Pakistan blast kills 3 US Marines, School kids, Taliban own up,

Islamic World News

Pakistan blast kills 3 US Marines, School kids, Taliban own up

Three US soldiers were among 10 people killed when a bomb blast hit a convoy near a school in north-west Pakistan.

Three schoolgirls were among the dead while 70 people, including another 63 schoolgirls and two US soldiers, were injured in the explosion in Lower Dir.

The US embassy said the military personnel had been training Pakistan's Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency.

Both governments deny large numbers of US troops are in Pakistan, where public opinion opposes their presence.

The US embassy in Islamabad confirmed in a statement three American military personnel were killed and two wounded in what it branded a "vicious terrorist bombing".

The Pakistani military and the government are both extremely sensitive about the strong US presence in their country and both appear to be saying different things to different audiences.

Officially the government says it is deeply concerned about increasing numbers of US diplomatic and aid staff who have appeared in the country since US President Barack Obama declared the country to be a top foreign policy priority.

The Pakistani authorities have on several occasions during the past five months arrested American officials - in Lahore and Peshawar - who were suspected of having incorrect paperwork.

But unofficially the government is believed to be relying on US effort and expertise to fight the Taliban.

The statement also said the Americans had been due to attend the inauguration of a girls' school recently renovated with US humanitarian assistance.

Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement to AFP news agency.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan-blast-kills-3-us-marines,-school-kids,-taliban-own-up/islamic-world-news/d/2446

India must isolate Pakistani radicals and army establishment,

Radical Islamism and Jihad

India must isolate Pakistani radicals and army establishment

Whose Side Are We On?

By Rajiv Kumar

Sep 9, 2009

To better appreciate complex diplomatic endeavours, we must start by taking note of some facts. First, India accounts for about 80 per cent of South Asian GDP. Being so dominant, it has to bear an asymmetric responsibility for achieving stability, peace and prosperity in South Asia. This must be the bedrock of our neighbourhood policy. Second, we cannot choose our neighbours and should work with whoever we can to help Pakistan defeat the jihadis. Otherwise, there will be negative outcomes for our own experiment at building a pluralistic, multi-ethnic and democratic society. Third, the strategic balance between the two countries must surely rule out any ideas of a decisive military victory. That road leads only to mutually assured destruction. We may well have to bite the bullet one day, but it is best avoided.

Fourth, there is not one monolithic Pakistan we can engage with. A choice must be made. There is the Pakistan of the armed forces which treats the country and its people as a fiefdom to be exploited for personal benefit. There is another Pakistan toiling in poverty, deprivation and backwardness for which succour from daily injustices is welcome from any quarter. Fundamentalists, meanwhile, see themselves as guardians of the Pakistani state and true representatives of the Islamic republic. They see victory within their grasp because they have duped the army into believing that it can calibrate the growth of jihadism.

http://newageislam.com/india-must-isolate-pakistani-radicals-and-army-establishment/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1754

Missing the essence of Pakistani Talibanism, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Missing the essence of Pakistani Talibanism

Islamabad diary By Ayaz Amir

The News, 13 Feb 2009

But Pakistani Talibanism, as represented by Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan and Maulana Fazlullah in Swat, is a slightly different phenomenon. It may have originated as a side-effect of the Afghan war but it has now mutated into something with a personality of its own. With all its primitive and even barbaric permutations — the bombing of schools, the insistence on what amounts to female segregation, the slitting of throats — it is a revolt against the Pakistani state. Or rather a revolt against the dysfunctional nature of this state.

Far from being defeated, much less crushed, this revolt is spreading. Hitherto it was confined to the Frontier Province. But on February 7 we saw this revolt cross the River Indus for the first time when a police check post in Mianwali (Qudratabad near Wan Bachran) was attacked by Taliban fighters. On Feb 11 another police outpost near Essa Khail came under attack.

Mianwali and Bhakkar along the River Indus are vulnerable districts, open to infiltration from the Frontier. If the Taliban acquire any kind of foothold here, God help us. My district of Chakwal is a short ride away, as are the districts of Sargodha and Khushab. From there to central Punjab is but a short haul.

http://newageislam.com/missing-the-essence-of-pakistani-talibanism---/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1197

Pakistan’s Sharia appeasement in Swat to embolden Taliban: Analysts, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Pakistan’s Sharia appeasement in Swat to embolden Taliban: Analysts

Islamic Law Instituted In Pakistan's Swat Valley

By Pamela Constable

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, February 17, 2009; Page A08

In announcing the agreement, Pakistani officials asserted that the adoption of sharia law would bring swift and fair justice to the Swat Valley, where people have long complained of legal corruption and delays. They said the new system would have "nothing in common" with the draconian rule of the Taliban militia that ran Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, during which thieves' hands were amputated and adulterers were stoned to death.

"There was a vacuum . . . in the legal system. The people demanded this and they deserve it," said Amir Haider Khan Hoti, chief minister of the North-West Frontier Province. The new system will include an appeals process, something the Afghan Taliban justice system did not allow for.

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Militant leaders in the scenic Swat Valley, in a gesture of good faith, said they would observe a 10-day cease-fire while the new system is implemented. The Pakistani army said it would suspend operations in the area, and there were anecdotal reports of celebratory gunfire and of crowds returning to once-deserted streets.

But Pakistani critics blasted the deal as a dangerous concession to extremist insurgents who have terrified inhabitants of the valley for months, sending thousands fleeing to safer areas. They have bombed girls' schools, beheaded policemen, whipped criminals in public squares and assassinated activists from the secular Awami National Party that governs the North-West Frontier Province.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan%E2%80%99s-sharia-appeasement-in-swat-to-embolden-taliban--analysts-/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1201

Pakistan in the business of waging “deniable” jihad with the help of “non-state actors”?, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Pakistan in the business of waging “deniable” jihad with the help of “non-state actors”?

And now the ‘reverse’ jihad

An editorial in The Daily Times, Lahore

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

In the neighbouring Bajaur Agency, the local Taliban known to be supported from outside Pakistan cut off the ears of four private guards. The Pakistan army is deployed in Bajaur, the most dangerous stronghold of the militants who pretend to wage jihad against the state of Pakistan. There too, Pakistan has suffered incursions of “foreigners” from the neighbouring Afghan province of Kunar. Next to Bajaur, in South Waziristan Agency, the Taliban carried out the abduction of a government official obviously with the intent of demanding ransom or release of their cohorts from state captivity.

Our misfortune is that that all sides fighting on Pakistani soil claim the obligation of jihad as their motive for violence. Those who attack and those who defend also claim the status of martyr for their dead. In Swat, the “piety” of the militants is being demonstrated through the courts set up by them, doling out punitive verdicts without much examination of evidence. It is said that there are three types of Taliban operating in Pakistan: the Afghan plus non-Afghan “foreigners” attached to Al Qaeda; the Pakistani Taliban who are demanding a change in Pakistan’s foreign policy and enforcement of their tough sharia; and criminals who enrich themselves through jihad.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan-in-the-business-of-waging-%E2%80%9Cdeniable%E2%80%9D-jihad-with-the-help-of-%E2%80%9Cnon-state-actors%E2%80%9D?/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/1115

The Army of Prophet Mohammad on the Attack, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

The Army of Prophet Mohammad on the Attack

Intelligence experts and Sunday morning talk show guests struggled over the weekend to make sense of the Mumbai terror attacks. The basic facts about the horrific events that riveted the world are now emerging and not so difficult to ascertain. The analytical contortions of national security chiefs, politicians, the mainstream media, and so-called Middle East specialists who all seem desperate to avoid calling this what it is -- Islamic Jihad -- are somewhat less understandable.

The basic facts seem to be these: Muslim commandos belonging to the Pakistani Lashkar-e Toiba terrorist organization, likely in coordination with Hindi-speaking attackers belonging to an off-shoot of the Indian Mujahideen (calling themselves the “Deccan Mujahideen”), launched a wave of terrorist assaults against Mumbai last week that has left some 200 people dead and over 300 injured.

A couple dozen highly trained, intensely motivated terrorists, perhaps with the logistical assistance of a Mumbai organized crime figure named Dawood Ibrahim, paralyzed a modern urban metropolis of nearly 15 million people for 60 hours. They used basic military assault tactics, employing small arms and grenades against carefully selected and meticulously cased soft civilian targets, including the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Hotels, the city train station, hospitals, and a Jewish cultural center.

http://newageislam.com/the-army-of-prophet-mohammad-on-the-attack-/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1040

Reality check: Brinkmanship and trust deficit must end, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Reality check: Brinkmanship and trust deficit must end

By Shafqat Mahmood

Friday, September 19, 2008

This has put the Republicans in a difficult situation and as the fighting has intensified in Afghanistan, it has seemed to prove Obama right. This has prompted Bush to become more proactive and he has not only ordered transfer of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, he has also given the go ahead to attack targets in the Pakistani tribal area. It was as a consequence of this that an American Special Forces raid took place near Angoor Adda and there has been an increase in Predator missile strikes from the air.

This phase will continue until November 4, the date of the American presidential election, despite serious protests from the Pakistani side. It is indeed ironic that on the day that American military chief, Admiral Mullen, was giving assurances to the Pakistani leadership, another drone in Waziristan killed seven people. This just proves that until the American election is over, the Bush administration will continue with these attacks just to show the American electorate how tough the Republicans are on national security.

http://newageislam.com/reality-check--brinkmanship-and-trust-deficit-must-end/islam-and-the-west/d/753

Downhill in Afghanistan: The most remote place on earth is now the most dangerous,

War on Terror

Downhill in Afghanistan: The most remote place on earth is now the most dangerous

By Jonathan Power (jonatpower@aol.com)

Monday 22 September 2008 (22 Ramadan 1429)

The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is 1,640 miles long, much of it virtually inaccessible remote and mountainous, with only the locals able to move freely on goat and footpaths. This is the distance between New York and New Mexico. It contains the warlike Pashtuns who provide nearly all the Taleban insurgents. The 25 million Pashtuns are one of the largest tribal groups in the world. In fact, they are the largest ethnic group without a state of their own. Pakistani and Afghan government institutions have never been able to gain a foothold in these areas. Taxes are not paid and outsiders repulsed. This goes back to the time of Macedonian would-be conqueror Alexander. The British likewise were defeated. So were the Soviets. The latter killed more than a million Pashtuns and drove three million into exile in Pakistan and Iran and still they were compelled to retreat. As for post-independence Pakistan, it has never controlled more than 100 meters to the left and right of the few paved roads.

http://newageislam.com/downhill-in-afghanistan--the-most-remote-place-on-earth-is-now-the-most-dangerous--/war-on-terror/d/789

FROM PAKISTAN, WITH LOVE: Thank you, Bollywood, Islamic Culture, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Culture

FROM PAKISTAN, WITH LOVE: Thank you, Bollywood

By MONI MOHSIN

Nonetheless, I learnt much. I watched with interest the portrayal of social tensions and religious differences. I revelled in the music and the poetry. I absorbed the fashions, the social mores, the manners, the customs. Thanks to Bollywood, I learnt that there were taxis in India, that women drove, attended college and that some people had nice houses and, equally important, some not.

Meanwhile, since the Pakistani film industry was in the doldrums, there wasn’t much of note crossing over from our side. The exceptions were Pakistani television serials. When visiting Delhi I’d regularly be asked by friends to bring videos of “Tanhanyian” “Dhoop Kinara” and “Ankahi”. But I guess their outreach was limited and the sorts of people who got to see these already knew that Pakistani women attended college.

http://newageislam.com/from-pakistan,-with-love--thank-you,-bollywood/islamic-culture/d/209

Back to Jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, War on Terror

War on Terror

Back to Jihad in Jammu and Kashmir

By The Pioneer Edit Desk

The recent spurt in jihadi activities and rise in infiltration bids can be attributed to two factors. First, Jammu & Kashmir is busy preparing for Assembly election due in November this year. It stands to reason that terrorist and separatist organisations should try to disturb the election process. Defence Minister AK Antony, during his recent visit to the State, has warned that terrorist attacks could increase with the dates of the Assembly election in Jammu & Kashmir drawing nearer. The other factor for the rise of terrorism in the Valley could be the ongoing political instability in Pakistan, where the PPP is in power but not in control. The result is terrorist outfits led by Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul Mujahideen continue to operate with impunity -- and at times in connivance with sections of the Pakistani establishment, especially the ISI.

http://newageislam.com/back-to-jihad-in-jammu-and-kashmir/war-on-terror/d/124

Ahmedi Persecution in Pakistan (Part 1): Police Act As Worship Place Looks Like a Mosque, Islam and Sectarianism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Sectarianism

Ahmedi Persecution in Pakistan (Part 1): Police Act As Worship Place Looks Like a Mosque

by Rana Tanveer

The policemen etched out the verses at the main gate and entrance to the main hall. They were about to tear down the minarets, about five feet high, at the main gate too, but local Ahmedis convinced them to give them a day to cover them as demolishing them would have damaged the whole structure.

An Ahmedi familiar with the matter said that for several days, “irrelevant people” had been instigating non-Ahmedis in the area to complain about the place of worship. He said that they had applied to the local police for the registration of an FIR. He said that the deputy superintendent of police (DSP) concerned had met both sides on Tuesday and they had reached a compromise whereby no case would be registered provided the verses and minarets were removed.

http://www.newageislam.com/islam-and-sectarianism/rana-tanveer/ahmedi-persecution-in-pakistan-(part-1)--police-act-as-worship-place-looks-like-a-mosque/d/7256