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India-Pakistan

Nuggets from the Urdu press

2012-07-22

Pakistain's lack of realism Columnist Nazeer Naji wrote in Jang that Pakistain's condition for opening the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... supply route was unrealistic when it asked for $5000 per truck when for the past decade it was accepting $250 per truck from NATO. In the past much damage was done to the infrastructure by these trucks for which Pakistain unfairly agreed to receive very little, but now to enhance the fee 20 times was not justified. Dr Afridi to be used as a pawn? Columnist Ishtiaq Beg wrote in Jang that Dr Shakeel Afridi was punished in the Khyber Agency with 33 years in jail for spying for the US - which led to the discovery and death the late Osama bin Laden ... who has made the transition back to dust... - under tribal law because he could be freed later by the simple device of Governor Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... pardoning him. Thus Dr Afridi could become a pawn in the bargain that Pakistain would drive with the US on the Afghan endgame. It occurs to me that these are not nice people. Pak favour trade with India Reported in Jang 67 percent of the Paks favoured free trade with India while 29 percent opposed it. About 45 percent thought that trade will help normalise bilateral relations. Some 37 percent thought that cricket too could help in improving the equation. If only the army and government of Pakistan cared about the wishes of the voters... Unsavoury facts about 'ghaddaar' Dr Afridi Daily Jang reported that Dr Afridi was not only ghadaar (traitor) to Pakistain he was also a drunkard (sharabi), pleasure-loving (ayyaash), bribe-taker (raashi), and incompetent (na-ehel) person who also slept around with women. How very odd, when he was so unobjectionable until the army's pet terror mastermind was taken by the Americans. Circular debt now Rs 400 billion Daily Jang reported that the circular debt of Rs 300 billion left behind by the Musharraf government was now Rs 400 billion which had aggravated the situation of non-payment to the independent power producers (IPPs) which provide most of the electricity in Pakistain. The eight IPPs have invoked sovereign guarantees because of non-payment.  Power production harder than atom bomb Daily Express had lawyer Fawwad Chaudhry saying that making and exploding the atom bomb was easier than producing electricity because the priorities of the state were opposed to looking after the people and more focused on fighting wars. As it is said, Pakistan is an army with a country attached. Army officers favour Imran Khan Of course. He's too dumb to realize they'll be running things behind his back, and so are his voters. Famous columnist Abdul Qadir Hasan wrote in Express that a large body of retired army officers were organising themselves behind Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... because they wanted him to be Pakistain's next prime minister. Lahore, Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and Islamabad were the venues for this movement of the army officers while Lahore Gymkhana was their gathering place in Lahore. The officers said that the Army was not behind Imran Khan but the gatherings clearly pointed to that possibility.  Mukhtaran Mai complains judiciary Woman raped under orders from an illegal rural panchayat Mukhtaran Mai was quoted in Express as saying that she was not given justice by the superior judiciary because a judge thought that she could not have been raped on grounds that the FIR was recorded late. She said that she wanted to die after the gang-rape. General Musharraf who had attributed her plaint to an effort to get a visa to the US said if the judiciary decided against her then the judges must be right. Ban convert marriage for six months Daily Express reported that the Commission on Minorities Affairs had recommended to the government that any non-Mohammedan converting to Islam should be prevented from marrying for six months. It also recommended that the chairman of the Evacuee Property Trust should be chosen from the non-Mohammedans because the evacuee property belonged to non-Mohammedans.  The Columnist and Dr AQ Khan Writing in Express famous columnist Abdul Qadir Hasan stated that he loved Dr AQ Khan above all because he had made Pakistain secure by exploding the atom bomb. But pygmy politicians are after him to exploit him for political purposes. He wrote that he left a good job because he loved AQ Khan and had a public tiff with General Zia over the great nuclear scientist. That's nice, dear. Would you like a biscuit with your tea before bed?  The judiciary-PPP feud Writing in Jang Hamid Mir stated that the entire world was scandalised by the ongoing feud between the PPP government and the Supreme Court. The government was openly in defiance of the Court's orders while some state agencies were getting out of hand 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... . Military-dominated agency the ANF was getting excessive in its action against the pharmaceutical industry where four million people were employed forcing the factories to relocate to Bangladesh. 'Chaalbaz' Shah Mehmood Writing in Express Nusrat Javeed stated that Pak diplomat was great because he was opposed to letting the UN inquire into the liquidation of Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... but later on when it did take place against his wishes foreign minister Shah Mehmood Wormtongue Qureshi used his tricks (chalakian) and deceptions (chaalbazian) to make the UN inquiry come to nothing. ...thus protecting the honour of the Land of the Pure. Water aggression will trigger nuclear war Famous head of Indus Basin Water Council Zahurul Hasan Daha told Nawa-e-Waqt in Islamabad that if India did not stop water aggression (aabi jarihiyat) then Pakistain will have to unleash nuclear war on it. Big talk from an unimportant little man. By 2015 India will have built 175 dams on Pak rivers and joined 30 rivers of Kashmire. He said Indus Waters Treaty was a conspiracy of Hindu and Farangi. I think that last might be us. I suspect it's an insult. He said the water system of Pakistain should be handed over to Pakistain Army. Paper also reported at the same time that Pakistain had successfully tested its Hatf (Death) Nine missile which was a face-breaking (muhn tor) answer to India.  Munir Akram and the Bomb Columnist Nusrat Javeed wrote in Express that super Pak diplomat at the UN Munir Akram (retired) had written that first the Pak atom bomb was directed at India but now Pakistain should announce that it would be used against anyone daring to threaten Pakistain. Javeed asked what if the US threatened Pakistain as it had done at Salala? Would then Pakistain be bound to throw the atom bomb at the US? a good point, Mr. Javeed.More importantly, what would happen if Pakistan tried? Death of Urdu Famous columnist Muhammad Ahmad Sabswari wrote in Jang that in the Constitution Section 251(1) it was pledged that the national language of Pakistain was Urdu and would be enforced in 14 years in public offices. It also pledged that English would be used as official language after arrangements for it had been made. But 24 years had passed without progress on Urdu. Now the bad news was that 22 MNAs had prepared a bill which enumerated the regional languages of the country as national languages and they will be given time to be enforced and till such time English will continue to be used. Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... and Canada had more than one national language. Evoke the djinns! Pakistan must be made Swiss! Baloch were with us! Famous columnist Hamid Mir stated in Jang that the Baloch were with Ahmad Shah Abdali when he attacked India in 1761. They were 25,000 in number and took part in the carnage. In 1765 Baloch hero Mir Nasir battled the Sikhs. In 1769 they went to war with Iran. But the British came and made them fight one another. The Baloch were always with Mohammedans of Pakistain. That was then. Now they know better.

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India-Pakistan

Nuggets from the Urdu Press

2009-10-09

Musharraf and US killed Benazir! Columnist Nazir Naji wrote in Jang that Musharraf and the US together killed Benazir in 2007. After the bomb attack on her in Karachi she sent Zardari to Washington to meet State Department official Richard Boucher and tell him that the security promised by the US was not given to her by Musharraf. Zardari called Boucher but Boucher feigned upset stomach and did not meet him. Musharraf and the US killed Benazir in Rawalpindi. A clash of extremes Ex-amir of Jamaat Islami Qazi Hussain Ahmad wrote in Jang that in Pakistan there were two types of people: those who went to English schools, shaved and wore jeans and spoke English at home; and those who went to traditional schools and had beards, some adopting the extreme brand of Islam of the Taliban. Unless moderation is exercised by both there is bound to be a clash between the two. Liaquat murdered for Objectives Resolution Writing in Jang Dr Israr Ahmad stated that after Liaquat Ali Khan passed the Objectives Resolution in the parliament to make Pakistan an Islamic state international Zionists plotted his death and killed him in 1951. And then when their man General Ayub took over and got rid of parliament he was patted on the back by Washington. Governments criminal act Talking about giving Americans several acres of additional land in Islamabad, Hafiz Saeed was reported by Nawa-e-Waqt as saying that political and religious parties should unite to prevent the giving of adda (base) to America. He said the criminal silence of the government over the issue was a sign of extreme slavery. Ambassador Haqqani and visas Chief Editor Jinnah wrote that American spies are caught in Pakistan and deported but once back in America they get visas from Ambassador Hussain Haqqani and return to spy in Pakistan. This happened in two cases, once in the case of a man named Schmiddle Schmiddle? Seriously, where did the chief editor see a name like that -- a novel by Charles Dickens? who was caught visiting sensitive places and was deported. He returned on a visa given by Ambassador Haqqani. Imtiaz Billa and wealth Writing in Nawa-e-Waqt Rana Abdul Baqi stated that ex-ISI officer and IB chief Imtiaz Ahmad alias Billa had asserted that he had served the country for many years and seen a lot of people getting rich, but could Mr Billa also explain how so much wealth reached his home? 'I hate Americans! Famous chief reporter Ansar Abbasi wrote in Jang that once he met an American under secretary lady in Islamabad and told her, 'We hate you Americans; and that, 'You are cruel (zalim), savage (wehshi) and merciless (bereham) and have no respect for human lives. But he was grieved to find that she went back and misquoted him in The New York Times. Typical. He was abominably rude to a lady, then expected her to remember his cruelty verbatim. She probably heard it as zelam, wachy and beerham, and now Mr. Abbasi's wife is furious. I would be too, if Mr. Wife said such things to another woman. Hasan Nisars wisdom Columnist Hasan Nisar in Jang: One blessing of loadshedding is that all mosque loudspeakers go dead too and one is saved from listening to the makruh (unholy) sounds that emanate from them. But, but President Obama said it's the most beautiful sound on earth! More 'Aslam-Begisms Quoted in Nawa-e-Waqt ex-army chief Mirza Aslam Beg said that General Zia had sworn inside the Kaaba that he would not hang Bhutto but he did not keep his word. America used Musharraf against the Taliban. Later America bought Baitullah Mehsud, Sufi Muhammad and Ajmal Kasab to fulfil its designs in the region. He said army was no obstacle in indicting Musharraf, but the government was not sincere. The worst sin being insincerity. Honestly! Hamid Gul did the trick! According to Khabrain a general who wished to remain anonymous said that in 1990 President Ghulam Ishaq Khan had just asked Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi to form government when ISI chief Hamid Gul rang up to say that the ISI wanted Nawaz Sharif as prime minister. President Khan changed policy and asked Nawaz Sharif instead. The president had thought that Gul was conveying the armys message but when he discovered that it was Gul himself he later got rid of him as ISI chief. More 'Hamid-Gullianisms Ex-ISI chief Hamid Gul was quoted in Nawa-e-Waqt as saying that Indian investment in Afghanistan was against Pakistan. Clever man .He said ex-army chief General Jehangir Karamat had studied at a Jewish university (Stanford) after his retirement. No, no Dr. Gul (one must have a PhD to achieve rank, after all) -- Stanford is in America, which makes it an American university. Perhaps you are thinking of the Technion in Israel. And that Holbrooke did not want democracy to flourish in Pakistan. He said Ahmad Shah Abdali was Pakistans hero. Pameela Khan predicts Famous palmist Pameela Khan was quoted in Daily Pakistan as predicting that the killers of Benazir would be captured but the PPP will have to pay the price of mid-term elections. All this, while the star of Nawaz Sharif will keep on rising. Musharrafs star in 2009 will be in decline and he will go through tough times. Indias loadshedding Well-known lady of letters Kishwar Naheed wrote in Jang after her return from India that despite the fact that India had diverted Ravi, Beas and Sutlej Rivers it was suffering from loadshedding. In Amritsar, factories remained shut for three days for lack of power. In India that's a sign of prosperity, unlike in Pakistan, Ms Naheed. Columnist surprised After writing columns about doubts expressed about the authenticity of 9/11, Ataul Haq Qasimi confided to Jang that he was forced to close his inquiry into how the Americans had deceived the world about 9/11 because of the massive stream of more evidence provided by provoked Pakistanis who wanted to disclose the deception of the US in accusing Al Qaeda of the deed. I'm sure that sentence makes sense to someone, but I can't parse it. American pressure is mounting Columnist Salim Yazdani revealed in Jang that the people of Pakistan were outraged at the signs that America was increasing its influence in Pakistan. The presence of 2,000 marines in Islamabad and the news of changes inside the ISI had actually worsened this outrage. Baitullah killed Benazir Reported in Khabrain Benazir Bhutto was killed by Baitullah Mehsud through killers who did it with Rs 4 lakh that he gave them. One night before the assassination mastermind Hasnain Gul alias Ali was made in charge of getting rid of Benazir 'because she was sent by America. He sat on the stage of Liaquat Bagh venue to make sure that the target would not escape. Hasnain Gul handled two suicide-bombers Ikramullah (jacket) and Bilal (pistol). In praise of Hafiz Said Chief Editor Khushnood Ali Khan wrote in Jinnah that India was after Hafiz Saids blood but so are CIA and Mossad because they are scared of the great Muslim warrior. The followers of Hafiz Said have always been the scourge of India which sees him in its nightmares. He is the father of thousands of martyrs. But Black Water is here to uproot Islam and Muslims. Oh my goodness. How do they get through the day without a nervous breakdown? Mastermind killer of Benazir According to Khabrain the mastermind Punjabi terrorist who organised the killing of Benazir in Rawalpindi was Hasnain, a graduate of the madrassa of Akora Khattak after which he went to Miranshah for training in terrorism. A friend of his got killed in Lal Masjid operation after which he swore revenge and was used by Baitullah Mehsud. Qari Ismail of Akora Khattak told him that orders had come from on high (oopar sai) to kill Benazir.

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India-Pakistan

The Sufi with the Kalashnikov

2009-02-19

By Praveen Swami More likely than not, Abdul Jabbar would have encountered the poetry of 13th century mystic poet Ibn al-Arabi in the Sufi order which shaped his life. “I profess the religion of love,” al-Arabi wrote, “and wherever its caravan turns along the way, that is the way the faith I keep.” Jabbar’s own journey led him from a small north Kerala town, through a roadside restaurant, secret circle of Sufis, and an Islamist terror cell to a Lashkar-e-Taiba terror unit in the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir — a Kalashnikov in his hands. For chroniclers of India’s jihadist movement, his bizarre story has particular significance. Most members of the Indian Mujahideen’s networks were drawn from groups like the Students Islamic Movement of India or neoconservative religious orders. But Jabbar and the group of Kerala jihadists he was a part of emerged from the Noorisha tariqah — a prominent Sufi order of the Chishti-Qadri tradition, famous for its emphasis on openness and love. Born in May 1973 into a working class family from northern Kerala’s Puruthur town, Jabbar dropped out of school in the fifth grade. At just 13 years of age, he began work as a parantha cook at a roadside hotel. His father, Kunzhi Bavanu, still runs a small tea stall in Puruthur; one brother, Abdul Samad, is a fitter, while the other, Abdul Hakeem, an autorickshaw driver. Back in the late 1980s, the Malappuram region was in the midst of a small-scale communal war which pitted the cadre of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the charismatic Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Maudhany’s Islamic Sevak Sangh against each other. Jabbar was among hundreds of angry young men who found meaning in Maudhany’s inflammatory polemic, and went on to become a vice-president of his party’s Malappuram unit. In 1998, Maudhany was arrested on charges of providing logistical support to the serial bombings in Coimbatore — of which he was only recently acquitted. Pursued by the police, many of his supporters fled Kerala. During his time underground, Jabbar came into close contact with Maudhany’s followers linked to the Noorisha order: Kannur resident Abdul Sattar and his long-standing associate Tadiyantavide Nasir. Like Jabbar, Sattar and Nasir had cut their political teeth in Malappuram’s street wars. Police investigators believe that the men, who are alleged to have been involved in an abortive plot to assassinate the former Kerala Chief Minister, E.K. Nayanar, executed the July 2008 serial bombings in Bangalore, and supplied components for the improvised explosive devices used by top terror operative Riyaz Bhatkal for the Indian Mujahideen’s murderous attacks in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Nasir, using the alias Haji Omar, had established himself as an ustad — or instructor — of students at the Noorisha order’s headquarters in Hyderabad. The Jamia Arifiya Nooriya seminary sprawls across a 40-acre campus, housing a free school and the al-Arif Unani General Hospital. Thousands of people attend the order’s 40-day Chilla, a spiritual course intended to help adherents overcome physical and material desire. Made up in the main of Kerala residents, the Noorisha order is among the inheritors of a unique tradition of Islam. Folk tradition in Kerala has it that king Cheraman Perumal Bhaskara Ravi Varma, on witnessing a miraculous split-moon in the skies, travelled to Saudi Arabia where he was converted to Islam by Prophet Mohammad himself. In some tellings of this legend, Varma took on the name Tajuddin and married the sister of the king of Jeddah. After Varma’s death, the story goes, a spice trader named Malik bin-Dinar returned to Kondangaloor, bearing a letter from Verma which led to a local temple being converted into a mosque dedicated to the king’s memory. The Cheraman Jama Masjid, reputed to be over 1,370 years old, still stands — in the Hindu tradition, facing east. Nasir had little time for the Noorisha order’s spiritual legacy — or its syncretic concerns. He argued that the rise of the Hindu right, and worldwide atrocities on Muslims, made armed jihad a religious imperative. Most clerics at the Jamia Arifiya Nooriya found Nasir’s position unacceptable — but he had the support of Abdul Kader, an influential Noorisha ustad known among the order as Abdu Ustad. 1960-born Kader, police sources say, first started visiting the Noorisha seminary in 1996, for treatment of a psychiatric disorder. Later, he gave his daughter in marriage to Sattar. Sattar, in turn, helped draw Jabbar into the jihadist circle among the Noorisha. Married twice — first to Zeenath Ibrahim, by whom he has a 12-year-old son, and then Ramola Mohammad, who gave him two more sons, two-year-old Salahuddin and six-year-old Mukhtar — Jabbar was beset by financial and legal problems. Zeenath had filed a criminal complaint against Jabbar for dowry harassment, and moved the court for maintenance. Sattar arranged for Jabbar to marry again, this time his sister-in-law, Nasia Moinuddin, to help him rebuild his life in Hyderabad. Jabbar was to have two daughters with Moinuddin: Aasiya, who is now three and Zainabi, who was born last year. Sattar also helped Jabbar find work — and arranged for him to take on Kader as his spiritual mentor. Behind the façade of this new life, Jabbar continued to pursue his old jihadist path. He was among five Noorisha-linked men from Kerala who joined a ten-man Lahskar unit in the mountains above Kupwara, along the Line of Control, on the morning of September 16, 2008. In the next few weeks, the men were put through gruelling combat-fitness drills, and taught to use assault weapons and explosives. Long before their training ended, though, the Jammu and Kashmir Police, backed by Indian Army troops, arrived to put their skills to the test. Four of the men Jabbar travelled with were killed. He hid out in the forests all night, before beginning his journey home — where the police were waiting. “Those who distort the meaning of jihad,” the supreme leader of the Noorisha order, Sayyid Muhammad Arifuddin Jeelani, said in a recent interview, “will certainly go to hell.” For the most part, public commentary on Islamist terrorism in India has cast Sufi Islam as inherently opposed to jihadist violence. In part because the aesthetic of ascetic spiritual traditions — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish and even Christian — has become fashionable among metropolitan liberals, Sufi practices have been cast as inherently hostile to the Islamist project. But like other religious systems, Sufi mysticism can — witness the recent fighting in Iraq, Central Asia and Pakistan — provide legitimacy to violence. In the dying decades of the Mughal empire, the influential Sufi mystic, Shah Waliullah, called on the warlord, Ahmad Shah Abdali, to wage war against the Jats and the Marathas, arguing that it was “predestined that unbelievers should be reduced to a state of humiliation.” Sayyid Ahmad — whose failed 1831 jihad against Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s empire inspired the founding of the Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis from which the Lashkar draws its ideological legitimacy — was also a mystic. Hassan al-Banna, the founder of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — the seed from which much of the modern jihadist movement was born — was profoundly influenced by the work of 12th century mystic Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali. Although al-Banna rejected al-Ghazali’s theological convictions, scholars have noted that elements of the practices of the Sufi brotherhoods continue to suffuse organisations such as the al-Qaeda — practices like the swearing of a bayat, or oath, to its sheikh, Osama bin-Laden Pakistan has seen Sufi orders adopt jihadist tactics to counter their neoconservative theological rivals. In 1997, Sufi leader Allama Pir Mohammad Saeed Ahmad Mujadidi set up the Sunni Jihad Council to fight in Jammu and Kashmir. Speaking to the Gujranwala-based magazine Dawat-e-Tanzim ul-Islam in March 1999, SJC military commander Saeed Raza Bukhari said that the decision was taken because “certain people have used jihad to propagate their false creeds in Kashmir.” In India, members of the mystic Deendar Anjuman order executed a series of 12 bombings in 2000. Deendar founder Siddiq Husain — who outraged conservatives by claiming to be the incarnation of the Lingayat-caste saint Channabasaveswara — sought to rebuild his legitimacy among Hyderabad’s Muslim elites by setting up a military training centre in 1939. Husain marketed his jihadist organisation, the Tehreek Jamiat-i-Hizbullah, as an instrument with which pre-independence Hyderabad would be able to resist both the Hindu chauvinist Arya Samaj, as well as a growing Communist insurgency. Police investigators found that Zia-ul-Hassan, Siddiq Husain’s Pakistan-based son, used the old Tehreek Jamiat-i-Hizbullah to execute the 2000 bombings, which were marketed as retaliation against Christian and Hindu atrocities. Jabbar’s story demonstrates that the roots of the jihadist movement lie neither in scripture nor particular right-wing renderings of the faith. Like other jihadists, Jabbar turned to the jihad because of the lived experience of communal conflict — not a theoretical understanding of the imperatives of Islam. Even the most plural and tolerant faith-systems, his story makes clear, are unlikely to survive in the crucible of communal hatred. Secular political formations and the Indian state will have to find a language with which to meet the challenge.

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India-Pakistan

Shadowy group claims Pakistan hotel attack

2008-09-23

A shadowy group calling itself "Fedayeen of Islam" has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in a telephone call to Al Arabiya television, the channel said on Monday. The Dubai-based station's correspondent in the Pakistani capital said he received a text message on his mobile phone showing a telephone number, which he called and then heard a recording in which the group admitted launching Saturday's attack. The speaker on the recording, who identified himself as Ahmad Shah Abdali, spoke in English "with a south Asian accent," he said. The phone number belonged to no one, of course. A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with more than half a ton of explosives into the security gates of the luxury hotel, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 260 in a massive fireball. Al-Arabiya said Abdali listed several conditions for "halting attacks against US interests in Pakistan." These included "an end to cooperation" between Washington and Islamabad, "an end to operations (by the Pakistani military) in tribal areas," and the release of all militants held in US prisons. The speaker alleged that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber while 250 US Marines and American and NATO officials were in the hotel. Pakistan has blamed al-Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies based in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan for the attack. Pakistani investigators are hunting an al-Qaeda cell based in Islamabad that is believed to have carried out the bombing of the Marriott Hotel, security officials said Monday. Pakistan's president and prime minister were to have had dinner at the Islamabad Marriott hotel when it was bombed but the venue was changed at the last minute, the interior ministry said. Investigators said they believed the attackers constructed the massive 600-kilo (1,300 pound) truck bomb at a safe house in the capital, since all lorries entering the heavily-guarded city are searched at checkpoints. Dramatic footage of Saturday night's attack showed the attacker failed to get through a barrier when he crashed his explosives-laden truck into the hotel's security gates. At least 60 people were killed. It was likely, however, that the explosives were smuggled into Islamabad in small consignments from militant strongholds in the rugged tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, the official added. A Pakistani security official said the explosives used in the bombing were like those used in two other major militant attacks, including one on the Danish embassy in Islamabad in June. One of al-Qaeda's leaders, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, said that the Danish embassy attack, which killed six people, was "in revenge" for Danish newspaper caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed (ptui).

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India-Pakistan

Islamabad will not rename missiles: FO

2006-02-24

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday rejected an Afghan minister's request that the names of Pakistani missiles be changed because they coincided with those of former Afghan rulers. "How we gonna change 'em to the names of Pak heroes? We ain't got none!" Pakistan Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told the BBC that Islamabad could not fulfill the request because Pakistan and Afghanistan shared a common history and hence common heroes. "So we'll just have to use theirs. They ain't got no missiles, so they ain't usin' 'em!" On Wednesday, Afghan Information Minister Syed Makhdoom Raheen had requested the Pakistani government not to give its military missiles former afghan rulers' names. "Education and culture institutes should be named after Afghan leaders like Shahabud Din Ghauri, Mehmood Ghaznavi and Ahmad Shah Abdali instead of naming destructive devices after them," he said. Three Pakistani missiles are named Ghauri, Ghaznavi and Abdali.

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Afghanistan

'Stop naming missiles after Afghan heroes'

2006-02-23

Afghanistan has complained to Pakistan for naming lethal ballistic missiles and other weaponry after heroes of Afghan history - the latest episode in the testy relations between the Asian neighbors, an official said Wednesday. "Yeah! Why name 'em after Afghan heroes? Why don'tcha name 'em after some Pak heroes, like... ummm... uhhh..." Makhdom Raheen, the Afghan information minister, said Kabul recently sent a letter through its Foreign Ministry to Pakistan over its use of names including Mohammed Ghauri, a 12th-century Muslim conqueror. One series of Pakistan's ballistic missiles is called Ghauri. "We asked them not to use the names of great elders of Afghanistan on weapons of mass destruction or other war equipment," Raheen said. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam refused to comment or say whether it had received such a letter. Afghanistan is also complaining about Pakistan's use of the name of Ahmad Shah Abdali.

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