Burqas: Terrorists’ Calling Card?, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Burqas: Terrorists’ Calling Card?

By Ryan Mauro

On April 17, a refugee camp at Kohat in Pakistan was struck by two suicide bombers who disguised themselves in burqas. The attack, which killed 41 people and injured 62, is sure to heighten the debate in Europe about whether wearing burqas and niqabs in public should be banned. A parliamentary committee in Belgium has unanimously approved such a ban, with the final vote in the House of Representatives on April 22 expected to pass it. Movements to ban the burqa in Europe are growing due to concern that the Islamic veil can be used to disguise the identities of terrorists planning attacks like those that just took place in Pakistan and over the lack of assimilation of Muslim immigrants.

These concerns are not unfounded. Even though Islam frowns upon cross-dressing, male terrorists dressing up as burqa-clad women in order to carry out attacks is becoming more and more part of their modus operandi. This tactic has even been used by bank robbers and other criminals on many occasions, including in the US.

Terrorists have repeatedly donned burqas in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as in the UK, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, India, Somalia and Mauritania. In the UK, one man who tried to set off a bomb in July 2005 in London was able to escape by wearing a burqa. The use of this clothing makes counter-terrorism difficult because female police, who are in short supply, must be used to search those wearing burqas. The police chief of Iraq’s Babil Province in August 2008 complained about this after two burqa-wearing females attacked Shiite pilgrims.

http://newageislam.com/burqas--terrorists-calling-card?/islam-and-the-west/d/2744

Blow to Religion-Based Politics in Bangladesh: Lesson for Pakistan, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics

Blow to Religion-Based Politics in Bangladesh: Lesson for Pakistan

by: J. Sri Raman,

Friday 05 February 2010

Here is some disconcerting news for all disciples of neocon gurus, who had discovered Islam as the enemy of democracy and the successor to the "evil empire" of the cold war era. An Islamic country of 160 million people, under an elected government, is witnessing important but ill-noticed moves to abolish religion-based politics.

On February 2, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh struck down a nearly 11-year-old constitutional amendment that had allowed religion-based political parities to function and flourish in the country. The ruling had the effect of restoring the statutory secularism, which Bangladesh adopted in 1972 after liberation from Pakistan and lost five years later following a series of military coups.

It may also have the effect of inspiring at least a debate on the issues in Pakistan, the other Islamic country of South Asia. It may also have a ripple effect, helping to raise the issues subsequently in sections of the rest of the Islamic world.

This only carries forward an old battle. The logic of Bangladesh's liberation war itself led the nation's founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to place its linguistic identity above the religious. The reverse of the same logic drove religion-based groups in the pre-liberation East Pakistan to side with Islamabad in the war.

http://newageislam.com/blow-to-religion-based-politics-in-bangladesh--lesson-for-pakistan/islam-and-politics/d/2454

Pakistani intelligentsia are not in control of their country, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Pakistani intelligentsia are not in control of their country

Yes, we love you too

By Ashok Malik

India’s attitude towards Pakistan has changed from being patronising to apathetic. And it seems that Islamabad just can’t stomach that, writes Ashok Malik.

Advocates for greater civil society engagement between India and Pakistan have three essential arguments. First, they contend a vast majority of Pakistanis want friendship with India but are being thwarted by a small minority. Second, with Indian help Pakistani civil society and democracy can yet win the battle against Islamism. Third, a democratic and ‘mainstreamed’ Pakistan will guarantee amity.

To be fair, these ideas are not new. Till even the 1990s, it was fashionable to believe that once the Partition generation — or the children of the Partition generation, those with once-removed experiences of 1947 — moved on, India and Pakistan would be able to relate to one another as normal countries.

They would not necessarily love each other or always cooperate. The sense of competition would still be there, but not blind demonisation. In the media and in popular culture, at football matches and occasionally at diplomatic conferences, Britain and France still disparage each other. Neither side sees this, however, as a resurrection of Agincourt and Crecy.

How has this theory panned out? The past 10-odd years have changed Indian attitudes towards Pakistan. After the attack on Parliament in December 2001, India was livid and at one level ready for war. Troops were mobilised. For a whole host of reasons, India did not and could not go to war.

http://newageislam.com/pakistani-intelligentsia-are-not-in-control-of-their-country/current-affairs/d/2462

Indian troop reduction from Kashmir valley: Weighing the pros and cons, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Indian troop reduction from Kashmir valley: Weighing the pros and cons

We need to tackle Pak’s proxy war

Shankar Roychowdhury

Pullback, reduction, or withdrawal of forces from Jammu and Kashmir, howsoever described, must be visualised in this broader strategic context. Such moves become a cynical game of political volleyball confined to politicians and their interlocutors in Srinagar and New Delhi. The Jammu and Ladakh regions of J&K, which constitute a sizeable portion of the state, are absolutely against any such pullback. They have never been taken into account in any significant manner by the political actors in the Valley, who dominate the state’s political hierarchy, and ignored even by the Government of India. The issue of “azaadi” has been built up into an intensely emotive political programme in the Kashmir Valley by politicians with strong separatist and pro-Pakistan sympathies, whose agendas find disproportionate representation and weightage in the national media. An adequate presence of security forces will always be required in Jammu and Kashmir in the foreseeable future to respond to direct and indirect aggression by Pakistan. In these circumstances, further reductions of force levels in the Valley, beyond the two divisions already withdrawn, would be an unsound decision.

http://newageislam.com/indian-troop-reduction-from-kashmir-valley--weighing-the-pros-and-cons/current-affairs/d/2383

We can’t afford to quit Afghanistan- India’s ambassador, Jayant Prasad, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

We can’t afford to quit Afghanistan- India’s ambassador, Jayant Prasad

January 24th, 2010

Jayant Prasad, India’s ambassador in Kabul, suggests that if Afghanistan does not stabilise, the resulting chaos can impact India’s security in very many negative ways. In an interview to Anand K. Sahay, on the eve of the London Conference on Afghanistan on January 28, Mr Prasad expands on the policy to remain engaged.

Q. During his recent visit to the United States, the Prime Minister was categorical that India would remain engaged in Afghanistan, and advised America to do the same. The Indian leader did not wait for US President Barack Obama’s announcement that the US would be increasing troop levels. Why were we so emphatic, and off the mark even before the Americans? Why is Afghanistan so important to us?

A. Think back to 1998. When US embassies in East Africa were bombed that year, former US President Bill Clinton sent cruise missiles to hit Osama bin Laden in Khost in eastern Afghanistan where he was thought to be living. The Al Qaeda leader escaped, but many died or were injured in that strike. Western reporters learnt from survivors in Peshawar hospitals (where they’d been brought) that many of the dead and injured were members of terrorist groups who were training for attacks in Kashmir. I remember reading a report by Tim Weiner about this. I think it was called “Blowback from the Afghan Battlefield”.

At present there is danger of fusion and coalescing of terror groups in Pakistan that operate in India and Afghanistan. Perhaps the Pakistan government is itself beginning to realise this. But we are not at all confident that such realisation has gone far enough to create an impact on these terrorist outfits.

If the international community turns away from Afghanistan at the present juncture, if India turns away, Afghanistan may well be destabilised. The destabilisation of Afghanistan will lead first and foremost to the destabilisation of Pakistan, and is likely to have consequences for India.

http://newageislam.com/we-can%E2%80%99t-afford-to-quit-afghanistan--india%E2%80%99s-ambassador,-jayant-prasad/current-affairs/d/2417

India can’t simply wait for America to deliver on Pak, War on Terror, NewAgeIsam.com

War on Terror

India can’t simply wait for America to deliver on Pak

By Vikram Sood

Pakistanis once again showed an impeccable sense of timing and disdain. They had just "won" the Swat battle, launched with great fanfare and huge hidden costs just ahead of President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Washington. A grateful West, desperate for some success story, then burst into adulatory gestures and found new reasons to ply their ally with even more funds. Saeed’s release was lost in the din of this praise. Besides, the release happily coincided with the visit to Pakistan by Richard Holbrooke, who dismissed the release as an "internal matter" of the Pakistanis. This has been a favourite escape route, used by many previous administrations whenever they wanted to cover up Pakistani transgressions.

In contrast, India’s sense of timing has been appalling. One day after Saeed’s release amid the usual round of angry reactions and sound bites, reports started circulating that India was about to resume the long-suspended dialogue with Pakistan. Everyone knew that pressure by the United States on India had abated only temporarily and that it would resume soon after the elections. It was also generally understood that the dialogue would be resumed after Pakistan had given India some satisfaction on issues relating to terrorism. One does not know who worked out this brilliant spin for the resumption, but it reflects poorly on our sense of timing and tactical wisdom. To say that we are not under anyone’s pressure and yet say the dialogue will resume prior to Hillary Clinton’s visit, so that she does not pressure us, only means we have wilted even before the heat has been turned on. The other reason put forward — that this would hopefully enable Pakistan to rein in its jihadis and prevent another Mumbai-type attack — can only be called supplication by a would-be major power to a failing state.

http://newageislam.com/india-can%E2%80%99t-simply-wait-for-america-to-deliver-on-pak---/war-on-terror/d/1454

India should hit reboot button on Pak, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

India should hit reboot button on Pak

By Manoj Joshi

June 10, 2009

The high- points, of what one official calls the “ magnificent doggedness” of Indian policy, were the military confidence building measures of the early 1990s, the November 2003 ceasefire on the Line of Control and Siachen, the January 6, 2004 agreement to push the composite dialogue, the agreement to create a South Asian Free Trade Area on the same day. The low points have been the Bombay blasts of 1993, the IC 814 hijack, the Parliament attack of 2001, the Mumbai carnage of 2008 and the numerous bomb attacks whose footprints lead to Islamabad. In such a matrix it is difficult to see what, if anything, India has gained.

Since 2007, the beginning of the decline of Pervez Musharraf — simultaneously our great tormentor and good interlocutor — India has been left with the uncomfortable feeling that we are alone on the dialogue table. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and President Asif Zardari are all sound and fury signifying nothing.

They cannot provide depth to the conversation that came from having a President who was also commanderin- chief, and thus carried the authority of the men who really wield power in Pakistan — the Pakistan Army’s Corps Commanders’ conference.

For the better or the worse, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani has chosen to keep off politics in the formal sense.

http://newageislam.com/india-should-hit-reboot-button-on-pak---/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/1455

India’s Dilemma: Help Pakistan stay together or help it to self-destruct?, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

India’s Dilemma: Help Pakistan stay together or help it to self-destruct?

The Pakistan problem

Tavleen Singh Posted: Jan 11, 2009 at 0139 hrs IST

This promise has been paid for in advance. The administration of George W. Bush has paid Pakistan more than $12 billion since 9/11. More money will come if Pakistan can prove that it is serious about fighting the jihadi groups who shelter along its Western border. But, it is not simple for the Pakistani Army to persuade its soldiers to kill men who till yesterday were their brothers in arms. And, let us not fool ourselves into believing that the ‘rogue’ elements in the army and the ‘rogue’ ISI do these bad things. The Pakistani Army is a cohesive whole. If there are rogue elements, it is in the ranks of the jihadi groups, some of whom got disenchanted with General Pervez Musharraf and tried more than once to bump him off. The Lashkar-e-Toiba, we must remember, is not one of them. It has never been responsible for terrorist acts in Pakistan. So, let us not fool ourselves into thinking any of our wanted criminals is going to be extradited. If we want to try them in India we will have to go and get them ourselves.

http://newageislam.com/india%E2%80%99s-dilemma--help-pakistan-stay-together-or-help-it-to-self-destruct?--/war-on-terror/d/1110

Destroy Lashkar Camps: Why Indian Muslims are an existential threat to Pakistan?, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Destroy Lashkar Camps: Why Indian Muslims are an existential threat to Pakistan?

The Pakistani state, it must be noted, has taken no action whatsoever against this heinous propaganda, and elements of the ISI are said to be in cahoots with the Lashkar and other such hate-driven self-styled Islamist groups in the country. In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, and when asked what action Pakistan had taken against the Lashkar, the Pakistani President hurriedly shrugged off the question by claiming that the Lashkar had been 'banned'. If that is indeed the case—which it is obviously not—then how does Mr. Zardari explain the fact that, as the Lashkar's official Urdu website itself announces, on the 29th of November the Lashkar's supremo Hafiz Muhammad Saeed addressed what it termed a 'mammoth' convention at 'New Saeedabad' (a locality named after him?), organized by the Sindh unit of the Markaz Dawat ul-Irshad (the 'religious' and political wing of the Lashkar). It was held, of all places, in the premises of the local Government Degree College. The Lashkar's website is replete with news about the whirlwind tours of Saeed and his cronies across the country, delivering rabble-rousing speeches, thundering against India and non-Muslims in general. And the outfit, Mr. Zardari wants us to believe, is 'banned'.

http://newageislam.com/destroy-lashkar-camps--why-indian-muslims-are-an-existential-threat-to-pakistan?---/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/1042

The Tragic Illusion of the Islamic State by Tarek Fatah, Islamic Ideology, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Ideology

The Tragic Illusion of the Islamic State by Tarek Fatah

Book review by Babar Ayaz

Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of the Islamic State

By Tarek Fatah;

Fatah touches this issue to set the course of research: “Most Muslims too believe that countries with majority Muslim populations are Islamic countries with a distinct character. However, this is not how the Islamists see the world. From the perspective of those who follow the doctrine of Wahhabism or Salafi Islam or even the ruling ayatollahs of Iran, a country can be labelled an Islamic State only if it is governed by the laws of Shariah. Thus neither Turkey nor Indonesia is an Islamic State in the eyes of the Islamists.”

Fatah has devoted chapters to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which claim to be Islamic states, and has argued that there was nothing that proves the claim of these countries that they are Islamic states. Maintaining his blunt style, he has broken the myth these states have tried to build around themselves. He maintains that the institutions of Saudi Monarchy supported by Wahhabi clergy and Iranian Velayat-e-faqhi (a religious institution which is supreme and above the elected parliament) have no place in Islam.

He rejects the two-nation theory, considered the basis for the creation of Pakistan. To him: “The biggest losers in this great game of divide and rule were India’s Muslim. In the name of Islam, they were divided into three separate parts and cut off from each other.”

http://newageislam.com/the-tragic-illusion-of-the-islamic-state-by-tarek-fatah--/islamic-ideology/d/954

Pakistan's proxy war, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Pakistan's proxy war

Ashok Mehta

After the dismantling of the Taliban regime in Kabul, Pakistan has constantly feared encirclement by India especially after the Indian Air Force's new air base at Farkhor in Tajikistan and through its soft power: Economic and humanitarian aid which has made a profound impression on Afghans. If the theory of strategic encirclement is a viable one, India deserves credit for it given it does not have contiguous borders with Afghanistan. India's strategic objectives in Afghanistan are best met with a pro-India Government in Kabul keeping an eye on Pakistan and access to resource-rich Central Asia.

Islamabad's notion of strategic depth in Afghanistan is a keenly debated subject in Pakistan. Some experts, including former Army Chief Gen Jehangir Karamat, say it is an outdated concept, a relic of the Cold War. Others, including the new Government, disagree. It has, therefore, reinvented a more aggressive version of countering India's growing influence in Afghanistan which it believes has been encouraged by the Karzai Government to balance Pakistan.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan-s-proxy-war--/war-on-terror/d/189