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Maulana Masud Azhar	Maulana Masud Azhar	Binori Town mosque	Afghanistan/South Asia				20040530	Link
	Maulana Masud Azhar	Jaish e Muhammad	Afghanistan/South Asia				20040530	Link

India-Pakistan

The Fluttering Flag of Jehad

2009-04-19

Khaled Ahmed does a book review The Fluttering Flag of Jehad By Amir Mir - Mashal Books Lahore 2008 Pp306; Price Rs 700 Amir Mir has developed into an informed commentator on the state of jihad with an uncomfortable inside track with those who are supposed to counter it in Pakistan. Of course jihad has unfortunately become another name for terrorism and those who have taken it out of the roster of the functions of the state and privatised it are to blame for this development. Amir Mir was able to interview Benazir Bhutto just before she fell to the terrorism of Al Qaeda or whoever it was who assassinated her in December 2007. She thought Pervez Musharraf was secretly in league with the terrorists and had tried to kill her in Karachi in October 2007, and was sure he would get terrorists like Abdur Rehman Otho of Lashkar-e Jhangvi and Qari Saifullah Akhtar of Harkat Jihad Islami, protégés of the ISI, to do the job. She named Brigadier Ijaz Shah and Brigadier Riaz Chibb etc. in her final writings. She predicted her death and blamed it on the army; months later, Major General Faisal Alvi too predicted his own death at the hands of the army and was shot down in Islamabad. Musharraf claimed that Benazir was killed by Baitullah Mehsud through his suicide-bombers whose minder was taped talking to him on the phone about the achievement. Evidence in place was destroyed by the establishment, and questions arising from her murder could not be answered although Al Qaeda was at first quoted in the press as having taken care of ‘the most precious American asset in the words of Mustafa Abu Yazid, the Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan. Benazir had her moles inside the ISI (p.28); but Amir doesnt accept that Baitullah Mehsud killed her and gives a convincing critique of the findings of Scotland Yard. Now a lot of writers use inside information from the US government to claim that Musharraf was sympathetic to the Taliban as they fled from the US attack in 2001. Amir Mir tells us that Corps Commander Peshawar General Safdar Hussain, who signed the peace accord with Baitullah Mehsud at Sararogha near Wana in February 2005, had called him a soldier of peace even as Mehsuds warriors shouted ‘Death to America. Major General Faisal Alvi was to accuse some elements in the army high command of being on the side of the Taliban before his assassination in 2008. Baitullah rewarded General Hussain with 200 captured Pakistani troops in August 2007. Benazir believed Qari Saifullah Akhtar was involved in the attempt on her life in Karachi in October 2007 (p.43). Qari was in prison for trying to kill Musharraf in 2004 and was sprung from there to do the job on Benazir. Musharraf was outraged when he got to know that an ISI protégé had tried to kill him from his safe haven in Dubai after fleeing from Afghanistan in 2001. Qari was special because he was rescued by the spooks after he was found involved in trying to stage a military coup in league with Islamist fanatic Major General Zaheerul Islam Abbasi in 1995. He along with his Harkat Jihad Islami was to become the favourite of the Taliban government. The place to be mined for leadership talent was Karachis Banuri Mosque where the Qari and that other protégé Fazlur Rehman Khalil had received their Deobandi orientation. The third Banuri Mosque protégé of the state was Maulana Masud Azhar, who formed Jaish-e Muhammad and was rescued from an Indian jail together with Omar Sheikh, the man who later helped kill Daniel Pearl in Karachi. Qari was recalled from Dubai and kept in custody, and the Lahore High Court did not release him on a habeas corpus petition. But he was released quietly before Benazir arrived in Pakistan in October 2007 (p.45). After Benazir named him in her posthumous book, Qari was arrested again in March 2008. The reaction came in the shape of a suicide attacks on the Naval War College and the FIA office in Lahore where Qaris terrorists were being kept for interrogation into the War College attack (p.47). A Karachi terrorist court heard the case against Qari and freed him on bail because the proof with which the prosecution could have proved him guilty had ‘disappeared. Later he was rearrested but then quietly released by the Home Department because the spooks wanted him freed (p.48). Fazlur Rehman Khalil is the sort of person who can some day get Pakistan into trouble after which Islamabad will have to say he has mysteriously left the country and cannot be produced. He is Osama bin Ladens man and his Harkatul Mujahideen was prominent among the jihadi organisations in Kashmir and ran training camps for warriors in Dhamial just outside Rawalpindi Fazlur Rehman Khalil is another protected person who lives in Islamabad but governments hardly know what he has been saying to the American authors who visit him. When Islamabad got into trouble with its own clerics in Lal Masjid, it was Khalil who was taken out and made to negotiate with them (p.109). He is the sort of person who can some day get Pakistan into trouble after which Islamabad will have to say he has mysteriously left the country and cannot be produced. He is Osama bin Ladens man and his Harkatul Mujahideen was prominent among the jihadi organisations in Kashmir and ran training camps for warriors in Dhamial just outside Rawalpindi, at least that is what an American suspect Hamid Hayat told the FBI after visiting it (p.108). It is not only Dr AQ Khan whom Pakistan has to save from being kidnapped by the anti-proliferationist West, there is also Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the top scientist who enriched uranium at Khushab and then conferred with Osama bin Laden about building a nuclear bomb when he was in Kabul looking after his charity organisation called Umma Tameer Nau (p.111). He is the crazy bearded man who once presented a paper to General Zia saying Pakistan could make electricity from jinns. He also thought he could use a nuclear bomb to clear up a silted Tarbela Dam. Daniel Pearl was on to him, but he got killed when he got close to another protected person. there is also Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the top scientist who enriched uranium at Khushab and then conferred with Osama bin Laden about building a nuclear bomb when he was in Kabul looking after his charity organisation called Umma Tameer Nau (p.111). He is the crazy bearded man who once presented a paper to General Zia saying Pakistan could make electricity from jinns. He also thought he could use a nuclear bomb to clear up a silted Tarbela Dam. Daniel Pearl was on to him The other person was Mubarak Shah Gilani, a scion of the great Sufi of Lahore, Mianmir, who actually controlled jinns and ran a jihadi organisation named Al Fuqra still alive and doing well in the UKs Londonistan. He had recruited Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber terrorist who was caught before he could blow up an aircraft. Daniel Pearl had traced Mubarak Shah Gilani to Karachi and was going to interview him when he was tricked by Omar Sheikh into going with Lashkar-e Jhangvi gunmen who then handed him over to Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, who confessed at Guantanamo to personally beheading him (p.116). Omar Sheikh, who got involved in planning the 9/11 strike, was finally made to surrender after sheltering in home secretary and ex-ISI officer Ijaz Shahs residence in Lahore for a week. The book says on page 122 that the ISI chief General Mehmood was later investigated by FBI for sending $100,000 to plane hijacker Atta, who led the 9/11 strike on the World Trade Centre. The conduit for Mehmood was Omar Sheikh. The Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearls paper, reported that an examination of Omar Sheikhs telephone record showed him talking to General Mehmood, proving also that the money sent by General Mehmood through Omar Sheikh was funding for the New York strike (p.122). General Musharraf in his book reported, as if in rebuttal, that Omar Sheikh was first recruited by the British spy agency MI6. the ISI chief General Mehmood was later investigated by FBI for sending $100,000 to plane hijacker Atta, who led the 9/11 strike on the World Trade Centre. The conduit for Mehmood was Omar Sheikh. The Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearls paper, reported that an examination of Omar Sheikhs telephone record showed him talking to General Mehmood, proving also that the money sent by General Mehmood through Omar Sheikh was funding for the New York strike The book also reports that the hijacking — done by Masood Azhars brother Abdul Rauf and brother-in-law Yusuf Azhar — of an Indian airliner that led to the release of Omar Sheikh and Masood Azhar from an Indian jail was linked to the ISI because its Quetta-based officers talked to the hijackers on the wireless set at Kandahar (p.128). Masood Azhar then went on to attack the Parliament in New Delhi in 2001, a month after 9/11. ISI chief Javed Ashraf Qazi on March 6, 2004 admitted that Jaish was involved in the New Delhi parliament assault (p.134). Later Jaish militants were to be housed in Lal Masjid during its siege by state troops in 2007 (p.141). An interesting chapter is included on the infiltration of the Pakistani cricket team by the Tablighi Jamaat. As a result, the team under captain Inzamam-ul Haq lost its playing ability to its obsession with tabligh and conversion. Media manager PJ Mir accused the team of neglecting the game during the 2007 World Cup and spending all the time trying to convert the innocent people of the West Indies (p.204).

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India-Pakistan

Delhi to contact ICC for Masud Azhar's arrest

2008-12-23

India will resort to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the arrest of Maulana Masud Azhar, a private TV channel quoted Indian media as saying on Monday. According to the channel, it would be difficult for Pakistan to ignore the ICC after India approaches the court. Meanwhile, a five-member Interpol delegation met the Mumbai police commissioner on Monday and sought details about Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving Mumbai attacker. According to the channel, the Interpol delegation will arrive in Pakistan on Tuesday (today).

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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.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Who is Mufti Shamzai?

2004-05-30

A backgrounder from the Friday Times published in 2000.. In January this year the Binori Town mosque in Karachi made national and international headlines when Maulana Masud Azhar made his appearance there before the media and declared war on both India and the United States. Azhar was one of the three prisoners the hijackers of an Indian Airlines plane got released as quid pro quo for releasing the hostages. In the past few years, Binori mosque, which also houses the second biggest seminary in Pakistan, has emerged as one of the most respected seminaries in the Islamic world. But its fame, or as some would call notoriety, is not owed merely to the Islamic syllabi taught here. The madrassah also teaches "jihad" to its students and its seminarians regularly go to Afghanistan to train in the art of warfare. A large percentage of the Taliban’s upper-crust leadership has been students of Binori mosque. Azhar, who appeared before the media after his release, is also one of the students of Binori mosque and like thousands of other students was taught jihad here. His teacher is Maulana Shamzai, who is titled Muftiuzzaman and is also accepted as the spiritual leader and mentor by Mullah Omar of the Taliban, the Amirul Momineen of the movement. The Binori mosque was surrounded by young men bristling with automatic weapons during Azhar’s stay there. Azhar, whose rhetoric has now finally been put down by the government after the US State Department took note of his threats, left the mosque after a few days and now heads an organisation called Jaish e Muhammad. The Jaish has the blessings of Shamzai. Who was also a signatory of the so-called Supreme Council of Global Jihad. Binori mosque, which provided the leadership to the Taliban was founded by Allama Yusuf Binori and Maulana Mufti Mahmood. The latter was the head of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), one of whose factions is now headed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Today, the sprawling marble mosque is run by a trust established by Allama Binori, though a major source of income is through domestic and foreign funding. The seminary has many foreign students and has a strength of about 8,000 students. Teachers at the mosque told TFT the seminary has been spreading Deobandi-Sunni ideology from its inception. A student from Sudan says while the mosque was initially small, in the last three decades it has turned into the most important Deobandi-Sunni seminary. Today, the mosque attracts students and funds from over 50 countries, including the Philippines, the United States, and Britain. Most of the funds come from individuals and various businesses. "Rich and poor both give us money out of their love from Islam," says Mufti Shamzai. Binori’s colour completely changed since the rise of the Taliban militia. Officials confirm the mosque has often been used by sectarian outfits as a "safe haven". TFT has learnt the administration has always avoided entering the mosque premises. The administrators deny any linkage with the sectarian outfits but concede that it is possible that some people might have hid there without their knowledge. "However, it is not our policy to give shelter to such people or promote disunity among Muslims," says one of the mosque officials. Which is nonsense, of course. Given the nature of the attack, it is probably the Shia’s that wacked Shamzai. Although in 2001, one of the other leaders of Binori were assasinated by followers of a different Sunni sect, so they are not short of enemies. Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai was the brain behind the Taliban movement and is still the most respected figure. While the Binori mosque administrators deny they indulge in Pakistan’s politics, they do concede that they provide the young cadre for the JUI. "We only teach religious subjects. We do not impart military training. But once they go for jihad to Afghanistan they are given such training by the jihadi forces," says Shamzai. The importance of Binori mosque can be judged from the fact that any scholar from the mosque visiting Afghanistan is treated as a "state guest". When in November 1997 two scholars of the mosque were assassinated in Karachi, Mullah Omar personally expressed his grief over their deaths. Leaders from Afghanistan’s Taliban militia frequently visit the mosque and its madrassah. Interestingly, official sources say hundreds of foreign jihadis took shelter in the mosque when Ms Benazir Bhutto’s government launched the drive to expel them from Pakistan. Most of these people have refused to return to their native countries after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. The government was under pressure from countries like Egypt, Syria and Jordan to send these people back since most of them belong to Islamist organisations that have been banned in these countries on the charge of indulging in "terrorist activities." If Karachi is the center of global terrorism, Binori serves as ground zero, churning out thousands of high quality Mujahideen, who go on to take leadership positions in Jihadi groups. It’s graduates have included the leaders of the Taliban, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Harkat ul Jihad Islami. It’s biggest competetion probably comes from the Lashkar, which is a seperate problem, consisting of Wahabis rather than Deobandis. Mufti Shamazi is not worried about the government’s recent move to crack down on the seminaries across the country. "We don’t keep arms; we only teach jihad and no one can stop us from religious teaching," he says. But intelligence sources confirm that thousands of mujahideen who fought in Afghanistan have now become a part of the Islamist network and use Afghanistan as a base. Some of them have been involved in sectarian strife while others call themselves "jihadi". Many of them are former students of Binori Town mosque, who are the Taliban of Pakistan. Their leader, Mufti Shamzai is the Mullah Omar of Pakistan. Shamzai foresees an uprising of the forces of jihad throughout the world against repression. "I am proud that people are participating in the jihad against the enemies of Islam. They come from different countries but all of them have the same goal - and they are all students of this great institution," Shamzai told TFT. Incidently, Shamzai was part of the team of Scholars who accompanied the leader of the ISI in a trip to Afghanistan to convince Mullah Omar to hand over Osama Bin Ladin, of course they did the opposite, telling Omar to fight on. He is one of the most important players in the Military-Mullah axis, since he recruits the cannon fodder that the Generals have thrown at Afghanistan and Kashmir. If you really want to find some high value terrorists, Binori might be a better target than Waziristan.

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India-Pakistan

Pak mob opposes extraditing crazed gunmen

2002-01-02

The United Jehad Council, an umbrella organisation of some Pakistan-based militant outfits, has strongly opposed extradition of 20 terrorists demanded by India from Islamabad. "If it happens, everything would be finished," UJC chairman and Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin said. He said the council would re-evolve its future strategy in the next few days in the wake of Pakistan government's crackdown on militants. The government action was "disappointing." Salahuddin said his organisation condemned the arrest of former leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba Hafiz Saeed and Maulana Masud Azhar, leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad and other jehadi leaders. Yeah, it's always disappointing when your crazed gunmen are extradited to places they committed their crimes. That means you'll have to hijack some more airliners to get them sprung, and Kandahar won't be a good place to land them this time.

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