What is the Quran’s prospective on reacting to insults against our Prophet (PBUH)?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xto546_muhammad-when-they-insult-our-prophet-pbuh-youtube_webcam
Source – dailymotion
What is the Quran’s prospective on reacting to insults against our Prophet (PBUH)?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xto546_muhammad-when-they-insult-our-prophet-pbuh-youtube_webcam
Source – dailymotion
5 Reasons Why Hezb-e Islami Killing Foreigners in Kabul is a Big Deal
By El Snarkistani
Another attack in Kabul today, which (sadly) isn’t that unusual lately.
But today’s reported killing of eight people in Kabul is frighteningly different from the norm here in the Emerald City.
Here’s why.
1. This is being claimed by Hezb-e Islami.
Once upon a time, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and friends did a great deal of violence in Kabul. ….
Read more » http://findingmytribe.me/2012/09/18/5-reasons-why-hezb-e-islami-killing-foreigners-in-kabul-is-a-big-deal/
Banned outfit, Lashkar-e-Taiba/ Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s chief Hafiz Saeed Says, till the “Innocence of Muslims” film’s director is not hanged, No American Embassy can run in Pakistan & no relations with America …. The language of the news is urdu/Hindi.
Courtesy: Duniya Tv »Via – ZemTv
More details » Voice of America (urdu)
Islamists stoke resentment of the West—and anger over the long decline of Muslim influence—to serve their own violent ends.
BY HUSAIN HAQQANI
The attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions this week—beginning in Egypt and Libya, and moving to Yemen and other Muslim countries—came under cover of riots against an obscure online video insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H). But the mob violence and assaults should be seen for what they really are: an effort by Islamists to garner support and mobilize their base by exacerbating anti-Western sentiments.
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to calm Muslims Thursday by denouncing the video, she was unwittingly playing along with the ruse the radicals set up. The United States would have been better off focusing …
Read more » The Wall Street Journal
Iqbal Haider Former Chairman Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in an exclusive interview with Noor ul Arfeen Siddiqui in fresh episode of Hot Seat on Aaj News.
Beyond the law
THE move is so brazen that it would be amusing if it wasn’t deeply worrying: three retired generals inducted back into the military simply to prevent the civilian anti-corruption set-up from trying them for mismanagement of public funds. The three former army men accused of violating rules to invest National Logistics Cell funds, including large bank loans, in the stock market — and providing kickbacks and losing nearly Rs2bn in the process, including pensioners’ money — will now be court-martialled instead of being investigated by NAB. The two civilian NLC managers also accused of wrongdoing will, meanwhile, continue to be subject to the NAB probe. The decision follows three years of delays in the investigation caused mainly by the army’s refusal to share records and cooperate with the probe. And after all that foot-dragging, the military has finally found a way out. The inquiry and trial of its own men will be kept behind closed doors, despite the fact that they have squandered public money. The message is clear: the military expects to be able to operate as a state within a state, an organisation exempt from the rules and responsibilities under which the rest of the population operates.
The move also raises questions, once again, about the appropriateness of the army’s involvement in commercial ventures. Even those that administratively report to civilian organisations, such as the NLC, which technically sits under the Planning Commission, are effectively controlled by the army through managers who are retired and serving officers. The multiple reporting lines, limited civilian auditing and military influence that result make it all the more difficult to scrutinise their operations and their use of public funds. When they provide goods and services entirely unrelated to defence, they raise questions about whether running them is the best use of the army’s time and resources. In some sectors, their military connections turn them into market players that enjoy unfair advantages compared to private companies. And now this privileged position has allowed one such entity to avoid a civilian investigation and trial to which, as retired officers, its former managers should be liable.
Corruption within the Pakistani state is not limited to the army; from the country’s top politicians to its lower-level bureaucrats, government officials entertain and horrify us with a steady stream of scams. With the Malik Riaz scandal, even the superior judiciary’s honour has been called into question. But at least these entities are subject to public investigations and trials, no matter how tainted or delayed. When the army takes a case into a military court, it turns a flawed investigation into an unseen one.
The likelyhood of death sentence being awarded to an 11 year old for alleged blasphemy is symptomatic of the naked abuse of power exercised by religious zealots
By Ayesha Siddiqa, Independent Social Scientist
Let us roll a dice and guess who is more lucky: Abbas, tortured and burnt to death for allegedly blasphemy, or Rimsha who may survive death but will forever be scarred for being nearly sentenced to death on similar charges? Some will probably consider the young Christian girl lucky, compared to Abbas and scores of others who suffered under the archaic blasphemy law.
Continue reading PAKISTAN PERISCOPE – Curse of Blasphemy Law
By Abdul Manan
Sources said, according to precedents, threats intercepted via phone calls often materialised in the next 72 hours.
LAHORE: It could be the first-ever security threat to a nuclear facility in Pakistan, and the Army and security forces are taking no risks.
Following ‘serious’ security threats from the homegrown Taliban, the Army and Punjab police have deployed heavy forces at one of Pakistan’s largest nuclear facilities in Dera Ghazi Khan (DG Khan), credible sources told The Express Tribune.
Besides the deployment inside and around the nuclear installation, three divisions in South Punjab have also been asked to launch a crackdown against banned outfits, sources added.
“DG Khan houses one of the largest nuclear facilities in the country, and has faced the first-ever serious security threat from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),” said a high ranking military officer currently serving at the installation.
According to an official who works at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, a key military and civilian fuel cycle site is located 40 kilometres from DG Khan. The site comprises uranium milling and mining operations, and a uranium hexaflouride conversion plant.
‘Serious’ threat
Sources in the military and Punjab Police, on condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that the nature of threat at the nuclear installation is ‘serious,’ with an 80% chance of occurrence.
The Inter-Services Intelligence reportedly intercepted a telephone call from the TTP, wherein they were said to have been finalising their strategy for attacks on nuclear installations in DG Khan, sources said.
Three to four vehicles carrying suicide bombers are about to enter DG Khan and can strike the nuclear facilities at any time, the caller concluded according to sources. Sources said that, according to precedents, threats intercepted via phone calls often materialised in the next 72 hours. Direct threats via phone or letters often do not materialise, the source added.
Foiling the attack
DG Khan District Police Officer Chaudhry Saleem confirmed the threat, while talking to The Express Tribune, and said that DG Khan Police has received instructions from the military officer in charge at the nuclear installation to beef up security around the facility as much as possible.
The TTP started to send threats to the installation after the attacks on Kamra air base, Saleem said, adding that the police has established six new pickets around the nuclear installations and deployed heavy forces over the last 24 hours.
Sources said that a heavy contingent of military from the Multan cantonment has also reached the site and beefed up the inner cordon of the security. Military has also been deployed near the border with Balochistan.
Revenge for Qaisrani
Well-placed sources in law enforcement agencies said that when the TTP attacked Kamra air base, they announced that they would take revenge for killing of their South Punjab head Abdul Ghaffar Qaisrani by also attacking nuclear installations in DG Khan.
Sources said the DG Khan Police killed Qaisrani in an encounter in the first week of August, along with eight of his companions, almost clearing his network in the area.The police were able to trace Qaisrani after they interrogated Adnan Khosa, who attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore along with Qaisrani, sources said, adding that Khosa is currently imprisoned in DG Khan.
Qaisrani’s elimination caused a major loss to the TTP in South Punjab, and the militant outfit vowed to take revenge.
Earlier attacks
According to local politicians, the DG Khan nuclear site and adjacent areas had previously been a target of ground attacks by Baloch insurgents, but not the TTP.
Continue reading Pakistan – Taliban threat: Nuclear site in DG Khan cordoned off
The country’s blasphemy law is overwhelmingly being used to persecute religious minorities and settle personal vendettas. As the case of 14-year-old Christian Rimsha Masih gains global attention, why have politicians failed to act?
By: Mohammed Hanif
Fourteen years ago, around the time young Rimsha Masih, now in jail under Pakistan’s blasphemy law, was born, a Roman Catholic bishop walked into a courthouse in Sahiwal, quite close to my hometown in Central Punjab. The Right Rev John Joseph was no ordinary clergyman; he was the first native bishop in Pakistan and the first ever Punjabi bishop anywhere in the world. He was also a brilliant and celebrated community organiser, the kind of man oppressed communities look up to as a role model. Joseph walked in alone, asking a junior priest to wait outside the courthouse. Inside the court, he took out a handgun and shot himself in the head. The bullet in his head was his protest against the court’s decision to sentence a fellow Christian, Ayub Masih, to death for committing blasphemy. Masih had been charged with arguing with a Muslim co-worker over religious matters. The exact content of the conversation cannot be repeated here because that would be blasphemous. The bishop had campaigned long and hard to get the blasphemy law repealed without any luck. He wrote prior to his death: “I shall count myself extremely fortunate if in this mission of breaking the barriers, our Lord accepts the sacrifice of my blood for the benefit of his people.”
Joseph had been pursuing another case, in which an 11-year-old, Salamat Masih, along with his father and uncle, was accused of scribbling something blasphemous on the wall of the mosque. We don’t really know what he wrote, because reproducing it, here or in court, would constitute blasphemy.
The boy’s uncle, Manzoor Masih, was shot dead during the trial. The Masih case went to the high court, where a judge, Arif Bhatti, applied common sense and released him. A year later the judge was murdered in his own chambers, and his killers claimed that the judge had committed blasphemy by freeing those accused in the blasphemy case.
Frustrated and in a fit of rage, the bishop meditated and reached the conclusion that he should kill himself publicly to make his point.
You could argue that Joseph should have organised candlelight vigils, gone on a hunger strike, hired better lawyers. But he had tried everything and realised that a bullet in the head in the middle of a court was his only way to draw attention to this colossal absurdity called blasphemy law.
He was wrong. The law stayed. Many more Christians were killed.
There are situations though, where confronted with the prospect of a 14-year-old being sentenced to death, as a celebrated community leader you can’t do anything but take a gun to your head.
And hope for the best.
Continue reading Pakistan’s blasphemy law: how can we end this colossal absurdity?
Pakistan’s 65-year history of missed opportunities seized by other rapidly developing nations like Korea, Turkey, etc, tainted by military coups, political infighting and a form of crony capitalism that has stifled its economy were enough of the destablisers, and when it seemed like it could not go any worse, the cat dragged in the leviathan of religious and ethnic terrorism. The barbaric acts of cruelty against Christians, Ahmedis and in particular Shiites this country has witnessed over the past few years, all in the name of religion and God, can bring the likes of Ivan the Terrible and Attila the Hun to tears.
Literati and commentators blame the former military dictator General Ziaul Haq for making it a state policy to fund and arm Wahabi groups in the 1980s. It is an established fact that the general used these organisations primarily against the Shiites at the behest of the state financier, Saudi Arabia. Shiites had natural sympathies with Iran because of religious and emotional proximity and there was no doubt that Saudi Arabia was supporting Wahabi groups through General Zia to kill Iran’s support in Pakistan, and hence Pakistan became a battleground for the war between two states striving for regional hegemony. In retrospect, this war did not actually start in the 1980s as per the famous Indian writer, M J Akbar. He states the animosity between the Sunni majority and the Shia minority in the subcontinent dates back to the Mughal era where the Mughal Emperor Humayun became a converted Shiite when he returned from Iran along with Shia preachers, which resulted in a mass conversion of Hindus to Shiite Islam. In later years, Aurangzeb persecuted Shiites, who by that time had grown in numbers. In short, this animosity has always been embedded in the very fabric of the subcontinent for hundreds of years, but always remained confined to discussions and dialogues among the religious clergy, popularly known as ‘manazara’, and were never militant.
Continue reading Catch-44: Takfiri intolerance and Shia genocide in Pakistan – by Mujahid Kamal Mir
The scourge of Pakistan’s Shia community, Malik Ishaq of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) — an offshoot of ‘renamed’ Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which is in a legal penumbra of state ban — has been arrested upon his return from Saudi Arabia, where he could have gone to perform a religious ritual but could also have touched base there with the ‘donors’ who finance the massacre of the Shia in Pakistan. The charges against him of hate speech followed by sectarian killings are quite serious. He was acquitted of the same category last year and let out of jail after remaining there for 14 years.
LAHORE: Former president of the Supreme Court Bar, Asma Jahangir on Monday said that the officer tasked by the SC to investigate the Arsalan Iftikhar case has close ties with the chief justice’s son and cannot be trusted to conduct a transparent investigation, DawnNews reported.
Speaking to media representatives at the Lahore High Court (LHC), Jahangir remarked that the UK’s Scotland Yard should be called in to probe the Arsalan Iftikhar case if Pakistani institutions are deemed unreliable.
Jahangir alleged that Shoaib Suddle, the investigating officer, is also known to regularly attend Arsalan Iftikhar’s events, she said, adding that he could not be expected to conduct a transparent investigation into the case.
Pakistan’s apex court is investigating allegations of a Rs342 million business deal between Dr Arsalan, son of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, and business tycoon Malik Riaz.
On Aug 30, the Supreme Court had accepted a review petition against its own earlier order, appointing Federal Tax Ombudsman Dr Mohammad Shoaib Suddle as the one man-commission to probe the controversial case. The commission is required to complete the task in a month.
Criticising the court’s decision, Jahangir said that if there were any questions over the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) investigating team, then the team could have been changed instead of changing the whole verdict.
Continue reading Arsalan Iftikhar case: Asma voices concern over one-man commission
A Pakistani imam has been remanded in custody, accused of planting pages of the Koran among burnt pages in the bag of a Christian girl held for blasphemy.
The girl was detained two weeks ago near the capital Islamabad after an angry mob demanded she be punished.
Imam Khalid Chishti allegedly told a witness that this was a “way of getting rid of Christians”, a prosecutor said.
The girl, named as Rimsha, is said to be about 14 and to have learning difficulties.
The case has sparked international condemnation.
Earlier this week, a court extended Rimsha’s detention at a maximum-security prison by a further two weeks.
Her father has said he fears for his daughter’s life and for the safety of his family. He has called on Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to pardon her.
Continue reading Pakistan ‘Koran plot’ imam remanded in blasphemy case
Minorities under attack: Altaf lines up police, agencies, clerics, judges, army and… fires
By Saba Imtiaz
Karachi: In an impassioned speech that included critiques of clerics and the judiciary, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain asked the Pakistan Army, Inter-Services Intelligence and other agencies to shut up shop if they could not “protect people”.
“Leave them,” Hussain said before turning to his audience, “You have a right to defend yourself by any means.”
Altaf’s speech at an interfaith conference organised by his party in Karachi came after a series of statements by him and other party leaders on the increase in the number of attacks on Shias throughout Pakistan. Several clerics from Karachi as well as other cities of Pakistan such as Quetta, Lahore and Chakwal, were in attendance.
Prayer leader arrested for fabricating evidence in Rimsha Masih case
By Web Desk
RAWALPINDI: Police have arrested prayer leader Khalid Jadoon on charges of fabricating evidence, which he had used to accuse Rimsha Masih of committing blasphemy by allegedly burning Quranic pages, Express News reported early on Sunday.
Express News correspondent Qamarul Munawar said that Hafiz Muhammad Zubair, who witnessed Jadoon adding pages of the Quran, recorded a statement with the Rawalpindi magistrate on Saturday.
According to Zubair’s account, he was sitting in Iteqaaf in the mosque when some people handed burnt pages to the prayer leader. After a little while, Jadoon added additional pages of the Quran to the pile.
Zubair, in his statement added that three other people present with him in the mosque asked Jadoon why he was adding documents to the pile of burnt paper, to which prayer leader said that such an act was necessary to strengthen their case.
Munawar reported that Islamabad police has now arrested Jadoon who are now questioning him.
Rimsha has been in custody since she was arrested more than two weeks ago accused of burning Quranic papers, in breach of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. According to medical reports Rimsha is 14 year old minor, and has a mental age below her real age.
Courtesy: The Express Tribune
From Indian Kanoon:
“[45] It is reported that it was at the Taj Mahal Hotel ballroom that, on February 20, 1918, at her eighteenth birthday party, Ruttie had accepted Mr Jinnah’s hand in marriage while the band was playing the Chopin tune, So Deep is the Night. It is also reported that both Mr. Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, and Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, the President of the Indian National Congress, often held court at Taj Mahal Hotel.
Mr. Jinnah also had an intimate connection with Mazgaon, where the bomb planted by two terrorists in a taxi exploded, killing three (3) and wounding nineteen (19) people. It is reported that Mr. Jinnah devoted Thursday afternoons to visiting the grave of his wife Ruttie at the Khoja Shiite Isna’ashri Cemetry, situated at Mazgaon, Mumbai.
One wonders what Quaid-e-Azam would have thought of the terrorist attack on his favourite city in the subcontinent and especially on Taj Mahal Hotel, with which he had a personal relationship of a very intimate kind.”
Read more » Pak Tea House
http://pakteahouse.net/2012/08/30/indian-supreme-courts-poignant-footnote-in-kasab-judgment/
‘Imam changed evidences against Rimsha’
ISLAMABAD: The Imam of a Mosque, Khalid Jadoon, manipulated the evidence against Rimsha Maseeh, said an eyewitness in a statement before the magistrate on Saturday.
According to the eyewitness Hafiz Muhammad Zubair, he was observing Aitekaf in the mosque when he got to know about the incident of alleged burning of Quranic verses.
He said that Ammad, the complainant in the case, handed over the ashes of Quranic verses to the Imam of the mosque Khalid Jadoon, who also added more verses to it.
The eyewitness further said in his statement that he himself along with two more Motakif protested against the manipulation of the evidences. He said that he and other eyewitnesses had asked Khalid Jadoon to present the real evidences against Rimsha.
Meanwhile, the religious scholar Tahir Ashrafi has asked the Ulema as to what kind of punishment Imams like Khalid Jadoon deserved.
Courtesy: Geo Tv
http://www.geo.tv/GeoDetail.aspx?ID=65868
More details » The News
http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-65868-Imam-changed-evidences-against-Rimsha
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — Risking a new breach in relations with Pakistan, the Obama administration is leaning toward designating the Haqqani network, the insurgent group responsible for some of the most spectacular assaults on American bases in Afghanistan in recent years, as a terrorist organization.
With a Congressional reporting deadline looming, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and top military officials are said to favor placing sanctions on the network, which operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to half a dozen current and former administration officials.
A designation as a terrorist organization would help dry up the group’s fund-raising activities in countries like Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, press Pakistan to carry out long-promised military action against the insurgents, and sharpen the administration’s focus on devising policies and operations to weaken the group, advocates say.
Continue reading U.S. Seems Set to Brand Militant Group as ‘Terrorist’
Taliban release video of severed heads
KHAR: Pakistani Taliban released a video showing what appeared to be the severed heads of a dozen soldiers on Friday as security officials said 15 troops were missing following fighting with militants.
The clashes on Tuesday came as part of a Pakistan army operation to repel Taliban militants who had crossed over from Kunar province in Afghanistan last Friday and occupied the village of Batwar in the Bajaur tribal district.
“At least 15 of our soldiers are still missing,” a senior security official told AFP.
Another security official said “more or less” that many soldiers were missing but declined to give the exact total.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Sirajud Din sent AFP a video showing a militant commander posing with 12 heads arranged on the ground which he claimed were from soldiers they had killed.
“Praise be to God that the mujahideen in Bajaur agency have managed to kill the infidel soldiers of Pakistan,” he says.
“Many of them were killed by bullets, 12 of them as you see have been beheaded, you see 12 heads here, and more heads are on the way.” The commander, his face unmasked and wearing traditional tribal dress, is flanked in the footage by around a dozen armed men including one wielding a huge axe.
The video showed belongings from the dead men laid out on a sheet, including Pakistani identity cards, camouflage pattern helmets, Pakistani currency, mobile phones and bank cards.
Military sources have so far not said whether they are the missing soldiers or confirmed that those shown in the video are Pakistani troops. …..
Read more » The News
http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-65746-Taliban-release-video-of-severed-heads
Islamabad diary:
If there was an international shoot-in-the-foot prize Pakistan would win it hands down, our genius for self-inflicted injuries surpassing that of all competitors. We don’t need RAW, Mossad or the CIA to conspire against us. We are self-sufficient in this department, no conspiracy from those quarters coming close to what we can do to ourselves.
As if the blasphemy discourse had not been worked to death already, we have another blasphemy case on our hands, the news of which has spread at the speed of light across the globe, contributing immeasurably once more to the fair name of the Islamic Republic.
Dear Sir,
Baloch Human Rights Council (UK) welcomes the forthcoming visit of a United Nations delegation to investigate the human rights violations being committed by the Pakistani security agencies in Balochistan. Human rights organizations and Baloch political organizations have been demanding from the international community to intervene and pressurize Pakistani authorities in order to stop gross injustices to the Baloch people. The visit of a UN delegation is a very appreciable and positive step in this regard.
Dear Secretary General,
Over the past many years, the people of Balochistan have witnessed immense and brutal measures from the State of Pakistan in response to the legitimate demands of the Baloch people for fundamental human rights of civil liberty, justice and right to self-determination for sovereign Balochistan. The Pakistani state has responded with the brutal attacks committed by its military, intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces. Thousands of innocent men, women and children have been mercilessly killed, hundreds of thousands have been displaced and thousands are missing and their whereabouts are still unknown. Pakistani govt. officials have accepted of more than 1000 missing person themselves last year and we genuinely believe that their lives are in grave danger. ….
Read more » BHRC
RAWALPINDI: Amad, the complainant and nephew of the landowner of Rimsha’s residence, mysteriously disappeared since the first information report (FIR) against the girl was lodged.
Khalid Chishti, the prayer leader at the Jamia Masjid Aminia, also accepted he had delivered a message from the mosque at Mera Jafar four months ago that Christians inhabiting the area should leave the place. …
Read more » The News
PESHAWAR: A blast near the Malik Market outside the Sheri mosque in Matani, Peshawar destroyed at least 10 shops in the locality, partially damaging the mosque, an eye witnesses said. Express News reported that six people were killed and at least 18 were injured including few children due to the blast.
The blast site is located around 100 yards away from the Matani police station. The injured have been shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital, Express News reported.
The eyewitness told The Express Tribune that a huge explosion was heard near the market after which he saw bodies scattered in the area. Ambulances were rushed to the area immediately as additional number of police personnel made way to the spot.
So far no official version about the attack was available.
However, a senior police official confirmed the explosion in Matani, a village on the outskirts of Peshawar city, close to the Khyber Agency and FR Darra Adamkhel.
The area has been a clash point for militants and peace militias for years. This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.
Courtesy: Urduwire
VIEW : To do or not to — Mehr Tarar
How will we learn to differentiate between an outright insult to our religion and an inadvertent slip where the doer does not even know what the action implies?
I write because I feel. This is the only medium through which I can express with some coherence what I want to say. Words have a tremendous power, bigger than many of us realise, but words only affect when they carry an expression of what you truly believe, what you feel a level deeper than the superfluous, and when your belief and feeling strengthen into the knowledge that it all must be conveyed; if not to all, to some. If not to some, maybe to even one person, whom you may touch, one way or the other, subliminally, or if you are lucky, startle like an alarm going off at 4:00 am when you are finally asleep, after hours of insomnia. Words, for me, would never be a mere structuring of alphabets, painstakingly coerced together, to compile an essay that you force yourself to write, to meet a deadline, to score an A, to fill your weekly slot in a newspaper. I write because I love to write. I write because I am a firm believer of the potency of the right text hitting the right chord at the right time. I write because when there is too much chaos around me, the orderliness of keys placed side by side on my keyboard allows me the calm to figure out how I can give voice to my outrage. I write when there are moments to celebrate, goodness to value, and achievements to celebrate. As I write today, I wish there were noble things to write about instead of the stark randomness of madness that seems to permeate our collective consciousness as a nation. I wish.
Continue reading Why are we so intolerant? Emotional and heartfelt column on Rimsha. – By Mehr Tarar
Context: The talk about the military operation in North Waziristan has picked up feverish pace. This is not the first time, in the last decade, and historically, Waziristan has been the bone of contention several times before.
The attempt here is not, as many other assessments are doing, to name different locations along with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders who may have been killed in Waziristan. Nor is the emphasis on presenting the best tactical approach to conduct the operation. Rather the focus is on the less talked about dimension: how does the operation fit in the larger vision and strategy?
Analysis- Vision, Strategy And Tactics
Obviously, tactics and strategies are two different things, and are suppose to be connected to the larger vision. A vision is an ideal future state that an entity may be striving for. On the other hand, strategy lays out the best approach to accomplish the vision. Different tactics may be deployed in support of a selected strategy. However, too much emphasis on tactics, without consideration for the strategy and the grand vision is a sure recipe for failure. At the same time, the vision and strategy cannot be set in stone, as the reality is quite dynamic. Thus, to be successful, any shrewd strategist has to constantly adjust lofty goals to the ground reality.
Continue reading The AfPak Vision And North Waziristan Operation
Islamabad—United Nations has decided to send a delegation to Pakistan for reviewing the situation in Balochistan. Foreign office has been informed in this regard. The UN authorities has written a letter to foreign ministry mentioning that seven-member UN delegation would visit Pakistan from September 10 to 20 to review the situation in Balochisatan.
Continue reading UN decides to observe Balochistan situation
TTP leader says Jinnah was a apostate or blasphemer (kaffir), the Prophet sanctioned killing of women and children in war.
Courtesy: YouTube
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
KAZAN, Russia — A string of violent attacks by Islamic militants has shattered this city’s reputation as a citadel of religious tolerance and unnerved federal officials in Moscow, who have worked for decades to prevent the spread of radical Islam out of the southern borderlands and into places like this city 500 miles east of Moscow.
Officials have long sought to contain Islamic fervor in the Caucasus to the south while insisting that places like the republic of Tatarstan, where Kazan is the capital, were different, representing a moderate “Russian Islam,” said Aleksei Malashenko, the co-chairman of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s religion, society and security program.
But that comfortable assumption began to crumble just before the start of Ramadan in late July, when a senior cleric in charge of education was shot outside his apartment building on Zarya Street. Roughly an hour later, the city’s chief mufti survived a bomb attack that demolished his Toyota Land Cruiser. A previously unheard-of group, the mujahedeen of Tatarstan, claimed responsibility.
Continue reading Radical Islamic Attacks in a Moderate Region Unnerve the Kremlin
By: Shamshad Ahmad
Looking at the dynamics of contemporary international relations, one is reminded of the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times,” which could perhaps never have been more relevant than to our times at this critical juncture. We are passing through interesting and critical times which according to the so-called predictions of the Nostradamus Code could also be categorised as “time of troubles.” These are indeed times of trouble. More so for the world’s Muslims now representing more than one fourth of humanity.