They are gleeful about causing terror around the world and screaming for more...

Submitted by GF (India), Aug 2, 2006 at 05:15

"The 300-year-old darkness of Muslim subjugation is coming to an end...No one is afraid of the white man any more. For the first time in their long history,Muslims have now the entire globe as their theatre of action"

http://www.saag.org/papers19/paper1896.html

30.7.2006

WHAT'S COOKING IN THE JIHADI KITCHEN--3
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.97
By B.Raman

"IT SERVES THE SHIAS RIGHT"

There is considerable street anger in the Sunni majority Arab world over the Israeli military strikes against the Hezbollah in the Lebanon. Even in India, while there have so far been no major street demonstrations by the Muslims against Israel, Sunni leaders in different parts of the country have, as an expression of their solidarity with the Shias, strongly condemned the Israeli military strikes during the religious sermons in the mosques and on other occasions. Surprisingly, the large majority of the Sunni population of Pakistan---particularly in Pakistani Punjab and the Pashtun majority North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)--- have so far refrained from any major street demonstrations against Israel. The Government of Gen.Pervez Musharraf and other political leaders have strongly criticised Israel, but the Sunni clerics and their followers, who came out into the streets in their thousands in the past to protest against the US military strikes against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the violation of the human rights of the Muslims in Iraq, the alleged descecration of the Holy Koran in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba and the caricaturisation of the Holy Prophet by a Danish cartoonist, have not resorted so far to any violent demonstrations against the Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah. They have been looking at what is happening in the Lebanon not as part of the global conspiracy of the Crusaders and the Jewish people against Islam, but essentially as a conflict between the Crusaders and the Jewish people on the one side and the Shias on the other.Those Sunnis of Pakistan, who are influenced by the ideologies of Sunni extremist organisations such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, do not regard Shias as true Muslims. Though not outwardly expressed, the feeling among the strongly sectarian segments of the Sunnis is "it serves the Shias right". Even the Shias of Pakistan, who constitute about 18 per cent of the total population, have taken care to see that while expressing their anger against Israel, they do not provoke the Sunnis. The reactions of large sections of the Wahabised Sunnis to the events in the Lebanon illustrate the growing sectarianisation of the Muslim mindset in Pakistan. The message issued by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda, projecting the events in the Lebanon as part of the global jihad, has not yet had any impact on the thinking of the Sunnis of Pakistan. The FATA-based Al Qaeda and Taliban look upon what is going on in the Lebanon as providing one more jihad front against the US and Israel. At the same time, they are taking care not to express any feelings of solidarity with the Hezbollah. Solidarity with the Muslim community of the Lebanon, but not with the Hezbollah as an organisation----that has been the policy of Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF) so far.

BAN ON SHIAS VISITING IRAN

2."The government has banned Pakistani Shias from visiting Iran after local and US intelligence sources expressed fear that they might sneak into southern Lebanon to join the Hezbollah fight against Israel. The ban will come into force from August 1 (Tuesday), according to an Interior Ministry notification, which does not state when this ban would be lifted. The Interior Ministry has directed the Federal Investigation Agency not to allow any traveller from Pakistan into Iran from Tuesday unless he or she has a no objection certificate from the ministry. The notification has been sent to 18 entry and exit points across Pakistan including all the major airports. Interior Ministry sources said that the government had received intelligence reports indicating that groups within Pakistan sympathetic to Hezbollah were trying to secretly send Shias to fight Israel. American intelligence sources had also warned of the danger of Pakistani Shias travelling to Iran ending up in Lebanon. Sources said under the new arrangement, any Pakistani Shia wishing to visit Iran would first have to apply to the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The ministry would then recommend names to the Interior Ministry, which would in turn check their credentials from its own intelligence sources"----The "Daily Times"of Lahore, July 30,2006.

FATHER & MOTHER OF ALL TERRORISTS

3.Before the recent terrorist strikes in Mumbai on July 11,2006, which killed over 180 innocent suburban train commuters, the Pakistani media had been referring to the revival of the use of the jihadi weapon by Gen.Musharraf since May,2006. Under the title "Musharraf and his Dangerous Ambiguities", the "Daily Times" of Lahore had commented as follows in an editorial of May 21,2006: " Foreign policy was his strong suit, but increasingly his ambiguities are overtaking the points he had definitely scored in that sector. Afghanistan and India are complaining about terrorism coming from Pakistan with the support of his agencies. The allegations are not always seen to be based on facts, but President Musharraf too does not act with transparency all the time. His saving of the old Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) as a "jihadi option" under the new war-paint of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) scares the world. A recent revival of the mother of all terrorists Sipah-e-Sahaba in Islamabad is another worrying sign of his residual jihadi association. The Foreign Office has already announced defiantly that it will not ban the JUD, but what would it say about the grand congregation of the Sipah-e-Sahaba renamed Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan in what must appear to the world as a simian effort at camouflage on April 6,2006? The Government allowed Brig (retd) Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi---the officer who failed narrowly in staging a military-religious coup in 1995, but is now running an extremist organisation---- to address the 5,000 strong rally. ...The prospect of his (Musharraf's) growing dominance over national politics----not far removed from the idea of the personality cult he decries--- and his open-ended tenure as a uniformed, abnormally empowered President fills the breast of his supporters with fear. Not even those outside, who give him the benefit of the doubt in his dealings with Afghanistan and India, can stomach his jihadi option no matter how long the peace dialogue with India takes. The personality cult of the politicians may pale compared to what Pakistan might face in the coming decade under his tutelage."

JIHAD THROUGH FM RADIO STATIONS

4.The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PERMA) said on July 9,2006, that 115 madrasas located along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were operating "illegal" FM radio stations. While the majority of these FM radio stations were being operated by madrasas controlled by the Jamiat-ul- Ulema-e-Islam of Maulana Fazlur Rehman,many others were operated by the pro-Al Qaeda Tehrik-e-Nifaz-eShariah Muhammadi (TNSM), which was banned by President Pervez Musharraf on January 15,2002, as a terrorist organisation. After 9/11, it had mobilised a large number of tribals from the FATA and sent them into Afghanistan for waging a jihad against the US troops.These madrasas not only broadcast recitations from the Holy Koran, but also disseminate propaganda material from the Taliban. They incite the tribals to wage a relentless jihad against the UK-led NATO forces operating in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan.

ZAWAHIRI PROCLAIMED HERO OF ISLAM

5.On July 13,2006, about 2,000 AK-47 wielding tribal supporters of the TNSM demonstrated against the US near Khar, the main town of the Bajaur agency. They shouted "Death to America" and proclaimed Zawahiri as the "hero of Islam". According to reliable tribal sources, the demonstration was attended by Maulanas Faquir Mohammad and Said Mohammad, who have been declared by the Pakistani authorities as proclaimed offenders for sheltering the remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Units of the local police and para-military forces, who were present nearby, did not take any action to arrest them.

TALIBANISATION OF NWFP AND FATA

6.According to the "Daily Times" of Lahore (July 10,2006), the spreading Taliban movement in the NWFP and the FATA comprises religious leaders, militants from across the border and madrasa students. It seeks inspiration from the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001.Originating in insurgency-hit South Waziristan, the sphere of influence of the Taliban has spread to Dera Ismail Khan, Tank and Khyber Agency. It has started co-opting clerics in these regions and has announced the imposition of Islamic Sharia through a ‘peace committee' in Wana, the South Waziristan Agency headquarters. The Taliban has also opened recruiting offices in Wana, Makeen and Barwend.Welcoming the Talibanisation of the NWFP and the FATA, the World Association of Muslim Jurists Chairman Muhammad Ismaeel Qureshi told the "Daily Times" that the Taliban's system of governance was based on Islamic rules and provided "swift justice". He said they had provided a peaceful atmosphere in the territories under the Taliban, and the crime rate in Waziristan had declined because of the law imposed by it. Women under this system are obliged to wear veils, "which has lessened the chances of crime", he said. Qureshi criticised the Pakistan Government's "interference in the affairs of the Taliban", saying that it had left Pakistan's border with Afghanistan unsafe.
"In their previous tenure, the Taliban eradicated the opium and heroin crops," he said. "Once again, they are prohibiting others from repeating such sins through public executions." The ‘peace committee' had handed down its first capital punishment when a person was executed on March 14 for killing a local tribal. On April 19, the Taliban had sentenced to death three tribesmen for beating and disobeying their parents.

A QUOTABLE QUOTE

7."The 300-year-old darkness of Muslim subjugation is coming to an end...No one is afraid of the white man any more. For the first time in their long history,Muslims have now the entire globe as their theatre of action"----From an article in the "News" of July 14,2006, by Dr.Mazaffar Iqbal.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail:itschen36@gmail.com )

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