where the Taliban, recognised by Pakistan as a regime, arranged for a swap of Indian passengers with the two Al Qaeda terrorists, Umar and Masood. After their release, both came to Pakistan and began operating freely. Umar came to Lahore and Masood went to the most powerful seminary in Pakistan, Jamia Banuria, from where he later started issuing threatening statements against President Pervez Musharraf when the jihad was bottled up after 2003.

In the pre-9/11 days the Pakistani establishment was still upbeat about its proxy wars and did nothing to catch the terrorists, which aroused suspicion in many quarters about the 1999 hijack. Both the terrorists then struck targets that hurt Pakistan’s national interests in the post-9/11 period. Umar Sheikh arranged to kill an American journalist Daniel Pearl and is today in prison in Pakistan appealing against his death sentence.
He's not dead yet, but the heat's not off, either. So he's being kept safe from the Americans and the Indos in jail.
But Masood’s career has continued to be turbulent. After 2001, he not only took on General Musharraf but also the Harkat leadership. He split with the other leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil and set up another militia which he called Jaish-e Muhammad. In this he was supported by Jamia Banuria’s chief Mufti Shamzai — killed in 2004 — who prized him as his pupil. At that point Lahore had a number of “self-financed” centres — based on extortion on the basis of fatwas — run by youths plying double-cabin vehicles gifted by Osama bin Laden. From the published information available in Pakistan, it is quite clear that the Harkat-Jaish split caused the vehicles to be disabled, but the vehicles were replaced again by Osama bin Laden.

Masood damaged General Musharraf more effectively in 2001 when he attacked the Indian parliament and caused a military standoff between Pakistan and India that lasted almost a year. He was put under house arrest in his hometown Bahawalpur from where he has a way of vanishing from time to time. No one knows where he is today. The Harkat leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil is also at large, probably living in Islamabad, and has only recently stopped giving interviews to foreigners which have proved embarrassing to Islamabad.

Another actor in this lethal dramatis personae of terror was Qari Saifullah Akhtar, let off from the 1995 abortive military coup and then sent off to Dubai in 2001 to escape being killed by the invasion of Afghanistan, only to be recalled when his boys nearly succeeded in killing President Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. No one knows where he is now. Pakistan is revisiting the nightmare of its past. Its posturings will remain dubious till it decides to purge its conscience and starts with a clean slate.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Nuggets from the Urdu Press
2005-08-13
Peshawar Assembly and Pushto
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, the NWFP assembly was drowned in shouting when a member presented the resolution for making Pushto a compulsory subject up to 8th class in all schools of the province. An MPA from Hazara said that in his district, the population spoke Punjabi and therefore Pushto was not acceptable. Jamaat e-Islami minister Sirajul Haq also opposed the motion but ANP strongly supported it. Hazara members said that the resolution could impose Pushto on Pushtun areas only. After that, there was pandemonium in the house.

Qazi loves music
Quoted in Khabrain, Jamaat Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad said that he loved music and was intellectually impressed with Maududi and Iqbal, but remembered Dast-e-Saba of Faiz too. His greatest grief was the taking of Al Quds by the Jews and he could not sleep at night after the Fall of Dhaka.

Moral police in Gujranwala
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, the DCO in Gujranwala had given orders that all theatres showing dance would be closed down. He had set up monitoring teams who would go round checking the seven theatres in the city for dance. He had already closed down three theatres: Geo Theatre for Akhiyan karan nazaray (Eyes enjoy scenes), Roxy for Giyaran nariyan (Eleven girls) and Bilawal Theatre for Kuryan chan vargiyan (Girls like moons).

Musharraf’s star is up!
The daily Khabrain published the prediction of astrologer Dr Farooqi, saying that Musharraf’s star Jupiter was in the ascendant and he was going to become the most popular leader in the future. Something startling would happen after 22 July 2005 to make his position stronger. After August 2005, Pakistan would test more nuclear weapons. The stars were kind to Ghulam Mustafa Khar who would soon get Ms Bhutto’s full support in the PPP.

Osama’s brother defends him
Quoted in the daily Pakistan, Yaslam bin Laden said his younger half brother was his beloved and he would defend him if he got caught. He said he was hiding somewhere on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Yaslam was from an Iranian mother while Osama was from a Syrian mother. Yaslam was with Osama from 1978 to 1981 and was six years his elder. He was educated in Lebanon and America.

CII is ‘kuppi’ group!
Quoted in the daily Pakistan, JUI chief and MMA leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman said that the Council for Islamic Ideology (CII) was newly set up to let the rulers drink wine. CII members were known as a kuppi (cup) group of drunkards. He asked Shujaat and Mushahid to swear that they had not accepted the passage of Hasba Bill by the NWFP assembly during negotiations.

Shamim Qureshi and Sayd Akbar
Writing in the Jang, Javed Chaudhry stated that late astrologer Shamim Qureshi was from Kashmir where he had met a Pathan named Sayd Akbar. The same Pathan killed prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951 while Shamim stood next to Sayd at a public meeting. Shamim got his ability to predict from Benaras and he correctly predicted the death of Rajiv Gandhi. He was much sought after by the intelligence agencies.

9/11 denied on Australian TV
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, leader of Ahle Sunnat Muslims in Australia Sheikh Muhammad Imran told the Australians on Australian TV that Osama bin Laden had not done the 9/11 bombings, nor had the Muslims done the 7/7 bombings. Osama he said was an exemplary (azeem) Muslim and there was no proof against him for doing terrorism.

‘Jemima goes love-crazy’
According to Khabrain, Jemima Khan and actor Hugh Grant got so heated up (itnay andhay ho gayay) that they forgot to draw down the curtains while making love during a tryst in the UK. The housemaid entered the bedroom and saw them both in a bad situation and called her own husband to witness the act.

Using Robert Fisk in Urdu
After Irfan Siddiqi in the Nawa-e-Waqt, Irshad Haqqani in the Jang, Jamaat leader Hafiz Idrees referred to the British journalist Robert Fisk’s accusation that America and Britain were responsible for 9/11 and 7/7. In his article in Khabrain, he said that the Muslims were being victimised in the UK while Britain and the US were bombing Baghdad. He said there was an evil triangle in the world consisting of America, India and Israel.

Friend of Shamzai killed
According to the daily Pakistan, a friend of the late head of Banuri Mosque, Mufti Shamzai, and the head of the Orangi Town mosque (of Sipah Sahaba), Maulana Shamsuddin, was kidnapped and shot to death by unknown assailants in Karachi.

Boota Pir lives!
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, in Layyah a Boota Pir has been discovered whose grave cures people of all sorts of diseases including skin disease. People use soil and oil available at the grave. Once a bulldozer was used to level the place, but the driver was stricken with blindness. The place he wanted to level contained the graves of Lal Shah and Alamdar. Then people saw dreams about surrounding the area with walls and creating a darbar. Thousands of rupees of charahwah (gifts) are showered on the grave.

Who is against Musharraf?
Writing in the Jang, Irshad Haqqani said that President Musharraf’s statement that he was in contest with reactionary (raj’at pasand) forces was not right. In fact, he had recently described the opposition of the liberals to him. He had admitted that on mixed marathons, he was in a minority together with the liberals. In the Mukharan Mai case, he had castigated the NGOs and liberals and called their outlook as dangerous as that of the fundamentalists.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Pakistani Minister has to be rescued from Cleric's mourners
2005-06-25
So Mufti Rahman was Mufti Shamzai's replacement as head of Binori..
More than 10,000 mourners have attended the funeral of a Sunni Muslim cleric in the Pakistani city of Karachi amid protests at his murder. Mufti Attiqur Rahman was shot in his car by unidentified gunmen on Thursday. A second man in the vehicle died later. About 1,000 policeman were deployed for the funeral of Mufti Rahman, 55, and his friend, Mohammed Irshad. The funeral passed off generally peacefully but Mr Hussain, Pakistan's junior minister for religious affairs, said he was set upon by an angry mob as he said funeral prayers at the Binori town mosque and was trapped in a building nearby. "I am in bad shape. I am bleeding," he said when the BBC News website contacted him by mobile phone. He could be heard urging the authorities to send help on another line. "Please come with an armoured car... I am bleeding. My life is in danger. Please help me, get me out of here." A police official told Associated Press Mr Hussain had now been rescued.

Mufti Rahman had been deputising for Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who was murdered in Karachi in May last year, sparking riots. A number of activists from Mufti Rahman's madrassah, or religious school, came out on the streets in the Site area of the city on Friday and pelted vehicles with stones and set up roadblocks but were dispersed by police. Mufti Rahman had been returning from delivering Koran lessons at a city mosque on Thursday evening when two gunmen on a motorcycle fired shots into his vehicle, police said. Mufti Rahman died hours later and Mr Irshad of his injuries on Friday. The cleric's 10-year-old son, Imadur, was wounded and is in a stable condition.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
The Next Islamist Revolution?
2005-01-25
Edited for length
Last spring, Bangla Bhai, whose followers probably number around 10,000, decided to try an Islamist revolution in several provinces of Bangladesh that border on India. His name means ''Bangladeshi brother.'' (At one point he said his real name was Azizur Rahman and more recently claimed it was Siddiqul Islam.) He has said that he acquired this nom de guerre while waging jihad in Afghanistan and that he was now going to bring about the Talibanization of his part of Bangladesh. Men were to grow beards, women to wear burkas. This was all rather new to the area, which was religiously diverse. But Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, as Bangla Bhai's group is called (the name means Awakened Muslim Masses of Bangladesh), was determined and violent and seemed to have enough lightly armed adherents to make its rule stick. Because he swore his main enemy was a somewhat derelict but still dangerous group of leftist marauders known as the Purbo Banglar Communist Party, Bangla Bhai gained the support of the local police -- until the central government, worried that Bangla Bhai's band might be getting out of control, ordered his arrest in late May.

The Bangladeshi government's arrest warrant doesn't seem to have made much difference, although for now Bangla Bhai refrains from public appearances. The government is far away in Dhaka, and is in any case divided on precisely this question of how much Islam and politics should mix. Meanwhile, Bangla Bhai and the type of religious violence he practices are filling the power vacuum.

In Bangladesh, ''Islam is becoming the legitimizing political discourse,'' according to C. Christine Fair, a South Asia specialist at the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan, federally financed policy group in Washington. ''Once you don that religious mantle, who can criticize you? We see this in Pakistan as well, where very few people are brave enough to take the Islamists on. Now this is happening in Bangladesh.'' The region, Fair added, has become a haven where jihadis can move easily and have access to a friendly infrastructure that allows them to regroup and train.

This was not supposed to be the fate of Bangladesh, which fought its way to independence 34 years ago. While its population of 141 million is 83 percent Muslim, the nation was founded on the principle of secularism, which in Bangladesh essentially means religious tolerance. After the guiding figure of independence, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in 1975, military leaders, seeking legitimacy, allowed a return of Islam to politics. With the return of fair elections in 1991, power became precariously divided among four parties: the right-leaning Bangladesh National Party (B.N.P.), the mildly leftist Awami League, the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami and the conservative Jatiya. The two leading parties are led by women: the B.N.P. by the current prime minister, Khaleda Zia, widow of the party's murdered founder; the Awami League by Zia's predecessor as prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, herself the daughter of the assassinated founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Zia and Sheikh Hasina, as she is known, have a legendary antipathy toward each other. Each of their parties regularly accuses the other of illegal acts.

The political breach between those two parties is being filled primarily by Jamaat-e-Islami, which agitated against independence in 1971 and remains close to Pakistan. The group was banned after independence for its role in the war but has slowly worked its way back to political legitimacy. The party itself has not changed much -- it was always socially conservative and unafraid of violence. The political context, however, has changed enough to give it greater power. Since 2001, Jamaat-e-Islami has been a crucial part of a governing coalition dominated by the B.N.P. The two parties have ties dating to the late 1970's, but it is only since 2001 that a politically aggressive form of Islam has found, for the first time since independence, a strong place at the top of Bangladeshi politics.
It's a sad story the way that the collaborators of the JI, who fought alongside the Pakistani Army against their own people in the name of Islamic solidarity, have been able to return to power, lead by the same men who killed thousands of Hindus and independence supporters.

By the early 1990's Islamist groups began appearing, mainly at the periphery of the jihad centered on Afghanistan. The most important of these has been the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji), which has been associated with Fazlul Rahman, who signed Osama bin Laden's famous declaration in 1998 endorsing international, coordinated jihad -- the document that introduced Al Qaeda to the larger world. But Bangla Bhai's group and others have since emerged and are making their bids for power.

Six years ago, Huji chose its first prominent target: Shamsur Rahman, who is Bangladesh's leading poet. Rahman has lived under police protection since Jan. 18, 1999, when three young men appeared at his house and asked for a poem. Immediately one of the men ran upstairs and tried to chop Rahman's neck with an ax. ''He tried to cut my head off, but my wife took me in her arms and my daughter-in-law too,'' Rahman recounted. The two women fended off the blows until the neighbors, hearing their screams, rushed into the house and caught the attackers. The attack led to the arrest of 44 members of Huji. Two men, a Pakistani and a South African, claimed they had been sent to Bangladesh by Osama bin Laden with more than $300,000, which they distributed among 421 madrassas, or private religious schools. According to Gowher Rizvi, director of the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard and a lecturer in public policy, bin Laden's reputed donation is ''a pittance'' compared with the millions that Saudi charities have contributed to many of Bangladesh's estimated 64,000 madrassas, most of which serve only a single village or two.

Communists are just one target of Islamic militants in Bangladesh. Most attacks have been carried out against either members of religious minorities -- Hindus, Christians and Buddhists -- or moderate Muslims considered out of step with the doctrines espoused at the militant madrassas. International groups like Human Rights Watch cannot gather information freely enough to be certain of the scope of the problem. Yet anecdotal evidence is abundant. In Bangladesh, as part of the militant Islamists' agenda, religious minorities are coming under a new wave of attacks. One of the most vulnerable communities is that of the Ahmadiyya, a sect of some 100,000 Muslims who believe that Muhammad was not the last prophet. In Pakistan, the Ahmadiyya have been declared infidels and many have been killed. In Bangladesh, religious hardliners have burned mosques and books and pressured the government to declare the sect non-Muslim. Last year, the government agreed to ban Ahmadiyya literature; earlier this month, however, Bangladesh's high court stayed the ban pending further consideration by the court.

The Ahmadiyya are hardly the only group at risk. ''For the Hindus, the last couple of years have been disastrous,'' says Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch. ''There are substantial elements within the society and government itself that are advancing the idea that Hindus need to be expelled.'' On the ground, attacks against Hindus include beatings and rapes.

In this environment, Bangladesh's radical leaders have ratcheted up their ambitions. Responding to the American invasion of Afghanistan, supporters of the Islamic Oikya Jote (I.O.J.), the most radical party in the governing coalition and a junior partner to the Jamaat-e-Islami, chanted in the streets of Chittagong and Dhaka, ''Amra sobai hobo Taliban, Bangla hobe Afghanistan,'' which roughly translates to ''We will be the Taliban, and Bangladesh will be Afghanistan.'' The I.O.J. is considered a legitimate voice within Bangladeshi politics. The I.O.J.'s chairman, Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini, who has served as a member of Parliament for the past three years, says he believes that secular law has failed Bangladesh and that it's time to implement Sharia, the legal code of Islam. Amini is the author of books in Arabic, Bangla and Urdu. (He learned Urdu while completing graduate work in a madrassa in Karachi, Pakistan.)
I did some searching and was completely unsurprised to find that the Karachi madrassa he attended was Binori town, formerly run by Mufti Shamzai, and the source of the leadership level of the Deobandi Jihadist movements.

The mufti has been named in Indian intelligence documents as a member of the central committee of Huji (itself linked to Al Qaeda), an association he would, of course, deny. He is also rumored to have close friends among the Afghan Taliban, which he denies, while adding that it's better not to discuss the Afghan Taliban, as they are so frequently misunderstood. Outside his office, the sound of boys' voices reciting the Koran rises and falls. Fifteen hundred students study at the madrassa, and the mufti's party, the I.O.J., sponsors madrassas all over the nation; how many, he claimed not to know. Financing, the mufti said, comes mostly from Bangladesh itself, but some money also arrives from friends throughout the Arab world. Of all his political influence, the mufti is most proud of his fatwas, which, he said, give him a means to speak out against those who violate Islam. ''Whoever speaks against Islam, I issue a fatwa against them to the government,'' he said. ''But the government says nothing.'' He shook his head, frustrated. That's next on his agenda: to pressure the government to recognize his religious injunctions. ''It's possible,'' he said, ''now more than ever.''
It appears the IOJ serves as a branch of Pakistan's JUI-F, just as Bangladesh's JI answers to Pakistan's JI. The former being Deobandis, the latter being more akin to the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Nuggets from the Urdu press
2004-12-10
Oh boy! Friday's Urdu McNuggets, and right on time!
I like mine with sweet'n'sour sauce and a side of dhinga-mushti.
Mufti Jameel killed by agencies?
Quoted by Nawa-e-Waqt, Jamaat Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad visited the Banuri Masjid complex in Karachi and accused the government of killing two clerical leaders of the mosque, Mufti Shamzai and Mufti Jameel. He said the government had done nothing to catch the murderers of Mufti Shamzai after it had been given information about the murderers. He said the killing was curious because when Shamzai was killed the police had disappeared from the scene to clear the way for killers. He said Mufti Jameel was killed even though he had kept his arrival in Karachi secret, arriving one day earlier than the known schedule, but even then he was killed on the basis of inside information.

What is 'etekaaf'?
According to Dr Abdul Rauf in Khabrain, etekaaf [divine trance] is a constant focus on Allah for a period of time not less than one night and one day continuously; but it could go on for days. The idiom is etekaaf par bethna. It has to be done in a mosque where collective prayer is offered. Etekaaf is not obligatory but is sunnat or practice of the Prophet PBUH. It is compulsory to fast while in etekaaf which can be done in Ramazan or in any month. During this divine trance all namaz prayers are to be offered interspersed with readings of the Quran and its exegesis. It is however very important not to be distracted. The obligation of tatti-peshab (urination and defecation) has to be gone through quickly some place near the mosque and care should be taken to get it over with in one minute. Similarly, it is forbidden to indulge in jama (fornication) during etekaaf. It is also forbidden to go to the doctor for long diagnosis because it breaks the concentration. It is better to call the doctor to the place of etekaaf. To be silent and not to read or recite anything destroys etekaaf and is a sin.

Judges in 'divine trance'
According to Jang, two judges of the Lahore High court had sat in divine trance (etekaaf par baith gayay) which meant they would not be available for work for a number of days. The paper also reported that a cleric doing the trance in Shuja Abad was savagely clubbed in the head by someone. A large number of people had requested the government for giving them permission (on payment) to do the trance in Faisal Mosque in Islamabad but the government was scared that they could be attacked by terrorists. According to daily Pakistan 3,000 people had sat on etekaaf in Lahore's Data Darbar mosque.

Killed for refusing 'jama-talashi'
According to Jang, one man was killed and another injured after quarrelling with a committee asking people to allow body search before entering a mosque in Rawalpindi. The two young men became angry that they were being asked to submit to body search (jama-talashi) because they were fasting and were in sacred rage. After the quarrel a fight ensued in which one man was killed.

America will be destroyed!
Sarerahe quoted ex-ISI chief General Hameed Gul in Nawa-e-Waqt as saying that the victory of George Bush would destroy the United States because Bush had divided the nation. He said the American nation was now fragmented and had lost its ability to make important decisions.

Quran insulted, hospital burned
According to Jang people of Dalbandin found that pages of the Quran were scattered in a jungle. They became greatly incensed and came to the conclusion that a local NGO must have done the evil deed on orders from America. Three thousand citizens gathered and went to the nearest hospital run by the said NGO. They burned the hospital down, destroyed all the machinery and as their last sacred act stole the surgical instruments. The levees were called in but the incensed crowd threw stones at them too. According to daily Pakistan the incident took place near Chaghai where Pakistan tested its nuclear device in 1998. The ulema in divine rage said that the Quran was insulted as a result of a conspiracy of the Jews who were running the NGOs. They said that if any representative of the UN came to the area they would shoot him full of bullets. Dalbandin is where the Arab princes shoot bustard.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Who is Abdullah Mehsud?
2004-11-26
Present leader of the South Waziristan Jihad, and another Binori alumni.
Journalist Tanvir Qaiser Shahid wrote in daily Pakistan that the man who kidnapped two Chinese engineers at the Gomal Zam Dam on 11 October 2004 in South Waziristan, was an old Banuri Masjid [mosque] warrior, Abdullah Mehsud. After all negotiations failed, the kidnappers were stormed, which resulted in the death of one Chinese engineer. Abdullah was helped by five kidnappers, two of them from South Waziristan and three from Afghanistan. Mehsud, who was released from Guantanamo Bay by the Americans in March 2004 after two and a half years, demanded the release of five of his friends from jail in Pakistan as ransom.

Abdullah was born in South Waziristan, was educated to FA but could not obtain commission in the army like his cousin who retired as major and is now trading in Wana. After failing to join the army, Abdullah went to Karachi and lived among the Afghan refugees and also arose to the leadership of the Pushtun transport mafia. He was taken into Deobandi seminary of Banuri Masjid by its chief, Mufti Shamzai. He stayed there for three years and came under the influence of Mufti Jameel who taught there. Mufti Jameel was a close adviser of Mufti Shamzai and the two were representatives of the Taliban interest in Pakistan. When in 2001 ISI chief General Mehmood took a delegation to persuade Mullah Umar to desist from terrorism Mufti Jameel was also in the delegation. Fifty-two-year old Mufti Jameel was at that time information secretary of the JUI and was a member of its Shura. He ran 150 Iqra religious schools where 50,000 took instruction. Abdullah Mehsud, after coming close to Mufti Jameel, was given the job of Mullah Umar's personal bodyguard.

Abdullah was already a veteran of the war against the Northern Alliance. In October 2001 when America attacked Afghanistan he was once again at the battlefront, from where he was captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay. The Americans failed to link him to Al Qaeda and released him in March 2004. Upon reaching Pakistan he went straight to Banuri Masjid in Karachi and paid his respects to Mufti Jameel. Wana Operation was on then. Mufti Shamzai of Banuri Masjid had been murdered. While Abdullah lay low in South Waziristan, another incident took place. Someone killed Mufti Jameel on 9 October 2004 along with Khatm-e-Nabuwwat cleric Maulana Taunsavi. Abdullah struck two days later and kidnapped the Chinese engineers from the Dam. Abdullah Mehsud got to know Uzbek warrior Tahir Yuldashev and Ahmadzai Wazir Nek Muhammad intimately during his training in the Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Fazl holds Govt responsible for killing of Ulemas
2004-10-11
Opposition leader and Secretary General of MMA, Maulana Fazlur Rehman has held responsible both the government and law enforcement agencies of failing to arrest the killers of the Ulemas.
I hold the religious parties responsible for motivating the killers...
Addressing to the faithful after leading funeral of Mufti Jamil here on Sunday, chief of his own faction said, "We never wanted to fuel the issue but would not tolerate it one after the other", he warned.
"I mean, hey! I could be next!"
Government has totally failed to maintained law and order in the country and from Sialkot to Karachi, one group is responsible, he added. Government knows about the inners of opposition parties, but it is strange that they are totally ignorant of the killers of ulemas and failed to nab the killers of Hakim Saeed, Mufti Shamzai, he lamented. Maulana Fazl further said that government is only carrying out the orders of US and crushing the innocent people and our mission will go on till the objectives are achieved.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Nuggets from the Urdu press
2004-08-20
Son of Chinioti follows father
According to Nawa-e-Waqt late Maulana Manzur Chinioti's son Ilyas Chinioti has put on his turban after his death and vowed to continue the laudable work of apostatisation of his father. Upon becoming leader he called the caliph of the Ahmedi community Mirza Masroor to a mubahila, a supernatural verbal combat in which the false speaker falls down dead.

'I am not Qadiani!'
According to Khabrain prime minister in waiting Shaukat Aziz said that he was not a Qadiani and all the rumours spread about his being one were false and malicious. He pronounced Al Hamdul Lillah and said that he was a Sunni Muslim and the clerics who instructed him in Islam were still alive and could vouch for his not being a Qadiani. Sarerahe in Nawa-e-Waqt stated that Mr Aziz's mother was in the habit of holding religious gatherings every month on the occasion of Giyarwin Sharif where great Sunni scholars came and lectured. She said her prayers five times a day.

Girls will turn terrorists
According to Jang captured Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorist Gul Hassan said that in the near future Al Qaeda girls would throw bombs and create havoc in Pakistan. He said that women's functions would be targeted by girls wearing school uniforms. He also said that women in the Shia schools would be targeted by women terrorists.

Mufti Shamzai's killer identified
According to Insaf, Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel revealed that on the basis of photographic records the constable who was eye-witness to the murder of Mufti Shamzai had been identified. One killer was Muhtasham who belonged to a banned jihadi organisation and was wanted for earlier sectarian murders.

Faisalabad terrorist paradise?
According to Insaf, 16 foreign religious students were rounded up in Faisalabad because they were staying in the city without a valid visa. They were from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uganda, Sudan, Nigeria and Tanzania. Their accounts were seized and their foreign teachers were also hauled up. They had initially come to Lahore for the grand congregation of Tablighi Jamaat for which the government runs special trains but after the gathering was over they moved to Faisalabad which are the headquarters of the Ahle Hadith (Wahhabi) Party.

Manzur Wattoo and Manzur Chinioti
According to daily Pakistan, when Maulana Manzur Chinioti became a member of Punjab's assembly, Manzur Wattoo was to be elected as house speaker. He wanted Chinioti's vote but Chinioti insisted that he first denounce his Qadiani religion. In order to get his vote Wattoo denounced the religion of his father and also later refrained from saying the funeral prayer of his father.

Shaukat Aziz and the mullahs
Columnist Nazeer Naji wrote in Jang that finance minister Shaukat Aziz was in the cross hairs of the mullahs and was making the mistake of responding to their challenges, as if he was not a candidate for premiership but for the imamat of a mosque. He had already announced his sect although the Constitution did not demand that. Next he could be revealing whether he was Barelvi or Deobandi or Ahle Hadith. Under pressure the future premier might even promise the rule of the Taliban in Pakistan. He was entering a dark tunnel with the mullahs. Once inside he would find it eternally black.
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Afghanistan/South Asia
Fazlur Rehman’s deft political moves
2004-06-21
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Leader of the Opposition and chief of the biggest component of Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal, is a suave politician, much more so than other opposition leaders — for instance the PPP leadership — and definitely a cut above the Jama’at-e Islami amir, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who has emerged as the real hard-liner in the MMA. Consider Mr Rehman’s press conference on June 19. Mr Rehman told the press that the slain Deobandi cleric from Banuri Town mosque, Mufti Shamzai, was killed because he had agreed to mediate between the government and the renegade Wazir tribesmen led by Nek Mohammad. Mr Rehman’s argument becomes clear from what he had to say about the Wana operation in general. According to him, the Americans scuttled the deal between Islamabad and the tribesmen. Read in conjunction, this implies that the Americans first bumped off Shamzai and then took out Nek. This is in line with the rightwing thesis on not just acts of terrorism but also sectarian violence. At the extreme end of this reasoning lies the argument that Osama bin Laden is a mythical figure and the September 11 attacks were the doing of the Israeli Mossad. Is Mr Rehman then a chip of the old fundo block or is he different from others, including Qazi Hussain Ahmed? To understand that, look at his position on two other issues.

Mr Rehman, says a fly on the wall, has been co-opted by the British to mediate with the ‘moderate’ Taliban. This British initiative, backed evidently by the Americans, also has Kabul and Islamabad on board. And Mr Rehman is smack in the middle of it. Which, incidentally, is why he is Leader of the Opposition. Smart gent, Mr Rehman, we say. But there is more. On the India-Pakistan peace process, Mr Rehman is clear that it is important for the process to continue and move forward. Last year when Mr Rehman went to India with a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam delegation, his statements took the Indians by surprise. He was logical, rational, mild, eloquent and very convincing. He won hands down. It was no surprise that he had been briefed before he went to India; neither was it surprising that one could hear the JI gnashing its teeth and its leaders telling people privately that they did not agree with Mr Rehman’s approach on the issue.

Mr Rehman, of course, has much to lose if this dispensation is packed off. His party is in power in the NWFP and is part of the coalition in Balochistan. And he has perfected the art of compartmentalising issues and taking each on its merit. On the Wana issue, he has to keep an eye on his Pashtun vote-bank in the NWFP and therefore will fulminate against the operation while doing nothing to stop it (the NWFP government says South Waziristan is federally administered tribal area and therefore outside its jurisdiction!). However, that does not stop him from trying to get the moderate Taliban to support Kabul. This is why his rival JUI leader, Sami-ul Haq is so peeved with him and thinks the MMA government in the NWFP has sold the Taliban down the river and done nothing to stop the federal government from cleaning up South Waziristan. As for the peace process, it helps Mr Rehman keep his linkages with Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, the parent Deobandi organisation of JUI. It also helps him retain the necessary link with the GHQ. Mr Rehman is a good strategist and it is important to see what he does, not just what he says. Maybe, Mr Ahmed also needs to draw a few lessons from Mr Rehman.
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