Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !

Tariq Jameel

Tariq Jameel

Wazir Taliban

India-Pakistan

20060406

Link

India-Pakistan

Students Of Pakistani Madrassa Beheaded Their Female Teacher

2022-04-06

[MEMRI.ORG] According to Pak media reports, three female students of a religious madrassa in the Pak town of Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... beheaded their female teacher because a 13-year-old female relative of theirs had dreamt that Muhammad, founder of Islam, had told the relative that the teacher had committed blasphemy ...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran... and ordered that she be beheaded. Some Pak media reports have avoided mentioning Muhammad's name, while other reports said that the attackers were teachers. The victim has been identified in some reports as S. Bibi or Safoora Bibi.Roznama Mashriq, an Urdu daily, reported: "At 7 am on Tuesday [March 29, 2022], three female students — Razia Hanifa and Ayesha Noman, daughters of Allah Nawaz; and Umra Aman Hanifa, daughter of Deen Badshah belonging to the Mehsud tribe and residents of Anjumabad area — overpowered their 18-year-old teacher 'S' Bibi, resident of Tiarza in South Wazoo and currently resident of Nawab Multan ...Home of the Multan Sultans... Road Dera, at the gate of the madrassa and beheaded her by mercilessly running knives on her throat." The gruesome murder of the female teacher bring attention to the controversial blasphemy laws in Pakistain, where in December 2021 a mob burned alive Sri Lankan factory manager Priyantha Kumara, who had been accused of blasphemy. The headline in Roznama Mashriq reads: "Three Female Students Of Madrassa Murdered Female Teacher After Having A Dream." A sub-headline reads: "Describing the dream, a female student declared that the female teacher was a blasphemer, after which the three female students beheaded the female teacher." A report in Dawn newspaper named the three girls who committed the crime: 24-year-old Umra Aman, 21-year-old Razia Hanifa aka Hanifia, and 17-year-old Aisha Noman. All three were taken into police custody. As per the statements that they gave the police, "a religious personality appeared in the dream of one of their relatives — a 13-year-old girl — and said the teacher had committed blasphemy" — the Dawn report noted. Another report in the Urdu daily Roznama Jang confirmed this account: "A 13-year-old girl who is a relative of the three women told them that she had dreamt that the victim had blasphemed against the religion [of Islam], based on which the order for beheading was given [in the dream]." Police have arrested the 13-year-old girl and the three students. According to a police statement: "The three accused ladies have so far disclosed that one of their relative, about a 13-year-old girl, had seen a dream last night [preceding to March 29] that the Prophet [Muhammad]... had directed them that the victim had committed blasphemy against the prophet and that the prophet had ordered them to slaughter the victim." According to the Samaa TV report, the female students were radicalized by Islamic holy mans opposed to Maulana Tariq Jameel, a Sunni religious scholar who belongs to the revivalist group Tablighi Jamaat A peaceful group of itinerant Deobandi preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms... and is wildly popular for his television speeches on religious and non-religious issues delivered to Moslem audiences across the world via the Internet. "The three women accosted the victim outside the seminary and accused her of being impressed by religious scholar Maulana Tariq Jameel and [of] committing blasphemy," the police statement noted. Police Officer Najam Hasnain Liaquat said that the name of the 13-year-old girl who reportedly had the dream was Umema. A controversy had been ongoing, the police officer noted, between two religious seminaries for women situated in Dera Ismail Khan, the headquarters of Dera Ismail Khan district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Link

India-Pakistan

The Sharia question

2014-02-17

[DAWN] DURING a recent talk show discussion on the form of Islamic laws desirable for Pakistain, the anchor brushed aside a panelist's cautious questioning of the premise by proclaiming that 'everyone in Pakistain wants Sharia, and what is left to determine is its form'. This statement, especially the first part, has gained a fair number of peddlers since the initiation of negotiations with the TTP. Every evening we now have the luxury of picking from a variety of holy mans paying tribute to the salvation offered by religious law, while carefully avoiding any comments on the inherent complexity involved in its interpretation and application. Such is the freedom of choice on offer in the Islamic Theocratic Republic. The underlying message being projected is the universality of its demand. Everyone wants it. Nobody's disagreeing with the basic gist. All that's left to determine are the modalities. In fact, as far back as 2011, the head of a political party (who shall not be named for fear of a defamation suit) vaguely announced that Sharia is a system that distinguishes humans from animals, and that the concerns regarding violence in Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... -- the application of 'Sharia' according to its proponents -- was the 'so-called liberal class' engaging in unnecessary alarmism. In the context of such claims of universality, what one could ask is whether a significant majority in Pakistain actively reflects on the shortcoming of their 'heathen' legal-political system, and expresses a deep-seated desire for an order based on the 'true' version of Islam. Despite the holy mans and TV anchors' claims to speak for everyone and everything, the answer is that nobody's really sure. What we do know, however, is the following: at least 95pc of Pakistain's population describes itself as Moslem. Many of them engage in rituals that, they point out, flow from divine instruction. This is done partially out of habit, but mostly in the hope of attaining a better after-life. There are, however, a hundred other things that ordinary Paks do on a daily basis that have nothing to do with their beliefs or how they worship. A 20-something in Lahore posts a Maulana Tariq Jameel lecture on his Facebook page right before switching to Katrina Kaif's steamy new Bollywood number. Traders in every city rip unsuspecting customers off and evade taxes, while sporting Sharia-compliant beards and vocabularies. There is and always has been a duality to life in Pakistain. A delicate, often sub-conscious, demarcation between ritual and aspiration, between piety and accumulation. This duality is equally present in the state as well. Envisioned and functioning (in whatever condition) as a Western, common law enterprise, it has attempted to resolve its own questions of identity through token homage to ritual and form. An Objectives Resolution here, a Second Amendment there -- each resulting in a problematic yet somewhat stable equilibrium of sorts. Liberal commentators, while analysing this condition, have often equated Pakistain's duality with hypocrisy. This may well be the case, but it's the kind of hypocrisy one would expect in a country popularly thought to have been created in the name of religion, and where successive regimes, for a host of reasons, have placed a legal premium on ritualistic behaviour. The crisis, as it stands now, is that the Taliban have fully understood the nature and scope of this duality. Through the government's indecisive handling of the matter, and a series of well-thought-out manoeuvres by the TTP, Islamic groups have shifted the language of mainstream political conversation away from corruption, redistribution and economic growth, to the question of whether our legal-political system is compliant with the after-life or not. Closely abetting them in this task, unwittingly or otherwise, have been a herd of holy mans, talk show hosts, and 'analysts' -- each one eager to prove himself a bigger champion of the Sharia, and a bigger representative of the country's population. Maybe the underlying thinking underscoring their commentary is that such moves would somehow vanquish the TTP from the turf they've laid out. By turning this into a question of 'which Sharia' -- TTP versus XYZ -- the population would magically rally around the yet-to-be-devised alternative, saving the country in the process. What they completely fail to see in the process is that this turf can never yield one victor. It is designed to fracture opinions, create sectarian differences, and spark conflict. By getting the state and civil society in Pakistain to deliberate on the very question of 'which Sharia' (as opposed to 'whether Sharia'), turban Islamic groups have been helped in accomplishing one of their major goals -- a goal that, ironically enough, they've been clear about since day one. By inadvertently echoing the TTP's critique of Pakistain's duality, by bringing the question of which form of Sharia to our television screens and newspapers, and by forcing the population to reflect on its own belief system, the government and the media have unsettled a political equilibrium, and effectively lost control of the parameters in which this conflict is taking place. Surely, and I say this with more than a hint of fatalism, it will take nothing short of a miracle for the country to emerge from this stand-off in recognisable shape.

Link

India-Pakistan

Nuggets from the Urdu press

2006-07-10

Who abused Pakistan! According to Nawa-e-Waqt a citizen from Lahore had filed a petition at the Lahore High Court against an unnamed member of parliament of 1997 at the time of the election of president. The member had written on his ballot paper the slogan Pakhtunkhwa Zindabad and Pakistan Murdabad [Long live Pashtunistan and Death to Pakistan]. The petitioner demanded that the name of the member be revealed and he be punished for treason or the parliament be dissolved. Amir Cheema spat on German’s face Maulana Amir Hamza wrote in daily Pakistan that when Amir Cheema was being interrogated in Germany after being arrested for stabbing the editor of Die Welt, the German officer asked him questions disrespectful toward the Prophet PBUH. On this, Amir Cheema struggled with his handcuffs and the chair to which he was bound but threw his body on the insulter and then spat on his face (bootha). Dr AQ Khan popular in Bangladesh Quoted in Nawa-e-Waqt Justice (Retd) Javid Iqbal said after his tour of Bangladesh that nuclear scientist Dr AQ Khan was very popular in Bangladesh. The country had not been able to decide its ideology and identity, he said, but welcomed Pakistanis as their mentors (murshid). He said army was defamed in BD but it did not dare interfere in elections. Akram Awan’s men killed According to a Khabrain report from Jauharabad the great Naqshbandi leader with influence in the armed forces Maulana Akram Awan of Tanzimul Ikhwan in the Soan valley had another skirmish with a party for the possession of land. His two guards were killed in the firing while the opposing party fled the scene. Great Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi Maulana Mujibur Rehman Inqilabi wrote in daily Pakistan that great Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi was killed in 2000 by an unknown killer while he was going to the office of Alami Majlis Khatm Nabuwwat. Ludhianvi was a great attacker of the Qadianis and was taken from Sahiwal to Banuri Town seminary by the founder Maulana Yusuf Banuri and put in charge of publishing the journal Bayyanaat. Ludhianvi was a great admirer of the Sahaba too and counted among his pupils, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Mufti Muhammad Jameel (killed), Maulana Azizur Rehman, Maulana Azam Tariq (killed), Maulana Masud Azhar and Maulana Tariq Jameel. Musharraf’s next tenure According to daily Pakistan senator SM Zafar stated that Musharraf could be elected by the current assemblies as this was allowed by Article 41 of the Constitution. He said the president was allowed to wear two caps by parliament itself. Senator Khalid Ranjha said that president Musharraf would end his tenure on 15 November 2006, therefore, he would have to be re-elected 30 or 60 days before the last day, on 15 September or 15 October 2006. Justice (Retd) Malik Qayyum said that the Supreme Court should take suo moto note of this issue and decide the matter. Irshad Haqqani’s verdict Writing in Jang columnist Irshad Haqqani stated that 1) Musharraf could not stand for another presidential term while in uniform; 2) he could not be army chief and president under the 1973 Constitution; 3) after getting out of uniform Musharraf could not take part in elections for two years; 4) an assembly that has only two months to run cannot morally elect a president for another five years; 5) there was no precedent that one assembly elected two presidents; 6) that a presidential election would have to be an election as laid down in the Constitution, and not a vote of confidence. Official view expressed by federal minister Sher Afgan Niazi could not be accepted as full because he was an amateur legal expert. What proof on 9/11? According to Sunday Kirnain/Din Iranian President Ahmadinejad wrote to President Bush saying he had not yet seen proof about there being a genuine Al Qaeda attack on America on 11 September 2001. He also asked Bush to embrace Islam and reminded him that after Soviet leader Gorbachev refused to embrace Islam on the invitation of Imam Khomeini he lost power and the Soviet Union broke up. There were many insulting facts mentioned in the letter, like Bush sitting inside a toilet commode and jumping about like a monkey, picked up from the American press. Resign from parliament! Writing in Jang Irshad Haqqani stated that the opposition should resign en masse from parliament and the assemblies, to render the 2007 election without a legal and moral basis. This should be done because it was no use going to the Supreme Court for justice on past record. If all the opposition parties (ARD and MMA) resigned, only 140 members of the National Assembly would be left in the field. Thus only 42 seats would be left in the senate. After that the opposition should boycott the 2007 election. This would lead to a crisis that the government would not be able to face. But unfortunately MMA was not ready to go along as JUI(F) was neither willing to resign nor boycott the election. It was also not ready respond to the call of dharna by Qazi Hussain Ahmad. The dharna would be weak because it would be supported only by Imran Khan’s small and weak party. Martyr Amir Cheema, one lakh kissers of hand Columnist Javed Chaudhry said in Jang that one hundred thousand true believers went to street number 18 in Rawalpindi and between 3 May and 15 May and kissed the hands of Prof Nazir, the father of the martyr Amir Cheema who died in a German jail after punishing a blaspheming editor of Die Welt. The citizens of Rawalpindi first took a bath then did a wuzu after which they applied perfume to themselves. After that they went to street number 18 and kissed the hand of the old professor because he was the father of a martyr. America still loves Musharraf Columnist Hamid Mir wrote in Jang that a senior CIA officer Gary C Sherwin in his book First in Afghanistan had stated that Musharraf’s action against Al Qaeda was praiseworthy and that he was doing his best in Waziristan too, and it was wrong on the part of critics to doubt him. He however said that Osama bin Laden and Al Zawahiri were in Pakistan under protection of those who hated Musharraf. It was obvious that the Americans still thought Musharraf indispensable. But they wanted Musharraf to tie up with Benazir Bhutto. On the other hand, Ms Bhutto was toeing the American line and was wrong in thinking that she would succeed in her campaign against Musharraf without opposing America.

Link

India-Pakistan

Gunships pound militants’ dens in Waziristan

2006-04-26

Cobra gunship helicopters hit the hideouts of suspected pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan on Tuesday after a military convoy was attacked late on Monday evening, leaving up to three soldiers and four militants dead. Sources in Miranshah said that three soldiers were killed when the militants ambushed the convoy heading towards the Afghan border. However, military spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan said that one soldier was killed and around a dozen were injured in the attack. He said that four militants were killed in the ambush. “An appropriate response to the attackers continues and I will not give operational details,” Sultan told Daily Times. Purported Taliban spokesman Tariq Jameel claimed to have “inflicted greater casualties on the security forces than what the military admits to and none of my comrades were killed”. "Nope. Nope. They're fine. Just a flesh wound or two..." Jameel warned the tribal elders against meeting government officials and also defended the burning of newspapers for referring to them as terrorists and miscreants. He said there was no chance of talks between Taliban and Islamabad.

Link

India-Pakistan

16 militants and 4 troops killed in Wazoo gunfights

2006-04-06

MIRANSHAH: Sixteen militants were killed and 19 arrested after security forces retaliated to two deadly attacks at two sites in North Waziristan on Wednesday, military spokesman said. “Four troops were killed and eight injured in the attacks,” Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, the very model of a modern major general Inter Services Public Relations director general, told Daily Times. A purported spokesman for pro-Taliban local militants in North Waziristan, Tariq Jameel, confirmed attacks on the security forces but denied “any loss of militants”. He said the late Tuesday night attacks were “revenge” against the killing of two militants in Mir Ali town on Monday. The Wednesday losses on militants’ side were the second heaviest since March 24 when the security forces clashed with pro-Taliban tribal militants in Dattakhel area and killed 20 of them. The army spokesman said that around 200 pro-Taliban fighters had been reported dead in clashes with security forces since the Saidgai operation on March 1. On Wednesday, militants first attacked a security check-post in Dattakhel, an area with difficult mountain terrain which is 30 kilometres west of Miranshah, while another check-post was attacked in Mana in the of heavily forested Shawal region, some 70 kilometres west of Miranshah. “Three soldiers were killed in the Mana attack whereas a trooper was killed when security forces launched counter-attack in the morning,” the military spokesman said. The army used ground troops, heavy guns, artillery and gunship helicopters to comb the Mana area where the security forces took six bodies of the killed militants in custody from a compound. A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in Peshawar, said that huge caches of weapons were also seized from two compounds the security forces searched. It was unclear whether foreign militants were among the killed. “I cannot say that foreign militants were among the dead,” the military spokesman said. The two places are far from Miranshah and it was not known whether civilians were caught in the crossfire.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Suspect arrested in attack that killed 11 French engineers

2005-09-09

KARACHI, Pakistan - A suspected Islamic militant, wanted in connection with a suicide attack three years ago that left 11 French engineers dead, was arrested on Thursday after a shootout, police said. The man, identified as Mufti Mohammed Sabir, was arrested near a bus terminal after arriving from Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad, Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel told a news conference. Sabir tried to run away flee and fired a pistol at police before he was arrested. Police returned fire but no one was hurt in the shootout, Jameel said. No surprise there. Where's the RAB when you need them? Police seized explosives, other bomb-making materials, several rounds of AK-47 ammunition and two rocket shells from a bag that Sabir was allegedly carrying. Sabir is believed to be a bomb maker and is suspected to have packed a car with explosives which was blown up in front of Karachi’s Sheraton hotel May 8, 2002, killing the French nationals and four other people. The Frenchmen were here to help build a submarine for Pakistan’s navy. A month later, another suicide bomber blew up a truck outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, killing 14 Pakistanis. Sabir, in his 30s, is allegedly a member of the outlawed Harkat Jihad-e-Islami militant group. A court in Karachi has sentenced to death three other suspected group members for the French bombing. At least two more suspects remain at large, Jameel said.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Suicide Attack Suspect Nabbed in Pakistan

2005-09-08

A suspected Islamic militant, wanted in connection with making a car bomb used in a suicide attack three years ago that killed 15 people, including 11 French engineers, was arrested Thursday after a shootout, police said. Mufti Mohammed Sabir was arrested near a bus terminal after arriving from Rawalpindi, a city near the capital of Islamabad, Police Chief Tariq Jameel told a news conference. I wonder if he's an actual mufti, or if that's just his personal name... Sabir tried to flee and fired a pistol at police before he was arrested. Police returned fire but no one was hurt, Jameel said. Typical islamic marksmanship Explains why RAB never seems to get the miscreants' accomplices, doesn't it? Easier to shoot them in the back of the head if they're tied down and not squirming so ... Police seized explosives, other bomb-making materials, several rounds of AK-47 ammunition and two rocket shells from a bag that Sabir was allegedly carrying. Coming back from an elk hunt? "Are ya happy to see me or is that two rocket shells in yer bag?" Sabir is believed to be a bomb maker and is suspected to have packed a car with explosives that were detonated in front of Karachi's Sheraton Hotel on May 8, 2002, killing the French nationals and four other people. The Frenchmen were helping to build a submarine for Pakistan's navy. A month later, another suicide bomber blew up a truck outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, killing 14 Pakistanis. Is Sabir implicated? Or did you just notice that something else blew up around the same time? Sabir, in his 30s, is alleged to belong to the outlawed Harkat Jihad-e-Islami militant group. A Karachi court has sentenced three other suspected group members to death for the Sheraton bombing. At least two more suspects remain at large, Jameel said. Karachi is believed to be a hotbed for Islamic militants blamed for terrorist attacks in the port city since President Gen. Pervez Musharraf allied Pakistan with Washington in the war on terrorism. "Believed to be"? Karachi? Islamic militants? This is "believed to be" Rantburg. Today's "believed to be" Thursday. I'm "believed to be" fat. (Where do they get these people?)

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Pakistani police link militants to JI

2005-08-15

KARACHI - Pakistani police said on Monday four suspected Islamic militants arrested last week belong to the youth wing of an opposition Islamic party but have no links with the Al Qaeda network. That'd be Islami Jamiat Talaba, the strutting bullyboys who've been infesting good old P.U. The four were arrested in the southern city of Karachi on Saturday with pistols and ammunition. Police said they belonged to a group of 22 militants who were planning attacks in the city. The four belong to the youth wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel told a news conference. Think Hilter Youth, with turbans “During interrogation they revealed they belonged to this party and confirmed they had plans to create terror in the city,” he said. “Initial investigations show no links of this group with Al Qaeda. At the moment we have no evidence they have got terrorist training outside Pakistan,” he said. Home schooled, eh? The Jamaat-e-Islami is a main member of an alliance of conservative religious parties known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which opposes President Pervez Musharraf’s liberal policy of “enlightened moderation”. In an Independence Day speech on Sunday, Musharraf urged the country to reject conservative religious parties in local government elections due to begin on Aug. 18, saying they were blocking the country’s progress. A spokesman for Jamaat-e-Islami said the four were party workers but denied that they had anything to do with anti-state activities. "Yeah! Those grenades were for self-defense..." “They’re creating fake cases against our workers because they want to keep us out of the local government elections,” said Sarfaraz Ahmed, a spokesman for the party in Karachi. Jameel said police were continuing their investigation of the four suspects who had been remanded in custody until Aug 21. Police were also hunting other members of their gang, he said.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Four militants held in Karachi

2005-08-14

KARACHI: The police have arrested four suspected militants who were planning a series of terrorist attacks, a senior police official said on Saturday. "The four men were arrested in an early morning raid from the eastern district of the city and they belong to a religious and political party," Tariq Jameel, the Karachi police chief, told a news conference. The police seized revolvers and ammunition from the militants, who have admitted to plotting terror attacks in Karachi. "During initial interrogation they have confessed they belong to a group of 22 young men, some of whom are students," Jameel said. "They were planning terrorist activities to create unrest and disturb the peace of the city." "This is Karachi. Of course we were planning terrorist activities!" Jameel declined to identify the party to which the militants belonged and said they were arrested on information given by Syed Waseem Akhtar, who was arrested from Hyderabad last month. "The arrested militants don't belong to any madrassa and are all trained in the use of firearms and explosives," he said. One might ask where they were trained in the use of firearms and explosives, and who trained them, and who provided them or gave them the dough to buy them. But that's assuming one is not a Pak policeman.

Link

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.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Karachi Mosque Blast Kills at Least 15, Wounds 125

2004-05-07

Fri May 7, 2004 11:54 AM ET By Aamir Ashraf KARACHI (Reuters) - A suicide attacker detonated a powerful bomb in a crowded Shi’ite mosque in the business district of the Pakistani city of Karachi Friday, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 125, police said. Shuckey darn. It’s just fine for these Islamist to blow up each others’ Mosques but when we top a minaret full of RPG equipped assailants it’s an international crime. I guess it’s time to start thinking like our attackers. The mosque was packed for Friday afternoon prayers when it was shattered by the fourth and worst bomb attack in five days in Pakistan, a frontline state in the U.S.-led war on terror. President Pervez Musharraf called the attack a "heinous act of terrorism" and ordered an immediate inquiry. The mosque was badly damaged. Blood stained the floor and walls and pieces of flesh were scattered around. I wonder if the Shi’ites are getting a memo from the remaining world about how their actions in Iraq are damaging world opinion of their entire sect. It was just the latest attack on a Shi’ite mosque in Pakistan, which has been racked for decades by violence between the minority Islamic sect and militants in the Sunni majority. Angry Shi’ites went on a rampage in central Karachi, pelting cars and shops with stones and setting fire to a state-run petrol station, several vehicles, a building and a police post near the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel said 15 people were killed in the mosque bombing. Officials said another 125 were wounded. Yeah, religious intolerance is just so ... uh ... intolerable, that’s the word, "intolerable." "It appears to be a suicide attack," said provincial security adviser Aftab Sheikh. "The explosives were attached to the body of the bomber who was apparently in the third row of worshippers." Worshipper Ali Abbas, his clothes smeared with blood, said he was in the third row when the bomb exploded and something hit him hard on the back. "It was part of a body." he said. "There was chaos. All of us ran outside, jumping over the injured and human remains." Rohena Hasan, a doctor at the state-run Civil Hospital said more than 20 people were in serious condition. One gander with Israeli style sauce, coming right up! Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali vowed strict punishment of the perpetrators. "Those who committed this cold-blooded murder cannot be termed Muslims as Islam shuns violence," the official APP news agency quoted him as saying. Shi’ites demanded protection for their community. "We are at the mercy of terrorists who are getting bolder because they are not being punished," said Shi’ite cleric Hasan Turabi. "Now we have to defend ourselves." Terrorists "not being punished?" Stop, stop ... you’re ripping my heart out! The mosque is inside the compound of a historic school, the Sindh Madarsatul Islam (Sindh School of Islam), where Jinnah, received his early education. More than 125 people have died in sectarian violence in Pakistan in less than a year, most of them Shi’ites. ATTACKS RATTLE SOUTHWEST In March, 44 people were killed and 150 wounded in an attack on a Shi’ite mosque in the southwestern city of Quetta that was blamed on Sunni militants. Earlier Friday, three people were wounded in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, when a small bomb exploded opposite a hotel due to host a weekend investment conference. Jamali had been expected at the city’s Serena Hotel on Saturday to chair the meeting. However, he canceled his plans to attend before the blast due to commitments in Islamabad, said Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. Police said the blast was caused by a small time-bomb attached to a tricycle bicycle. Baluchistan’s chief minister, Jam Mir Mohammad Yusuf, called it an attempt to sabotage the meeting. Baluchistan is one of Pakistan’s poorest regions and has been frequently troubled by Islamic militancy and tribal violence. Thursday, another small bomb exploded outside the ticket office of Quetta railway station, but caused no injuries. Monday, a car bomb exploded in the fishing town of Gawadar in the far south of Baluchistan, killing three Chinese technicians working on a project to build an major port. (With reporting by Amir Zia and Tahir Ikram)

Link

India-Pakistan

Police claim major terrorist strike foiled

2004-01-22

Pakistani police investigating a bombing last week outside an Anglican cathedral said on Wednesday that they had foiled “a major terrorist strike” by seizing a huge stock of bomb-making material. More than 500 kilogrammes of chemicals used to make fertiliser bombs were found in an abandoned house in a Tuesday night raid in a poor neighbourhood, Karachi City Police Chief Tariq Jameel told Reuters. The raid was conducted on information obtained from Shamim Ahmed, an Islamic militant arrested in connection with last Thursday’s car bombing outside the Anglican cathedral that wounded 11 people, said Sindh Inspector General of Police Syed Kamal Shah. Police describe Mr Ahmed as the operations chief of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been blamed for a series of deadly attacks on Westerners and religious minorities in Pakistan.

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More