Chagatai Khan

Shah of Iran & Ayatollah Khomeini.

2012-02-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

Mawdudi’s works began to appear in Iran in the 1960s. They were translated into Persian from Arabic by Ayatollah Hadi Khusrawshahi and members of a translating team working with him. Articles on Mawdudi and excerpts from his works also appeared in various issues of Khusrawshahi’s journal Maktab-i Islam. Following the revolution of 1978–1979, a number of Mawdudi’s works were translated into Persian from Arabic by Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Khamana’i. Interestingly, the first Persian translation of a work of Mawdudi was done in Hyderabad, Deccan, by Mahmud Faruqi in 1946; RJI, vol. 4, 90. REFERENCES: The Vangaurd of the Islamic Revolution - The Jama‘at-i Islami of Pakistan Seyed Vali Reza Nasr UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley · Los Angeles · London © 1994 The Regents of the University of California - Should we just condemn only Khomeini and condone Mawdudi knowing well that Mawdudi was a close friend of Khomeini and was sympathetic to his course. In a book titled, 'Two brothers - Maududi and Khomeini' page 129, the following statement of Dr Ahmad Farouk Maududi (son of Abul-A'ala Maududi) was published in Roz Naame, Lahore - 29 September 1979, "Allama Khomeini had a very old and close relationship with Abba Jaan (father). Aayaatullah Khomeini translated his (fathers) books in Farsi and included it as a subject in Qum. Allama Khomeini met my father in 1963 during Hajj and my father's wish was to create a revolutionary in Pakistan similar to Iran. He was concerned about the success of the Iranian revolution till his last breath.'

Ronald Reagan on Shah of Iran, Khomeini & Ugly US Role in Iran

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0F-SrOhKc

The Iran-Contra Affair was a clandestine action not approved of by the United States Congress. It began in 1985, when President Ronald Reagan's administration supplied weapons to Iran¹ — a sworn enemy — in hopes of securing the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by Hezbollah terrorists loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's leader. This article is rooted in the Iran Hostage Crisis. The U.S. took millions of dollars from the weapons sale and routed them and guns to the right-wing "Contra"² guerrillas in Nicaragua. The Contras were the armed opponents of Nicaragua's Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction, following the July 1979 overthrow of strongman Anastasio Somoza Debayle and the ending of the Somoza family's 43-year reign. The transactions that took place in the Iran-Contra scandal were contrary to the legislation of the Democratic-dominated Congress and contrary to official Reagan administration policy. Part of the deal was that, in July 1985, the United States would send 508 American-made TOW anti-tank missiles from Israel to Iran for the safe exchange of a hostage, the Reverend Benjamin Weir. After that successful transfer, the Israelis offered to ship 500 HAWK surface-to-air missiles to Iran in November 1985, in exchange for the release of all remaining American hostages being held in Lebanon. Eventually the arms were sold with proceeds going to the contras, and the hostages were released. In February 1986, 1,000 TOW missiles were shipped to Iran. From May to November, there were more shipments of various weapons and parts. Eventually Hezbollah elected to kidnap more hostages following their release of the previous ones, which rendered meaningless any further dealings with Iran. REFERENCE: Iran-Contra Affair Foreign Affairs, 1985-1992"Irangate" http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1889.html Iran-Contra Affair Foreign Affairs, 1985-1992 "Irangate" http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1889.html

Mike Wallace and H.I.M Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl9_t3UjetM

LETS GO BACK TO HISTORY

Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, Former Prime Minister of Iran [28 April 1951 – 19 August 1953]Mosaddeq was removed from power in a 19 August 1953 coup supported and funded by the British and U.S. governments and led by General Fazlollah Zahedi.[Secrets of History: The C.I.A in Iran By JAMES RISEN http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

Secrets of History: The C.I.A in Iran By JAMES RISEN http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, [26 October 1919, Tehran – 27 July 1980, Cairo] with his wife.

The Central Intelligence Agency's secret history of its covert operation to overthrow Iran's government in 1953 offers an inside look at how the agency stumbled into success, despite a series of mishaps that derailed its original plans. Written in 1954 by one of the coup's chief planners, the history details how United States and British officials plotted the military coup that returned the shah of Iran to power and toppled Iran's elected prime minister, an ardent nationalist.

The document shows that:

Britain, fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup in 1952 and pressed the United States to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister. The C.I.A. and S.I.S., the British intelligence service, handpicked Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and covertly funneled $5 million to General Zahedi's regime two days after the coup prevailed. Iranians working for the C.I.A. and posing as Communists harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric's home in a campaign to turn the country's Islamic religious community against Mossadegh's government. The shah's cowardice nearly killed the C.I.A. operation. Fearful of risking his throne, the Shah repeatedly refused to sign C.I.A.-written royal decrees to change the government. The agency arranged for the shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlevi, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of the Desert Storm commander, to act as intermediaries to try to keep him from wilting under pressure. He still fled the country just before the coup succeeded.

“What’s New on the Iran 1953 Coup in the New York Times Article (April 16, 2000, front page) and the Documents Posted on the Web” By Professor Mark Gasiorowski
19 April 2000 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/

There is not much in the NYT article itself that is not covered in my article on the coup (“The 1953 Coup d’Etat in Iran” published in 1987 in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and available in the Gulf2000 archives) or other sources on the coup. The most interesting new tidbit here is that the CIA’s agents harassed religious leaders and bombed one’s home in order to turn them against Mossadeq. The article does not say, but this was probably done by Iranians working in the BEDAMN network, which is described in my article. There are also some new details on how that US persuaded the shah to agree to the coup, including a statement that Assadollah Rashidian was involved in this effort and that General Schwartzkopf, Sr. played a larger role in this than was previously known. There are also a few details reported in the article that I knew about but chose not to reveal, including that Donald Wilber and Norman Derbyshire developed the original coup plan and that the plan was known as TPAJAX, rather than simply AJAX. (The TP prefix indicated that the operation was to be carried out in Iran.) The NYT article does not say anything about a couple of matters that remain controversial about the coup, including whether Ayatollah Kashani played a role in organizing the crowds and whether the CIA team organized “fake” Tudeh Party crowds as part of the effort. There may be something on these issues in the 200-page history itself.

Much more important than the NYT article are the two documents appended to the summary document giving operational plans for the coup. These contain a wealth of interesting information. They indicate that the British played a larger—though still subordinate—role in the coup than was previously known, providing part of the financing for it and using their intelligence network (led by the Rashidian brothers) to influence members of the parliament and do other things. The CIA described the coup plan as “quasi-legal,” referring to the fact that the shah legally dismissed Mossadeq but presumably acknowledging that he did not do so on his own initiative. These documents make clear that the CIA was prepared to go forward with the coup even if the shah opposed it. There is a suggestion that the CIA use counterfeit Iranian currency to somehow show that Mossadeq was ruining the economy, though I’m not sure this was ever done. The documents indicate that Fazlollah Zahedi and his military colleagues were given large sums of money (at least $50,000) before the coup, perhaps to buy their support. Most interestingly, they indicate that various clerical leaders and organizations—whose names are blanked out—were to play a major role in the coup. Finally, the author(s) of the London plan—presumably Wilber and Derbyshire—say some rather nasty things about the Iranians, including that there is a “recognized incapacity of Iranians to plan or act in a thoroughly logical manner.”

Perhaps the most general conclusion that can be drawn from these documents is that the CIA extensively stage-managed the entire coup, not only carrying it out but also preparing the groundwork for it by subordinating various important Iranian political actors and using propaganda and other instruments to influence public opinion against Mossadeq. This is a point that was made in my article and other published accounts, but it is strongly confirmed in these documents. In my view, this thoroughly refutes the argument that is commonly made in Iranian monarchist exile circles that the coup was a legitimate “popular uprising” on behalf of the shah.

In reply to Nikki Keddie’s (UCLA) questions about whether the NYT article got the story right, I would say it is impossible to tell until the 200-page document comes out. Nikki’s additional comment that these documents may not be entirely factual but may instead reveal certain biases held by their authors is an important one. Wilber was not in Iran while the coup was occurring, and his account of it can only have been based on his debriefing of Kermit Roosevelt and other participants. Some facts were inevitably lost or misinterpreted in this process, especially since this was a rapidly changing series of events. This being said, I doubt that there will be any major errors in the 200-page history. While Wilber had his biases, he certainly was a competent historian. I can think of no reason he might have wanted to distort this account.

Here are a few other notes. It is my understanding that these documents were given to the NYT well before Secretary Albright’s recent speech, implying that they were not an attempt to upstage or add to the speech by the unnamed “former official” who provided them to the NYT. I think there is still some reason to hope that the 200-page document will be released with excisions by the NYT. I certainly hope they do so.

The Last Shah - Iran History BBC Documentary (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOgdnLaZVzc

Ayatollah Ruhollah KhomeinI was not an easy man. Stern and vengeful, he was not an easy man to like. Single-minded in his thinking, he was not an easy man to negotiate with. He certainly was not an easy man to interview. I remember the second time I interviewed him, in his exile in a village outside of Paris in the months before the 1979 revolution. He didn't like one of my questions. So he simply stood up from his cross-legged position on the floor and, without a word, wrapped himself in his cloak and left the room. Yet during his lifetime the ayatollah achieved near-mythic status, and he was revered, even worshiped, by Iranians who saw him as their savior on earth. Night after night before the revolution, many people swore that they saw Khomeini's face -- his turban, his eyes, his nose, his beard -- in the moon. In his biography of Khomeini, Baqer Moin describes the harsh side of the cleric who forever changed the course of Iran's history. ''Khomeini had never been particularly interested in discussion and dialogue,'' Moin writes. ''He was an introvert; his dialogue was with himself rather than with others.'' But then Moin, correctly, finds the key to understanding the ayatollah elsewhere: ''His approach was intuitive.'' It was Khomeini's extraordinary intuition, his innate sense that a cleric should be more than a person who leads prayers every Friday and conducts rituals for pay, that propelled him to lead a country into one of the most far-reaching revolutions of modern history. True, Khomeini was a man of religion; but even more important, he was a gifted and shrewd politician, skilled in mobilizing his supporters and isolating his opponents, supple in decision making when it served his goal of making and consolidating a theocracy. He appealed to the masses with promises to liberate them from oppression, surrounded himself with loyal clerical lieutenants and attracted the religious bazaar merchants, who began to offer him money, which in turn increased his following and influence. And he had no patience with the clerics of his day, even his more senior peers, who were determined to stay out of politics and were willing to share power with a traditional Shiite monarchy as their predecessors had done for over four centuries. ''Politics and religion are one,'' Khomeini often declared. Baqer Moin is ideally placed to have written a biography of one of the most complicated political figures of the 20th century. Moin grew up in Iran, where he learned Persian and Arabic poetry, mysticism and philosophy from his father, who was trained as a cleric but earned a living as a farmer. Moin himself studied in the religious seminaries of Mashad before becoming a journalist. He now heads the BBC's Persian service (even Khomeini listened to it). Moin has produced the first serious and accessible examination of the ayatollah's life. The most interesting parts of the book deal with the human side of a man who was little known before his ascent to power and widely misunderstood both before and after. Born into a family of clerics descended from the prophet Muhammad, Khomeini enjoyed a comfortable childhood in the village of Khomein in central Iran, where he was raised in a large fortified compound with a vast garden, courtyards, balconies and watchtowers. He was cared for by servants and protected by armed guards. As a young man, Khomeini developed an interest in poetry and wrote poetry himself, even using the language of love and drink. (''Keep the door of the tavern open for me night and day, / Farewell seminary, farewell mosque, / Let me go my way'' was typical of his style of verse.) Later, dissatisfied with the orthodox version of Islam practiced by the clergy, Khomeini became an intellectual rebel, plunging into mysticism. Moin argues that he owed his fearlessness as a political leader to his mystical sense of oneness with God. ''Intoxicated by the cosmic vision of a mystic and bound by the firm belief of a jurisprudent who carries out God's command, Khomeini the politician was a powerful fusion. As a mystic, Khomeini was an elitist, but as a theologian he was expedient and as a politician a calculating populist to the point of being opportunistic. . . . For Khomeini, there was no distinction between the persona of the jurist, the mystic and the politician.'' In his first news conference in Iran, four days after his return in February 1979, he unveiled the world's first modern theocracy. ''This is not an ordinary government,'' he declared. Rather, it would be ''God's government.'' That meant, he added, that opposition to the government was opposition to God -- in other words, ''blasphemy.'' Moin evokes Khomeini's rigidity through the memories of his host in Turkey, where Khomeini lived for several months in 1964 after the shah sent him into exile. When Ali Cetiner, a Persian-speaking colonel in Turkish military intelligence who was assigned to be Khomeini's minder, couldn't find a suitable place for him to stay he took him into his secular middle-class home in the city of Bursa. Cetiner's wife installed a new bed, bought new sheets and even put a Koran at Khomeini's bedside. She cooked dinner and put on her best dress to greet their Iranian guest. But when Khomeini arrived, he began protesting to Colonel Afzali, the minder from Iranian intelligence who had accompanied him there. ''He says the woman with the uncovered head should leave,'' Afzali explained to Cetiner, whose wife replied: ''I am not his housekeeper here. I am the lady of the house.'' Still, she put on a long nightdress and covered her head. Over time, Khomeini came to respect her, standing up when she entered the room, chatting with her amiably and even smiling as he looked her in the eye. Moin provides a deft account of Khomeini's emergence as a political leader: his writings, the dissemination of his ideas through audiocassette tapes while he was in exile in France and Iraq, his triumphal return to Iran, the hardening of his positions after the revolution. But some of the central chapters in recent Iranian history receive only the most cursory treatment. One of those chapters was the 444-day seizure of the United States Embassy in Tehran, which Khomeini blessed and then used to consolidate his power and purge his enemies. Another was the Iran-contra affair, in which the United States secretly sold weapons to Iran in violation of its stated policy and used the profits to finance anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua. Iran's purchase of weapons from the country Khomeini assailed as the ''Great Satan'' underscored the regime's pragmatic streak. A third was Khomeini's ambitious but unsuccessful campaign to export his version of Islamic revolution to the rest of the Muslim world. Still, Moin does capture many things well -- for instance, Khomeini's antipathy to Israel. The Ayatollah's early writings and sermons have a distinctly anti-Semitic tone, which he muted as he became more of a political leader. Yet even today, Iran views the United States and Israel as enemies and is uneasy with its Jewish population, as demonstrated by the recent closed trial of 13 Jews on charges of spying for Israel. Not that Jews are the only victims of intolerance in Iran. As Eliz Sanasarian points out in her short but indispensable study, ''Religious Minorities in Iran,'' Iran has been uncomfortable with its other minorities as well, including the Zoroastrians, the Bahais, the Armenians and other Christians, and has repressed and marginalized them to varying degrees over the years. Sanasarian's book is an important contribution to understanding the relationship between Iran's religious minorities and the Tehran government. One can only imagine how Khomeini would deal with the battles being waged on various fronts today -- the press, the courts, the Parliament, the cinema, the universities, the streets. As early as 1942, he wrote in an anonymous tract that he expected the government of Islam to ''follow religious rules and regulations and ban publications which are against the law and religion and hang those who write such nonsense in the presence of religious believers.'' So he would probably approve of the closures of all reformist publications in the last few months and the trials and convictions of some of their editors and publishers. Perhaps Khomeini would also have had them executed. But then, Khomeini once protested the shah's enfranchisement of women, and then encouraged women to participate in his revolution and vote for his government when he needed their numbers. He once promised that clerics would hold only temporary positions in government and then allowed them to hold the most senior positions. He pledged to continue the war against Iraq until its defeat and then abruptly made peace. He once said that the fact that ''I have said something does not mean that I should be bound by my word.'' Indeed, it is that suppleness, that ability to improvise that has outlived Khomeini and that continues to pervade the Islamic Republic, keeping it going. REFERENCE: The People's Shah By Elaine Sciolino Published: August 27, 2000 Khomeini Life of the Ayatollah. By Baqer Moin. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/27/books/the-people-s-shah.html?src=pm

The Last Shah - Iran History BBC Documentary (Part 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qprhi3zmWag

CHILDREN as young as 13 were hanged from cranes, six at a time, in a barbaric two-month purge of Iran's prisons on the direct orders of Ayatollah Khomeini, according to a new book by his former deputy. More than 30,000 political prisoners were executed in the 1988 massacre - a far larger number than previously suspected. Secret documents smuggled out of Iran reveal that, because of the large numbers of necks to be broken, prisoners were loaded onto forklift trucks in groups of six and hanged from cranes in half-hourly intervals. Gruesome details are contained in the memoirs of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, The Memoirs of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, one of the founders of the Islamic regime. He was once considered Khomeini's anointed successor, but was deposed for his outspokenness, and is now under house arrest in the holy city of Qom. Published privately last month after attempts by the regime to suppress it, the revelations have prompted demands from Iranian exiles for those involved to be tried for crimes against humanity. The most damning of the letters and documents published in the book is Khomeini's fatwa decree calling for all Mojahedin (as opponents of the Iranian regime are known) to be killed. Issued shortly after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in July 1988 and an incursion into western Iran by the Iranian resistance, the fatwa reads: "It is decreed that those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the Monafeqin (Mojahedin) are waging war on God and are condemned to execution." It goes on to entrust the decision to "death committees" - three-member panels consisting of an Islamic judge, a representative of the Ministry of Intelligence, and a state prosecutor. Prisoners were to be asked if they had changed loyalties and, if not, were to be executed. Montazeri, who states that 3,800 people had been killed by the end of the first fortnight of executions, includes his own correspondence with Khomeini, saying that the killings would be seen as "a vendetta" and would spark opposition to the regime. He wrote: "The execution of several thousand prisoners in a few days will not have positive repercussions and will not be mistake-free." The massacres, which came just before the Lockerbie bombing, were seen as a sop to the hardliners at a time when Khomeini was already in failing health and the battle for succession had begun between fundamentalists and moderates. He died the following year. According to testimony from prison officials - including Kamal Afkhami Ardekani, who formerly worked at Evin prison - recently given to United Nations human rights rapporteurs: "They would line up prisoners in a 14-by-five-metre hall in the central office building and then ask simply one question, 'What is your political affiliation?' Those who said the Mojahedin would be hanged from cranes in position in the car park behind the building." He went on to describe how, every half an hour from 7.30am to 5pm, 33 people were lifted on three forklift trucks to six cranes, each of which had five or six ropes. He said: "The process went on and on without interruption." In two weeks, 8,000 people were hanged. Similar carnage took place across the country. Many of those in the ruling council at the time of the 1988 massacre are still in power, including President Mohammed Khatami, who was the Director of Ideological and Cultural Affairs. "The massacre may have happened 12 years ago, but the relevance is that these atrocities are still happening", said Mohammad Mohaddessin, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Iranian National Council of Resistance (NCRI), the main opposition group, who was in London last week to present evidence to MPs. The NCRI has prepared files on 21 senior members of the regime whom it alleges were "principal protagonists of the massacre", including Mr Khatami and Ayatollah Ali Khameini, Iran's "Supreme Leader". Mr Mohaddessin will travel to New York to present the files to the UN and call for a tribunal to try them for crimes against humanity. Mr Mohaddessin said human rights abuses were continuing in Iran despite the election of Mr Khatami, who "presents himself as a reformist". REFERENCE: Khomeini fatwa 'led to killing of 30,000 in Iran' By Christina Lamb, Diplomatic Correspondent 12:00AM GMT 04 Feb 2001 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1321090/Khomeini-fatwa-led-to-killing-of-30000-in-Iran.html

The Last Shah - Iran History BBC Documentary (Part 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17F1-v10G8s

The Last Shah - Iran History BBC Documentary (Part 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVBYLEdN2hk

The Last Shah - Iran History BBC Documentary (Part 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmIZJRQE8yU

Stop Fundamentalism, 4 September 2011 - A group of human rights activists in Iran are calling on international community to form a truth finding committee in order to investigate the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran, reports HRA news agency on the 23rd anniversary of incident. During the summer of 1988, on a religious decree issued by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, thousands of political prisoners were executed during a period of less than two months. Those executed were mostly from among the supporters and members of the main Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Organization. The MEK estimates the number of executions at about 30000. During the said period, political prisoners were executed in groups and mostly were buried in mass graves without any means of identification. Many families of the victims are still unaware of the location where their loved ones have been buried. The executions aimed to physically wipe out the MEK from Iran’s political scene. The group later took refuge in Camp Ashraf Iraq. Part of the religious order by the Ayatollah Khomeini stated that, “those in jails all over the country who continue to insist on their political stance, are Mohareb (one who wages war on God) and are condemned to execution.” The order clearly stressed on the speed the mass exactions were to be carried out. Most executions of MEK and their supporters took place without any due process of law. Kangaroo courts condemned prisoner to death in matters of minutes before the prisoner was taken for execution. Jeffery Robertson, a well-known law expert, calls the mass executions to be the most horrifying incidents following the World War Two Genocides. The right group called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to stop ignoring the 1988 massacres and establish an investigating commission on the subject. The group also calls on Mr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran to start a comprehensive look into finding those responsible for the crime. REFERENCE: Mass Execution of Political Prisoners in Iran Left Unanswered Sunday, 04 September 2011 20:52 http://www.stopfundamentalism.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1172:mass-execution-of-political-prisoners-in-iran-left-unanswered&catid=44:human-rights&Itemid=39

The Last Shah - Iran History BBC Documentary (Part 6)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXI0A-A2ZpY

In 1988, the Iranian government summarily and extrajudicially executed thousands of political prisoners held in Iranian jails. The government has never acknowledged these executions, or provided any information as to how many prisoners were killed. The majority of those executed were serving prison sentences for their political activities after unfair trials in revolutionary courts. Those who had been sentenced, however, had not been sentenced to death. The deliberate and systematic manner in which these extrajudicial executions took place constitutes a crime against humanity under international law. On July 18, 1988, Iran accepted the United Nations Security Council Resolution 598, calling for a cease-fire in the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq. On July 24, the largest Iranian armed opposition group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK), based in Iraq since 1986, launched an incursion into Iran in an attempt to topple the government. Although this offensive was easily repelled by Iranian forces, it provided a pretext for the authorities to physically eliminate many political opponents then in prison, including many MKO members captured and sentenced years earlier. In the absence of any official acknowledgement of the 1988 prison massacre, the most credible account of these events comes from the memoirs of Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, who was at the time one of the highest ranking government officials in Iran and the designated successor of Ayatollah Khomeini, then the Supreme Leader. According to Ayatollah Montazeri, the government formed a three-person committee to oversee the purge in each prison.6 The authorities told these committees to interview all political prisoners and to order the execution of those deemed “unrepentant.” These committees became known as “Death Committees” [Heya’t Marg]. Each comprised a prosecutor, a judge, and a representative of the Ministry of Information. Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi represented the Ministry of Information on the committee at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. In a letter of protest addressed to Ayatollah Khomeini, dated August 4, 1988, Ayatollah Montazeri wrote: “The principal role [in determining which prisoners to execute] is played by the representative of the Ministry of Information everywhere and others are effectively under his direct influence.”

Ayatollah Montazeri recounts the unfolding events that led to the massacre of prisoners:

A letter was produced on behalf of the Imam [Khomeini] stating that based on the discretion of a panel composed of a prosecutor, a judge, and a representative of the Ministry of Information, imprisoned members of the hypocrites [monafeghin, a term used by the government to refer to the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization] who are still believers in their cause should be executed. Decisions were to be reached based on the majority vote. Thus if two out of the three members reached a decision that a prisoner is still a believer in his cause, even though the prisoner may have already been sentenced to two or five years in prison, he would be executed.

Ayatollah Montazeri further details the arbitrary and summary character of this process:

Visits to prisoners were suspended for a period of time and, according to people responsible for carrying out these orders, approximately two thousand and eight hundred or three thousand and eight hundred – I can not recall exactly – women and men were executed, relying on the authority of [Ayatollah Khomeini’s] letter. Even people who practiced religious rituals of prayer and fasting were asked to repent, and they would be offended and refuse. Then [the committee] would conclude that the prisoner is still a believer in his cause and ordered their executions!

In his August 4, 1988 letter to Ayatollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Montazeri gives an example of the process of questioning prisoners and determining their fates, writing:

Three days ago a religious judge from one of the provinces – a man who is trustworthy – came to Qum and complained to me of the way your orders are being implemented. The judge told me: The Ministry of Information representative or the prosecutor – I don’t recall which one – in order to determine if a prisoner is a believer in his cause asked the prisoner: “Are you willing to condemn the hypocrites [monafeghin] organization?” The prisoner answered positively. Then, the prisoner was asked: “Are you willing to give an interview?” The prisoner answered positively. He was asked: “Are you willing to go to the war front and fight the Iraqis?” He answered yes. Subsequently, the prisoner was asked: “Are you willing to walk over a mine field?” The prisoner answered, “Not everyone is willing to walk over a mine field.” Following this exchange, it was determined that the prisoner is still a believer in his cause. The judge said that he insisted on reaching a decision by consensus and not by majority vote, but his request was not accepted.

Ayatollah Montazeri identified Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi as the representative of the Ministry of Information in charge of questioning prisoners in Evin Prison and saw him as being a central figure in the mass executions of prisoners in Tehran. He recounts a meeting with Pour-Mohammadi and the two other members of the Evin Prison committee:

After my second letter of protest [to Ayatollah Khomeini], there was no change and [the executions] continued. On August 15, 1988, I met with Mr. Nayeri, who was the religious judge in Evin, Mr. Eshraghi who was the prosecutor, and Mr. Pour-Mohammadi who was the representative of the Ministry of Information. I told them that they should stop the executions during the month of Moharram. Mr. Nayeri responded: “We have so far executed seven-hundred and fifty people in Tehran, and we have identified another two-hundred and fifty people. Allow us to get rid of them and then we’ll listen to you…!

Montazeri provides a memorandum of protest addressed to Pour-Mohammadi and the other two members of the Evin Prison “Death Committee” that he wrote on August 15, 1988. In this memorandum to Pour-Mohammadi, Montazeri wrote:

Carrying out a massacre of prisoners and captives without due process or trail will certainly help our opponent’s cause in the long term. It will also encourage them to carry on armed resistance. The international community will condemn our actions.

With regard to the 1988 mass prison executions, Amnesty International reported in 1990:

The political executions took place in many prisons in all parts of Iran, often far from where the armed incursion took place. Most of the executions were of political prisoners, including an unknown number of prisoners of conscience, who had already served a number of years in prison. They could have played no part in the armed incursion, and they were in no position to take part in spying or terrorist activities. Many of the dead had been tried and sentenced to prison terms during the early 1980s, many for non-violent offenses such as distributing newspapers and leaflets, taking part in demonstrations or collecting funds for prisoners' families. Many of the dead had been students in their teens or early twenties at the time of their arrest. The majority of those killed were supporters of the PMOI [People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, another English-language name for the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, or MKO]; but hundreds of members and supporters of other political groups, including various factions of the PFOI [People’s Fedayeen Organization of Iran], the Tudeh [Communist] Party, the KDPI [Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran], Rah-e Kargar [Workers Party] and others, were also among the execution victims.

Ayatollah Montazeri, citing officials in charge of carrying out the executions, puts the number of executed prisoners between 2,800 and 3,800, but he acknowledges that his recollection is not exact. Iranian activists have published the names of 4,481 executed prisoners. As long as the government refuses to announce a complete list of those executed or even to acknowledge that these executions took place, the extent of this massacre remains unknown.

The families of executed prisoners have repeatedly written to the government officials asking for the number of executed prisoners and their place of burials. In January 2003, they also wrote to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time, Mary Robinson, and the then-chairman of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, Louis Joinet, seeking their help in determining the truth behind the mass executions. According to the families of some of the executed prisoners, the bodies of many are buried in unmarked graves and mass graves in the hills of Tehran’s Khavaran district. Families often congregate in Khavaran to remember their executed relatives. Families of some of the executed prisoners told Human Rights Watch that in September 2005 the new government started to reconfigure the Khavaran site and that makeshift gravestones, put in place by the families, have been destroyed. They said that the government is preparing for a major overhaul of this area to destroy any evidence of burials. REFERENCE: Human Rights Watch Pour-Mohammadi and the 1988 Prison Massacres http://www.1980smassacre.com/report_hrw.html Ministers of Murder: Iran’s New Security Cabinet http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/iran1205/iran1205.pdf http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/iran1205/2.htm

Sectarian Killings in Pakistan & Saudi Iran Cold War.

2012-02-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

CHIGAGO: India, the world's fourth-largest oil consumer, will not take steps to cut petroleum imports from Iran despite US and European sanctions against Tehran, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Sunday during a visit to Chicago. The United States wants buyers in Asia, Iran's biggest oil market, to cut imports to put further pressure on Tehran to rein in its nuclear ambitions. Washington suspects Iran of trying to make nuclear weapons, but Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful means. India, which imports 12 percent of its oil from the Islamic Republic, cannot do without Iranian oil, Mukherjee said. It is not possible for India to take any decision to reduce the imports from Iran drastically, because among the countries which can provide the requirement of the emerging economies, Iran is an important country amongst them," Mukherjee told reporters in Chicago at the end of a two-day visit aimed at wooing US investment. New US sanctions, authorized on December 31 and which penalize any financial institutions dealing with Iran's central bank, could make it more difficult for India to pay Iran for oil imports. The European Union banned oil imports from Iran earlier this month. Mukherjee said he projects India to return to its path of high economic growth, despite an expected slowdown to a 7 percent pace this year from 8.5 percent last year. The Indian fiscal year ends in March. "This year, because of the European debt crisis and the slowing of developed economies, there has been a slowdown" in India's growth, he said. "It will be possible to make it up in a year or two." The Reserve Bank of India ( RBI) last week held its policy rate steady and signaled its next move could be a rate cut, after signs that outsized price pressures may be ebbing. Inflation, as measured by wholesale prices, rose 7.47 percent in December, its slowest pace in two years, and Mukherjee said he expected further declines. "If this trend continues, I am optimistic (India will see inflation of) 6.5 percent to 7 percent by end of the year," he said. But a possible move by the US Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy further could reverse that outlook, he said. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week opened the door to a third round of quantitative easing, suggesting that a continued decline in inflation and ongoing economic weakness could justify new bond buying. The Fed's last round of bond-buying drew loud criticism from emerging economies who said it sparked inflation and hurt their exports. Mukherjee repeated that criticism on Sunday, saying US quantitative easing creates "inflationary impacts" in emerging economies and boosts uncertainty. REFERENCE: India won't cut Iranian oil imports despite US, EU sanctions: Pranab Mukherjee Reuters | Jan 30, 2012, 09.50AM IST http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/India-wont-cut-Iranian-oil-imports-despite-US-EU-sanctions-Pranab-Mukherjee/articleshow/11682476.cms

MIR The Saudi-Iranian Neo Cold War

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erk22YkMybA

The crisis was Bahrain's, but the 100 giant army tanks patrolling the island kingdom's capital, Manama, boasted two flags — Bahraini and Saudi Arabian. And the presence of the latter was a metaphorical salvo at an unseen combatant: Iran, the alleged patron of Bahrain's Shi'ites who were in the middle of an uprising against the country's minority Sunni ruling class (Iran has not publicly supported the Bahraini opposition). Quelling the Shi'ite rebellion in Bahrain was a proxy war between the two oil powers, the closest Riyadh and Tehran have come to any sort of violent confrontation in their burgeoning rivalry. Diplomatic spats have come up, over Lebanon and Syria, for example. But all the bile had been behind closed doors until this week, when the U.S. alleged that an Iranian plot had as its target Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to Washington and a trusted adviser to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The supposed plot "is something new," says Jane Kinninmont, a Middle East researcher at London think tank Chatham House who follows Bahrain and events in the Gulf. If true, "it will seriously raise Iranian-Saudi tensions." It's a deviation in a conflict that is generally relegated to rhetoric and diplomatic gestures, not concrete action. Says Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center: "There are long-simmering tensions between the Saudis and other Gulf states, and Iran. There's a deep suspicion." The tension between Riyadh and Tehran "has been a media[-fueled] war of words between the two countries, although until now, nothing more than that," says Simon Henderson, head of the Gulf program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. News of the plot against al-Jubeir is "very concerning. I think they'll be widely believed in the Gulf because people there already regard Iran as aggressive and devious, and are predisposed to believe in Iran's strength and have a deep anxiety about [encountering] it."Until the two Iraq wars involving the U.S., Saudi Arabia had been happy to let Iran throw its weight around. But the Shi'ite ascendancy in what was once secular, though Sunni-leaning, Baghdad has thrown the balance of power in the Gulf out of whack. Even so, Riyadh had taken a quiet approach to its Shi'ite rival. "This is a classic cold-war game where you do things under the radar, you don't try to be too public. And we're dealing with the Saudis, who don't do things overtly. They're behind-the-scenes people," says Barak Barfi, a fellow at the New America Foundation who follows the conflict and has spent time in Bahrain. If the Saudis decide to get even for the assassination plot, says Barfi, "they won't retaliate with a similar plot, but they're going to spread money out to allies to counterweight the Iranians and their surrogates." Barfi says that with this latest incident, the region might have to take sides overtly. "You'll start to see green and white countries on a map of the region," he says, "One color loyal to Iran, the other color loyal to Saudi." He says the Saudis' hatred for Iran runs so deep that there is even a remote possibility Riyadh might even take part in behind-the-scenes talks with a country it despises, Israel, because the Saudis see the Jewish state as a powerful counterweight to Tehran — the bête noire of Israel. Foiling the alleged plot against al-Jubeir could strengthen what has been a weakening friendship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. "They've been drifting apart," Shaikh says of Riyadh and Washington, "but this is an issue they've been working on at different ends that could bring them together." The Saudis could urge the U.S. to take a tougher line in its already hard-line dealings with Iran. That would not help an already volatile region. "The last thing the Middle East needs in the wake of the instabilities caused by the Arab Spring is a renewed Iranian-Saudi proxy war," says Barfi. But, he adds, "this is exactly what we should expect." As for the last proxy war, the crackdown is still going on in Bahrain. Though Saudi tanks have disappeared from downtown Manama, there are still nightly clashes in Shi'ite neighborhoods between opposition activists and Bahraini security forces. During spring conflict, the country's Sunni-run television channel Bahrain TV, which served as a chief instigator of anti-Shi'ite propaganda, fueled rumor after rumor that the Iranians were supporting the Shi'ite opposition, even alleging that Tehran had sent boats filled with weapons to Bahrain. The tension between the two countries "has always been fueled by sectarianism," Shaikh says. In the past month, Bahraini rulers have continued to repress dissent, for example, upholding the life sentences imposed on activists and the conviction of medical personnel accused of assisting and tending to injured protesters. "The Saudis will pressure their allies in Bahrain to cease offering any concessions to the Shi'a opposition, which it falsely links to Iran," says Barfi. If things get worse between Riyadh and Tehran, so will the plight of Bahrain's Shi'ites. REFERENCE: The Saudi-Iran Cold War: Will the Assassination Plot Heat It Up? By Karen Leigh Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2096764,00.html

UK seeks Saudi Arabia support to attack Iran

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6tWfIE1xmM

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in Beijing meeting Chinese leaders to seek support for sanctions on Iran's oil industry. He met counterpart Vice Premier Wang Qishan on Tuesday night and is meeting Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Li Keqiang today. Both countries pledged to work together to boost global economic recovery. But, watchers say, it remains unlikely that China will support sanctions. China buys almost a third of Iran's oil exports and has rejected US unilateral actions in the past. The meeting with Mr Xi, who is in line to become China's next leader, started on a friendly note. "I believe your visit will go a long way to promote the stability and further growth of our economic relationship," he said to Mr Geithner at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing. ''On economic growth, financial stability around the world, on non-proliferation, we have what we view as a very strong co-operative relationship with the government and we are looking forward to building on that," Mr Geithner replied. He also conveyed greetings from President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Mr Xi is due to visit the US in the upcoming months. Mr Geithner is also expected to raise the issue of China's currency in his meetings with the Chinese leaders. Mixing Issues His visit comes amid international tension after the UN's nuclear watchdog said Iran had begun enriching uranium to a higher grade than is needed for power generation. On New Year's eve, US President Barack Obama authorised a law imposing sanctions on financial institutions dealing with Iran's central bank, which is responsible for processing most oil purchases in the Islamic republic. China has backed UN Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to halt uranium enrichment activities. But it has also criticised the US for imposing sanctions beyond the resolutions. Ahead of Mr Geithner's visit, China stressed that its oil imports are unrelated to nuclear issues. It relies on Iran for 11% of foreign oil imports. "We should not mix issues with different natures, and China's legitimate concerns and demands should be respected," a Chinese deputy foreign minister, Cui Tiankai, said on Monday. Mr Geithner's visit comes ahead of Mr Wen's scheduled visit to the oil and gas producing countries of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates this weekend - a sign that China may be seeking other options for its energy supply. Mr Geithner also is due to meet Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Finance Minister Jun Azumi in Tokyo on Thursday. Japan is another major buyer of Iranian oil, depending on imports from Tehran for about 9% of its power consumption last year. REFERENCE: Geithner in Beijing seeking support on Iran sanctions 11 January 2012 Last updated at 08:51 GMT http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16501086

ISLAMABAD: Notwithstanding international pressures, Pakistan gave on Monday an unequivocal assurance to Iran that it would implement, on a fast track basis, multi-billion-dollar gas and electricity import projects. “Pakistan is fully committed to importing electricity and gas from Iran and we are working on a fast track basis to finalise these deals at the earliest,” Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, the prime minister’s adviser on finance, told visiting Iranian Deputy President Ali Saeedlou. The assurance was given at a time when Washington is putting pressure on Islamabad to back off from the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, under which the country is to receive up to one billion cubic feet of natural gas from Iran by 2014. The US, which has intensified its efforts for increased economic sanctions against Iran, offered to Pakistan alternative sources of energy in the form of LNG imports and natural gas transmission from Turkmenistan. Dr Hafeez and Ali Saeedlou also discussed opportunities to boost trade and increase investment in horticulture, livestock, energy, transport, telecommunications and engineering sectors. Dr Hafeez said the establishment of proper rail and road network for goods transport would facilitate trading communities of the two countries to access markets in the region. “The present visit will further strengthen our friendship and bilateral trade, economic and political relations,” he said. A joint news conference by Dr Hafeez and the Iranian deputy president was cancelled in the evening following a Supreme Court order suspending 28 members of the Senate and national and provincial assemblies elected during by-polls conducted by an incomplete Election Commission. Dr Hafeez is also among them. Pakistan called for early implementation of the projects already committed to by the two sides. It also stressed the need for increasing bilateral trade from $1.5 billion to $5 billion. “Pakistan and Iran must actively implement the preferential trade agreement and work towards realising the goal of free trade area,” Dr Hafeez was quoted by sources as saying. He said the two sides should curb cross-border smuggling, review tariff and non-tariff barriers, promote business-to-business interaction and simplify visa procedures. REFERENCE: Gas accord will be honoured, Iran assured Khaleeq Kiani http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/07/gas-accord-will-be-honoured-iran-assured.html

Debate! IS The Sunni Shia Conflicts Damaging Islam - 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp1CO670xn4

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Islam must do away with the dangers of extremism and present the religion's positive message, Saudi King Abdullah said Wednesday as he opened a conference of Muslim figures aimed at launching a dialogue with Christians and Jews. The three-day gathering in the holy city of Mecca seeks a unified Muslim voice ahead of the interfaith dialogue. In particular, Saudi Arabia hopes to promote reconciliation between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. "You have gathered today to tell the whole world that ... we are a voice of justice and values and humanity, that we are a voice of coexistence and a just and rational dialogue," Abdullah told the 500 Muslim delegates from 50 Muslim nations in his opening speech. Abdullah walked into the conference hall Wednesday with powerful Iranian politician Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who later sat on the king's left on the stage, sending a message that the Sunni kingdom does not have a problem with moderate Shiites like him. Saudi Arabia and mainly Shiite Iran are seen as top rivals for influence in the Middle East, standing on opposite sides of political divides in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Moreover, Saudi Arabia's official Wahhabi interpretation of Islam considers Shiites as infidels — and days ahead of Wednesday's gathering a number of hardline Wahhabi clerics issued a statement harshly condemning Shiites and Iran. First for Saudis Abdullah announced in March that he wanted to sponsor an interfaith dialogue between the world's monotheistic religions — specifically including Jews. It was the first such initiative from a nation with no diplomatic ties to Israel and a ban on non-Muslim religious services and symbols.He said Wednesday that the Islamic world faces difficult challenges from the extremism of some Muslims, whose aggressions "target the magnanimity, fairness and lofty aims of Islam." "That's why (the conference) invitation was extended — to face the challenges of isolation, ignorance and narrow horizons, so that the world can absorb the good message of Islam," he said. Rafsanjani praised Abdu llah, saying, "Our brothers in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... have presented a great message to all humanity in the world." "Before we speak with other religions, we must speak among ourselves and reach an understanding on a particular Islamic path," he said, calling for greater understanding between Sunnis and Shiites. "We should support each other ... not weaken each other or sully each other's reputation," he said. "As a Muslim and a Shiite and an expert in Islamic issues ... I tell you that there are many things in common (between us) and there's no need to look at differences." King: Top clerics back me Participants say they hope the gathering will culminate in an agreement on a global Islamic charter on dialogue with Christians and Jews. They expect Saudi Arabia will launch its formal call for an interfaith dialogue at the conference's close or soon after. Abdullah's message, which has been welcomed by Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, is significant. The Saudi monarch is the custodian of Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina, a position that lends his words special importance and influence. Abdullah said Saudi Arabia's top clerics have given him their approval — crucial backing in a society that expects decisions taken by its rulers to adhere to Islam's tenets. It remains unclear who will participate in the second phase of the initiative, in particular whether Israeli religious leaders would be invited. The kingdom and all other Arab nations except Egypt and Jordan do not have diplomatic relations with Israel and generally shun unofficial contacts. REFERENCE: Saudi king calls for end to Islamic extremism Moderate Iranian Shiite leader Rafsanjani joins interfaith dialogue updated 6/5/2008 3:12:07 AM ET http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24970557/ns/world_news-world_faith/t/saudi-king-calls-end-islamic-extremism/#.TzDLEsXrrjc

Debate! IS The Sunni Shia Conflicts Damaging Islam - 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSSGPrXMod8

Iran's human rights crisis deepened as the government sought to consolidate its power following 2009's disputed presidential election. Public demonstrations waned after security forces used live ammunition to suppress protesters in late 2009, resulting in the death of at least seven protesters. Authorities announced that security forces had arrested more than 6,000 individuals after June 2009. Hundreds-including lawyers, rights defenders, journalists, civil society activists, and opposition leaders-remain in detention without charge. Since the election crackdown last year, well over a thousand people have fled Iran to seek asylum in neighboring countries. Interrogators used torture to extract confessions, on which the judiciary relied on to sentence people to long prison terms and even death. Restrictions on freedom of expression and association, as well as religious and gender-based discrimination, continued unabated. Authorities systematically used torture to coerce confessions. Student activist Abdullah Momeni wrote to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in September describing the torture he suffered at the hands of jailers. At this writing no high-level official has been prosecuted for the torture, ill-treatment, and deaths of three detainees held at Kahrizak detention center after June 2009.

On August 2, 2010, 17 political prisoners issued a statement demanding the rights guaranteed to prisoners by law, including an end to their solitary confinement and access to medical facilities. They also complained of severely overcrowded conditions. Reports by international human rights groups indicate that prison authorities are systematically denying needed medical care to political prisoners at Tehran's Evin Prison and other facilities. Dozens of journalists and bloggers are currently behind bars or free on short-term furloughs. On September 28 blogger Hossein Derakhshan received a nineteen-and-a-half year prison sentence for espionage, "propaganda against the regime," and "insulting sanctities." The judiciary sentenced numerous other journalists, including Isa Saharkhiz and Hengameh Shahidi who were sentenced to three and six years respectively, for crimes such as "insulting" government officials. On June 8 a revolutionary court sentenced Jila Baniyaghoub to a year in prison and barred her from working as a journalist for 30 years.

The Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance continued shutting down newspapers and in August directed the press not to publish items about opposition leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami, the former president.

State universities prevented some politically active students from registering for graduate programs despite undergraduate test scores that should have guaranteed them access. The government initiated an aggressive campaign to "Islamicize" universities, in part by forcibly retiring professors in the social sciences.

The government relied on plainclothes security forces and the Basij, a state-sponsored paramilitary force, to target Shia clerics critical of the government, such as Grand Ayatollah Yusef Sanei, Mehdi Karroubi, and Ayatollah Seyed Ali Mohammad Dastgheib. Ayatollah Kazemini Boroujerdi-whose understanding of Islam calls for the separation of religion and government-entered his fourth year in prison following a Special Court for the Clergy conviction on unknown charges. After years under house arrest and government monitoring, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri died in December 2009. Security forces arrested scores of mourners who attended his funeral.

The government systematically blocks websites that carry political news and analysis, slows down internet speeds, jams foreign satellite broadcasts, and employs the Revolutionary Guards to target dissident websites. Authorities continued a blanket policy of denying permits for opposition demonstrations. Security forces prevented the Mourning Mothers, whose sons and daughters were killed by security forces during the 2009 unrest, from gathering at Laleh Park in Tehran. Authorities also prevented women's rights activists from publicly petitioning against existing laws or legislation that discriminate against women.

The government increased restrictions on civil society organizations. On September 27 the general prosecutor and judiciary spokesman announced a court order dissolving two pro-reform political parties, the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution.

Repression of student groups was particularly harsh. Security forces detained scores of members belonging to the Office for Consolidating Unity, including Ali Qolizadeh, Alireza Kiani, Mohammad Heydarzadeh, and Mohsen Barzegar, who were arrested in early November 2010. The Office for Consolidating Unity is a national independent student association that authorities declared illegal in January 2009. In 2010, revolutionary courts convicted Bahareh Hedayat, Majid Tavakoli, and Milad Asadi, members of Tahkim's alumni group, to prison terms ranging from six to eight-and-a-half years on charges that include insulting government authorities. In 2009, the last year for which figures are available, authorities executed 388 prisoners, more than any other nation except China. Iranian human rights defenders believe that many more executions, especially of individuals convicted of drug trafficking, are taking place in Iran's prisons today.

Crimes punishable by death include murder, rape, drug trafficking, armed robbery, espionage, sodomy, and adultery. Under intense international pressure, officials suspended the stoning-to-death sentence of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani who was convicted of adultery in 2006. However, they alleged that Ashtiani helped murder her husband. She remains on death row at this writing.

Iran leads the world in the execution of juvenile offenders. Iranian law allows death sentences for persons who have reached puberty, defined as nine years old for girls and fifteen for boys. According to a human rights lawyer who defended many juvenile offenders on death row, authorities executed a juvenile offender named Mohammad on July 10, 2010. There are currently more than a hundred juvenile offenders on death row, including Ebrahim Hamidi, whom a local court sentenced to death for the alleged rape of another boy in 2010. Hamidi was 16 at the time of the alleged crime.

Authorities have executed at least nine political dissidents since November 2009, all of them convicted of moharebeh ("enmity against God") for their alleged ties to armed groups. On January 28 the government hanged Mohammad-Reza Ali-Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour. Although both were arrested prior to the June 2009 presidential election, they were tried as part of the August 2009 mass trials, where they reportedly confessed to planning a deadly 2008 bombing in Shiraz, southwest Iran.

Authorities executed Farzad Kamangar, Ali Heidarian, Farhad Vakili, Shirin Alam Holi, and Mehdi Eslamian by hanging on the morning of May 9 in Evin prison without informing their lawyers or families. Another 16 Kurds presently face execution for their alleged support of armed groups.Efforts to intimidate human rights lawyers and prevent them from effectively representing political detainees continued. In September authorities arrested Nasrin Sotoudeh, who represented numerous political prisoners. In November Sotoudeh went on a "dry" hunger strike, refusing to eat or drink anything to protest being held in solitary confinement since her arrest. Mohammad Mostafaei was forced to flee Iran after authorities repeatedly summoned him for questioning and detained his wife, father-in-law, and brother-in-law. Mostafaei represented high-profile defendants such as Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman sentenced to death by stoning, and numerous juvenile detainees on death row. In October 2010, a revolutionary court sentenced Mohammad Seifzadeh, a colleague of Nobel-prize winner Shirin Ebadi and co-founder of the banned Center for Defenders of Human Rights, to nine years imprisonment and banned him from practicing law for 10 years.

Security forces routinely harassed and arrested human rights activists, often without charge. Others were swept up in raids and face charges of attempting to overthrow the government via "cyber-warfare." On September 21 a revolutionary court sentenced Emad Baghi to six years in prison for an interview he conducted with dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Montazeri several years earlier. Another revolutionary court sentenced Shiva Nazar Ahari and Koohyar Goodarzi, both members of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, to six years and one year respectively after months of "temporary detention" for alleged national security offenses. The government denies adherents of the Baha'i faith-Iran's largest non-Muslim religious minority-freedom of religion. In August the judiciary convicted seven leaders of the national Baha'i organization to 20 years each in prison; their sentences were later reduced to 10 years each. The government accused them of espionage without providing evidence and denied their lawyers' requests to conduct a prompt and fair trial.

Iranian laws continue to discriminate against religious minorities, including Sunni Muslims, in employment and education. Sunni Muslims, about 10 percent of the population, cannot construct mosques in major cities. In 2010, security forces detained several members of Iran's largest Sufi sect, the Nematollahi Gonabadi order, and attacked their houses of worship. They similarly targeted converts to Christianity for questioning and arrest.

The government restricts cultural and political activities among the country's Azeri, Kurdish, and Arab minorities, including the organizations that focus on social issues.

Sexual minorities also face a precarious situation. Law enforcement and judiciary officials discriminate, both in law and in practice, against Iran's vulnerable lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. Iran's penal code criminalizes consensual same-sex acts, some of which are punishable by death. During the past few years, a steady stream of LGBT Iranians has sought refugee status in Turkey and are awaiting resettlement in third countries. Iran's nuclear program continued to be the center of attention for much of 2010, overshadowing serious concerns regarding the deepening human rights crisis in the country. In June 2010 the United Nations Security Council passed a new round of sanctions against Iran for its failure to comply with previous resolutions on transparency regarding its nuclear program.

During Iran's Universal Periodic Review before the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in March, Iran rejected 45 recommendations of member states, including allowing the special rapporteur on torture to visit the country; prosecuting security officials involved in torturing, raping, or killing; implementing policies to end gender based violence; and halting the execution of political prisoners.

In October 2010 the UN secretary-general's office released its report on the situation of human rights in Iran, pursuant to UN General Assembly resolution 64/176. The report noted "further negative developments in the human rights situation" in Iran, including "excessive use of force, arbitrary arrests, and detentions, unfair trials, and possible torture and ill-treatment of opposition activists" following the June 2009 election.

In April Iran withdrew its bid to gain a seat on the HRC after strong international opposition. However, it did gain a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women. During the June session of the HRC, 56 states joined a statement expressing concern over "the lack of progress in the protection of human rights in Iran, particularly since the events surrounding the elections in Iran last June." In December 2009 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution criticizing Iran's human rights record.

On September 29, 2010, the Obama administration announced "human rights sanctions" against eight high-level Iranian officials, including individuals from the ministries of intelligence and interior, the police, the Basij, the Revolutionary Guards, and the judiciary, who were responsible for systematic and serious human rights violations. REFERENCE: World Report 2011: Iran http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2011/iran The Islamic Republic at 31 Post-election Abuses Show Serious Human Rights Crisis FEBRUARY 12, 2010 http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/iran0210web.pdf

Debate! IS The Sunni Shia Conflicts Damaging Islam - 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMbm5B5lKRo

A few years ago, I met some young boys from my village near Bahawalpur who were preparing to go on jihad. They smirked politely when I asked them to close their eyes and imagine their future. “We can tell you without closing our eyes that we don’t see anything.” It was not entirely surprising. South Punjab is a region mired in poverty and underdevelopment. There are few job prospects for the youth. While the government has built airports and a few hospitals, these projects are symbolic and barely meet the needs of the area. It’s in areas like this, amid economic stagnation and hopelessness, that religious extremists find fertile ground to plant and spread their ideology. The first step is recruitment – and the methodology is straightforward. Young children, or even men, are taken to madrassas in nearby towns. They are fed well and kept in living conditions considerably better than what they are used to. This is a simple psychological strategy meant to help them compare their homes with the alternatives offered by militant organisations. The returning children, like the boys I met, then undergo ideological indoctrination in a madrassa. Those who are indoctrinated always bring more friends and family with them. It is a swelling cycle.

Madrassas nurturing armies of young Islamic militants ready to embrace martyrdom have been on the rise for years in the Punjab. In fact, South Punjab has become the hub of jihadism. Yet, somehow, there are still many people in Pakistan who refuse to acknowledge this threat.

Four major militant outfits, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), are all comfortably ensconced in South Punjab (see article “Brothers in Arms”). Sources claim that there are about 5,000 to 9,000 youth from South Punjab fighting in Afghanistan and Waziristan. A renowned Pakistani researcher, Hassan Abbas cites a figure of 2,000 youth engaged in Waziristan. The area has become critical to planning, recruitment and logistical support for terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, in his study on the Punjabi Taliban, Abbas has quoted Tariq Pervez, the chief of a new government outfit named the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NCTA), as saying that the jihad veterans in South Punjab are instrumental in providing the foot soldiers and implementing terror plans conceived and funded mainly by Al-Qaeda operatives. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that the force that conquered Khost in 1988-89 comprised numerous South Punjabi commanders who fought for the armies of various Afghan warlords such as Gulbuddin Hikmatyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani. Even now, all the four major organisations are involved in Afghanistan.

The above facts are not unknown to the provincial and federal governments or the army. It was not too long ago that the federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik equated South Punjab with Swat. The statement was negated by the IG Punjab. Perhaps, the senior police officer was not refuting his superior but challenging the story by Sabrina Tavernese of The New York Times (NYT). The story had highlighted jihadism in South Punjab, especially in Dera Ghazi Khan. The NYT story even drew a reaction from media outlets across the country. No one understood that South Punjab is being rightly equated with Swat, not because of violence but due to the presence of elements that aim at taking the society and state in another direction.

An English-language daily newspaper reacted to the NYT story by dispatching a journalist to South Punjab who wrote a series of articles that attempted to analyse the existing problem. One of the stories highlighted comments by the Bahawalpur Regional Police Officer (RPO) Mushtaq Sukhera, in which he denied that there was a threat of Talibanisation in South Punjab. He said that all such reports pertaining to South Punjab were nothing more than a figment of the western press’s imagination. Many others express a similar opinion. There are five explanations for this.

Firstly, opinion makers and policy makers are in a state of denial regarding the gravity of the problem. Additionally, they believe an overemphasis on this region might draw excessive US attention to South Punjab – an area epitomising mainstream Pakistan. Thus, it is difficult even to find anecdotal evidence regarding the activities of jihadis in this sub-region. We only gain some knowledge about the happenings from coincidental accidents like the blast that took place in a madrassa in Mian Chunoon, exposing the stockpile of arms its owner had stored on the premises.

Nothing is off limits: Militants attack the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in March 2009.

Secondly, officer Sukhera and others like him do not see any threat because the Punjab-based outfits are “home-grown” and are not seen as directly connected to the war in Afghanistan. This is contestable on two counts: South Punjabi jihadists have been connected with the Afghan jihad since the 1980s and the majority is still engaged in fighting in Afghanistan.

Thirdly, since all these outfits were created by the ISI to support General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation process, in essence to fight a proxy war for Saudi Arabia against Iran by targeting the Shia community, and later the Kashmir war, the officials feel comfortable that they will never spin out of control. Those that become uncontrollable, such as Al-Furqan, are then abandoned. This outfit was involved in the second assassination attempt on Musharraf and had initially broken away from the JeM after the leadership developed differences over assets, power and ideology. Thus, the district officials and intelligence agencies turned a blind eye to the killing of the district amir of Al-Furqan in Bahawalpur in May 2009. As far as the JeM is concerned, it continues its engagement with the establishment. In any case, groups that are partly committed to the Kashmir cause and confrontation with India continue to survive. This is certainly the perception about the LeT. But in reality, the Wahhabi outfit has also been engaged in other regions, such as the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Badakhshan since 2004.

Fourthly, there is confusion at the operational level in the government regarding the definition of Talibanisation, which is then reflected in the larger debate on the issue. Many, including the RPO, define the process as an effort by an armed group to use force to change the social conditioning in an area. Ostensibly, the militant outfits in the Punjab continue to coexist with the pirs, prostitutes and the drug mafia, and there is no reason that they will follow in the footsteps of Sufi Mohammad and Maulana Fazlullah, or Baitullah Mehsud. Since the authorities only recognise the pattern followed by the Afghan warlords or those in Pakistan’s tribal areas, they tend not to understand that what is happening in the Punjab may not be Talibanisation but could eventually prove to be as lethal as what they call Talibanisation.

Finally, many believe that Talibanisation cannot take place in a region known for practicing the Sufi version of Islam. There are many, besides the Bahawalpur RPO, who subscribe to the above theory. A year ago in an interview with an American channel, Farahnaz Ispahani, an MNA and wife of Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, stated that extremism couldn’t flourish in South Punjab because it was a land of Sufi shrines. This is partially true. The Sufi influence would work as a bulwark against this Talibanisation of society. However, Sufi Islam cannot fight poverty, underdevelopment and poor governance – all key factors that encourage Talibanisation.

South Punjab boasts names such as the Mazaris, Legharis and Gilanis, most of whom are not just politicians and big landowners but also belong to significant pir families. But they have done little to alleviate the sufferings of their constituents. A visit to Dera Ghazi Khan is depressing. Despite the fact that the division produced a president, Farooq Khan Leghari, the state of underdevelopment there is shocking. Reportedly, people living in the area in the immediate vicinity of the Leghari tribe could not sell their land without permission from the head of the tribe, the former president, who has been the tribal chief for many years. Under the circumstances, the poor and the dispossessed became attractive targets for militant outfits offering money. The country’s current economic downturn could raise the popularity of militant outfits.

In recent history, the gap created due to the non-performance of Sufi shrines and Barelvi Islam, or the exploitative nature of these institutions, has been filled partly by the Deobandi and Ahl-e-Hadith madrassa conversion teams and groups, such as the Tableeghi Jamaat, and militant outfits. This alternative, unfortunately, is equally exploitative in nature. Sadly, today the shrines and Barelvi Islam have little to offer in terms of “marketing” to counter the package deal offered by the Salafists for the life hereafter, especially to a shaheed: 70 hoors (virgins), a queen hoor (virgin queen), a crown of jewels and forgiveness for 70 additional people. This promise means a lot for the poor youth who cannot hope for any change in a pre-capitalist socio-economic and political environment, where power is hard to re-negotiate. Furthermore, as stated by the former information minister Mohammad Ali Durrani, who had been a jihadi from 1984-90, a poor youth suddenly turning into a jihadi commander is a tremendous story of social mobility and recognition that he would never get in his existing socio-economic system. More importantly, the Deobandis and Ahl-e-Hadith offer a textual basis for their package, which is difficult for the pirs to refute due to the lack of an internal religious discourse in the Islamic world. The modern generation of pirs has not engaged in an internal discourse to counter this ideological onslaught by the Salafis. The main belief of Salafism is that all Muslims should practice Islam as it was during the time of Prophet Muhammad. The religion at that time, according to them, was perfect. Salafism – which pre-dates Wahhabism – is often used interchangeably with Wahhabism, which is actually an extension of Salafism.

* * *

Punjab offers a different pattern of extremism and jihadism. The pattern is closer to what one saw in Swat, where Sufi Mohammad and his TNSM spent quite a few years indoctrinating the society and building up a social movement before they got embroiled in a conflict with the state. South Punjab’s story is, in a sense, like Swat’s in that there is a gradual strengthening of Salafism and a build-up of militancy in the area. The procedure of conversion though, dates back to pre-1947. Still, the 1980s were clearly a watershed, when both rabid ideology and jihad were introduced to the area. Zia-ul-Haq encouraged the opening up of religious seminaries that, unlike the more traditional madrassas that were usually attached with Sufi shrines, subscribed to Salafi ideology. In later years, South Punjab became critical to inducting people for the Kashmir jihad. The ascendancy of the Tableeghi Jamaat and such madrassas that presented a more rabid version of religion gradually prepared the ground for later invasion by the militant groups. Two reports prepared around 1994, firstly by the district collector Bahawalpur and later by the Punjab government, highlighted the exponential rise in the number of madrassas and how these fanned sectarian and ideological hatred in the province. These reports also stated that all of these seminaries were provided funding by the government through the zakat fund.

The number of seminaries had increased during and after the 1980s. According to a 1996 report, there were 883 madrassas in Bahawalpur, 361 in Dera Ghazi Khan, 325 in Multan and 149 in Sargodha district. The madrassas in Bahawalpur outnumbered all other cities, including Lahore. These numbers relate to Deobandi madrassas only and do not include the Ahl-e-Hadith, Barelvi and other sects. Newer estimates from the intelligence bureau for 2008 show approximately 1,383 madrassas in the Bahawalpur division that house 84,000 students. Although the highest number of madrassas is in Rahim Yar Khan district (559) followed by Bahawalpur (481) and Bahawalnagar (310), it is Bahawalpur in which the highest number of students (36,000) is enlisted. The total number of madrassa students in Pakistan has reached about one million. REFERENCE: Terror’s Training Ground By Ayesha Siddiqa 9 SEPTEMBER 2009 http://www.newslinemagazine.com/2009/09/terror%E2%80%99s-training-ground/

Debate! IS The Sunni Shia Conflicts Damaging Islam - 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui6_7HUZdnI

Everyone has been so focused on FATA and the NWFP that they failed to notice the huge increase in religious seminaries in these districts of South Punjab. According to a study conducted by historian Tahir Kamran, the total number of madrassas in the Punjab rose from 1,320 in 1988 to 3,153 in 2000, an increase of almost 140%. These madrassas were meant to provide a rapid supply of jihadis to the Afghan war of the 1980s. At the time of 9/11, the Bahawalpur division alone could boast of approximately 15,000-20,000 trained militants, some of whom had resettled in their areas during the period that Musharraf claimed to have clamped down on the jihad industry. Many went into the education sector, opened private schools and even joined the media.

These madrassas play three essential roles. First, they convert people to Salafism and neutralise resistance to a more rabid interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah in society. Consequently, the majority of the Barelvis cannot present a logical resistance to the opposing ideology. In many instances, the Barelvis themselves get converted to the idea of jihad. Secondly, these madrassas are used to train youth, who are then inducted into jihad. Most of the foot soldiers come from the religious seminaries. One of the principles taught to the students pertains to the concept of jihad as being a sacred duty that has to continue until the end of a Muslim’s life or the end of the world. Lastly, madrassas are an essential transit point for the youth, who are recruited from government schools. They are usually put through the conversion process after they have attended a 21-day initial training programme in the Frontier province or Kashmir (see box “A Different Breed”).

State support, which follows two distinct tracks, is also instrumental in the growth of jihadism in this region. On the one hand, there has generally been a link or understanding between political parties and militant groups. Since political parties are unable to eliminate militants or most politicians are sympathetic towards the militants, they tend to curb their activities through political deal-making. The understanding between the SSP and Benazir Bhutto after the 1993 elections, or the alleged deal between the PML-N and the SSP during the 2008 elections, denote the relationship between major political parties and the jihadis. Currently, the SSP in South Punjab is more supportive of the PML-N.

The second track involves operational links between the outfits and the state’s intelligence apparatus. As mentioned earlier, some of the outfits claim to have received training from the country’s intelligence agencies. Even now, local people talk of truckloads of weapons arriving at the doorstep of the JeM headquarters and other sites in the middle of the night. While official sources continue to claim that the outfit was banned and does not exist, or that Masood Azhar is on the run from his hometown of Bahawalpur, the facts prove otherwise. For instance, the outfit continues to acquire real estate in the area, such as a new site near Chowk Azam in Bahawalpur, which many believe is being used as a training site. Although the new police chief has put restraints on the JeM and disallowed it from constructing on the site, the outfit continues to appropriate more land around the area. Junior police officials even claim seeing tunnels being dug inside the premises. The new facility is on the bank of the Lahore-Karachi national highway, which means that in the event of a crisis, the JeM could block the road as has happened in Kohat and elsewhere. Furthermore, the outfit’s main headquarters in the city is guarded by AK-47-armed men who harass any journalist trying to take a photograph of the building. In one instance, even a police official was shooed away and later intimidated by spooks of an intelligence agency for spying on the outfit. Despite the claim that the SSP, the LeJ and the JeM have broken ties with intelligence agencies and are now fighting the army in Waziristan, the fact remains that their presence in the towns of South Punjab continues unhindered.

Is it naivety and inefficiency on the part of officialdom or a deliberate effort to withhold information? The government claims that Maulana Masood Azhar has not visited his hometown in the last three years. But he held a massive book launch of his new publication Fatah-ul-Jawad: Quranic Verses on Jihad, on April 28, 2008, in Bahawalpur. Moreover, JeM’s armed men manned all entrances and exits to the city that day – and there was no police force in sight. The ISI is said to have severed its links with the JeM for assisting the Pashtoon Taliban in inciting violence in the country. Sources from FATA claim, however, that the JeM, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and LeT are suspected by the Taliban for their links with state agencies.

In addition, intelligence agencies reportedly ward off anyone attempting to probe into the affairs of these outfits. In one case, a local in Bahawalpur city invoked daily visits from a certain agency after he assisted a foreign journalist. Similarly, only six months back, a BBC team was chased out of the area by agency officials. In fact, intelligence officials, who had forgotten about my existence since my last book was published, revisited my village in South Punjab soon after I began writing on militancy in the area and have gone to the extent of planting a story in one of the Urdu newspapers to malign me in my own area. In any case, no serious operation was conducted against these outfits after the Mumbai attacks and the recent spate of violence in the country. Hence, all of them continue to survive.

The Deobandi outfits are not the only ones popular in South Punjab. Ahl-e-Hadith/Wahhabi organisations such as the Tehreek-ul-Mujahidden (TuM) and the LeT also have a following in the region. While TuM, which is relatively a smaller organisation, has support in Dera Ghazi Khan, the LeT is popular in Bahawalpur, Multan and the areas bordering Central Punjab. Headquartered in Muridke, the LeT is popular among the Punjabi and Urdu-speaking Mohajir settlers.

There are obvious sociological reasons for LeT’s relative popularity among these people. The majority of this population represents either the lower-middle-class farmers or middle-class trader-merchants. The middle class is instrumental in providing funding to these outfits. And the support is not confined to South Punjab alone. In fact, middle-class trader-merchants from other parts of the Punjab also feed jihad through their funding. This does not mean that there are no Seraiki speakers in Wahhabi organisations but just that the dominant influence is that of the Punjabis and Mohajirs. The Seraiki-speaking population is mostly associated with the SSP, LeJ and JeM, not to mention the freelancing jihadis that have direct links with the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP).

The LeT’s presence in South Punjab is far more obvious than others courtesy of the wall chalkings and social work by its sister outfit, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Despite the rumours of friction between the LeT and the JuD leadership, the two segments operate in unison in South Punjab. Three of the favourite areas of recruitment in South Punjab for all outfits are Cholistan in Bahawalpur, the Rekh in Dera Ghazi Khan, and the Kacha area in Rajanpur. The first two are desert areas known for their poverty and underdevelopment, while the third is known for dacoits. However, another known feature of Kacha in Rajanpur is that the clerics of the Lal Masjid come from this area and have partly managed to push back the dacoits. Local sources claim that the influence of the clerics has increased since they started receiving cooperation from the police to jointly fight the dacoits.

Organisations such as the LeT have even begun to recruit women in the Punjab. These women undergo 21 days of ideological and military training. The goal is to ensure that these women will be able to fight if their menfolk are out on jihad and an enemy attacks Pakistan.

The militant outfits are rich, both ideologically and materially. They have ample financial resources that flow from four distinct sources: official sources (in some cases); Middle Eastern and Gulf states (not necessarily official channels); donations; and the Punjabi middle class, which is predominantly engaged in funding both madrassas and jihad for social, moral and political ends. With regard to donations, the militant outfits are extremely responsive to the changing environment and have adapted their money-collection tactics. Gone are the days of money-collection boxes. Now, especially in villages, followers are asked to raise money by selling harvested crops. And in terms of the Punjabi middle class, there are traders in Islamabad and other smaller urban centres that contribute regularly to the cause. These trader-merchants and upcoming entrepreneurs see donations to these outfits as a source of atonement for their sins. In Tahir Kamran’s study “Deobandiism in the Punjab,” Deobandiism (and Wahhabiism) is an urban phenomenon. If so, then the existence of these militant outfits in rural Punjab indicates a new social trend. Perhaps, due to greater access to technology (mobiles, television sets, satellite receivers, etc), the landscape (and rustic lifestyles) of Punjab’s rural areas has changed. There is an unplanned urbanisation of the rural areas due to the emergence of small towns with no social development, health and education infrastructure. Socially and politically, there is a gap that is filled by these militant outfits or related ideological institutions.

Fortunately, they have not succeeded in changing the lifestyles of the ordinary people. This is perhaps because there are multiple cultural strands that do not allow the jihadis to impose their norms the way they have in the tribal areas or the Frontier province. This is not to say that there is no threat from them in South Punjab: the liberalism and multi-polarity of society is certainly at risk. The threat is posed by the religious seminaries and the new recruits for jihad, who change social norms slowly and gradually. Sadly nothing, including the powerful political system of the area, which in any case is extremely warped, helps ward off the threat of extremism and jihadism. Ultimately, South Punjab could fall prey to the myopia of its ruling elite.

* * *

So how does the state and society deal with this issue?

Deploying the military is not an option. In the Punjab this will create a division within the powerful army because of regional loyalty. The foremost task is to examine the nature of the state’s relationship with the militants as strategic partners: should this relationship continue to exist to the detriment of the state? Once this mystifying question is resolved, all militant forces can be dealt with through an integrated police-intelligence operation.

This, however, amounts to winning only half the battle. The other half deals with the basic problems faced by the likes of those young jihadis-in-training from Bahawalpur who said, “We don’t see anything” in our futures. Presently, there is hardly any industrialisation in South Punjab and the mainstay of the area, agriculture, is faltering. The region requires economic strengthening: new ideas in agriculture, capital investment and new, relevant industries. This is the time that the government must plan beyond the usual textile and sugar industries that have arguably turned into huge mafias that are draining the local economy rather than feeding it.

Investment in social development is desperately needed. A larger social infrastructure that provides jobs and an educational system that is responsive to the needs of the population can contribute to filling the gaps. The message of militancy is quite potent, especially in terms of the dreams it sells to the youth, such as those disillusioned boys from my village. Jihad elevates youngsters from a state of being dispossessed to an imagined exalted status. They visualise themselves taking their places among great historical figures such as Mohammad bin Qasim and Khalid bin Waleed. It is these dreams for which the state must provide an alternative. REFERENCE: Terror’s Training Ground By Ayesha Siddiqa 9 SEPTEMBER 2009 http://www.newslinemagazine.com/2009/09/terror%E2%80%99s-training-ground/

Debate! IS The Sunni Shia Conflicts Damaging Islam - 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zqaBdpopPs

"QUOTE"

Excerpts from a book: Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America’s War on Terror By Hassan Abbas published by An East Gate Book. M.E. Sharpe Armonk, New York, London England. “The Khomeini revolution in Iran already bolstered the confidence of the Shias, and they were not about to take Sunni dictates in religious matters lying down. Hard-liners among Sunni, for their part, felt that such dictation was their right, and those on the extreme right of the Sunni spectrum simply cut the Gordian knot by taking a position that, correct or not, Pakistan had a Sunni majority and as such it should be declared a Sunni Muslim state in which Shia should be treated as a minority. Since achievement of this holy goal would likely to take some time, some of them decided that the interregnum ought not to be wasted. Thus in 1985 they formed Anjuman Sipah-e-Sahaba (ASS) – an organization piously dedicated to ridding the country of the nettlesome presence of the Shias by eliminating them physically. Later, when they realized what the organization’s acronym meant in English, they changed the name to Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).” “The zealous emissaries of the Iranian Revolutionary Regime started financing their organization Tehreek-e-Nifza-e-Fiqah-e-Jafaria (TNFJ – Movement for the Implementation of Jafaria Religious Law) and providing scholarships for Pakistani student to study in Iranian religious seminaries. For the Zia regime though, the problematic issue was Shia activism leading to a strong reaction to his attempts to impose Hanafi Islam (a branch of Sunni sect). For this he winked to the hard-liners among the Sunni religious groups in order to establish a front to squeeze the Shias. It was in this context that Jhangvi was selected by the intelligence community to do the needful. It is also believed that the JUI recommendation played the decisive part in this choice. The adherents of the Deobandi School were worried about Shia activism for religious reasons anyhow. State patronage came as an additional incentive. Consequently, in a well-designed effort, Shia assertiveness was projected as their disloyalty to Pakistan and its Islamic Ideology.” “In a few months, Saudi funds started pouring in, making the project feasible. For Saudi Arabia, the Iranian revolution was quite scary, for its ideals conflicted with that of a Wahabi monarchy. More so, with an approximately 10% Shia population, Saudi Arabia was concerned about the expansion of Shia activism in any Muslim country. Hence, it was more than willing to curb such trends in Pakistan by making a financial investment to bolster its Wahabi Agenda. According to Vali Raza Nasr, a leading expert on the sectarian groups of Pakistan, the flow of these funds was primarily routed through the Pakistan Military and the ISI. It is not known whether American support for this scheme was readily available, but the Zia regime knew well that the United States would be glad to acquiesce, given the rising US – Iran hostility. However, some analyst believe that CIA funds were involved in the venture.”

"UNQUOTE"

Mani Shankar Aiyar & Indo-Pakistan Relations & Wahabis/Salafis.

2012-02-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

Varanasi also commonly known as Benares or Benaras , is a city situated on the banks of the River Ganges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, 320 kilometres (199 mi) southeast of state capital Lucknow. It is regarded as a holy city by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and the oldest in India. The Kashi Naresh (Maharaja of Kashi) is the chief cultural patron of Varanasi and an essential part of all religious celebrations. The culture of Varanasi is closely associated with the River Ganges and the river's religious importance. The city has been a cultural and religious centre in North India for several thousand years. The Benares Gharana form of the Indian classical music developed in Varanasi, and many prominent Indian philosophers, poets, writers, and musicians resided or reside in Varanasi. Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath located near Varanasi (Kashi). People often refer to Varanasi as "the city of temples", "the holy city of India", "the religious capital of India", "the city of lights", "the city of learning", and "the oldest living city on planet earth." REFERENCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanasi

Mani Shankar Aiyar & Indo-Pakistan Relations - 1 (Capital Talk - 2nd Feb 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnFSR0J62oU

The original name of Jamiah Salafiah was Al-Jamia-tul-Markazih, which came to be known as Markazi Darul-Uloom in Urdu. In India there are several institutions of various groups of Muslims which represent their own schools of thought. It was not evident from the name of Al-Jamia-tul-Markaziah as to which school of thought it was related with. Therefore, its founders renamed it in such a way so that there could be clear indication towards its purpose. The literal meaning of Salaf is that which has passed, and Salafiah means the followers of Salafi school of thought. They are a special group of the followers of the Prophet, Hazrat Mohammad (P.B.H.), which endeavors to receive Islamic education from its origin and foundation point, and to associate people with that religion which Prophet Mohammad (P.B.H.) has left for humanity, by presenting it in its original form. The followers of Salafiat endeavour to understand Islam in the light of the basic principles of the Quran and the Hadith in a way which is the way of the predecessors of Islam. That is to say, the early companions of the Holy Prophet;’Sahabah’, and later on the Muslim theologians, the Muslim Scholars of Holy Prophet’s traditions: Mohaddiseen and the Muslim jurists Foqhae Ezam took leading part in presenting Islam to the disciples of Prophet Mohammad (P.B.H.) in its original form. These information and contents of knowledge are spread over so many volumes of books written on this topic, and their authors belonged to different continents and states, who had been established in different parts of the world with the expansion and spread of Islam. A wast study and research programme is needed for its investigation. No Islamic education can be obtained in its original form by obeying only some particular Imam or walk in the footsteps of a learned man. That is why, it is wrong to call this group as a sect of Islam. A sect is named after the connection it makes with some personality, such as, Hanafi: the followers of Imam Abu Hanifa (R.A.), Shafai: the followers of Imam Shafai (R.A.), Malki: the followers of Imam Malik (R.A.)and Hambali: the followers of Imam Ahmad Bin Hambal (R.A.). Some people associate Salafiat with wahabiat and relate it with Imam Mohammad Bin Abdul Wahab Najadi, which is done absolutely on the basis of confusion and party feeling. Though Mohammad Bin Abdul Wahab cherished almost the same view- point and followed the same principle which a Salafi has. But a Salafi is neither the follower of Mohammad Bin Abdul Wahab nor realizes him as his Imam. A Salafi admits that the Islam which Prophet Mohammad (P.B.H.) had left with his companions was the real Islam and true religion, and its followers had proved the superiority of this religion before the world. By and by this religion had its impact on half of the population of the world with full glamour and peace and tranquility, wherever Islam reached, there reached peace, justice and brotherhood. Moreover, the honour and prestige of the people was saved. The inhabitants of those places invited the followers of Islam to release them from the cruelty of cruel rulers. When the condition of the world became worse, it cast its evil influence also on the followers of Islam; their view-point changed adversely and their thinking and apprehension changed accordingly. The rulers of the time utilized learned men, Ulama, to establish their supremacy. The door of authoritative interpretation of Islamic law was shut, and a special kind of religion was propagated, making the people follow in the footsteps of certain learned men and the Imam, in consequently some of them became Hanafi, some Shafai, some regarded Imam Malik as their Imam, and some thought it comparatively better to follow Imam Ahmad Bin Hambal. Though Islam was one and the same, but its followers were divided into four sects and held their special places in the Holy Haram and the Qibla, so that no quarrel might arise. The followers of every sect offered their Namaz in a different way; everyone declared himself true and the other false. If any suspicion arose in anybody’s mind for anything, he was made silent pronouncing that it was the verdict of his Imam. And to prove the supremacy of their Imam every sect presented false and imaginary excellence in its favour, so that no follower might leave his sect. The Salafi consider worship of graves as ‘shirk’ (to regard a personality equivalent to God), which is the greatest sin. Man in obedient to God only as His creation. It is the teaching of Islam that if a man stands in need , he should ask it from God alone who is his creator. The prophet of Islam has prohibited to build construction over a grave, and in the same way there is no place of any sort of ‘URS’ (periodical celebration to honour a dead person) in Islam. To express extreme sorrow and celebrate the death anniversary of Imam Hussain (R.A.) in the month of Moharram, Milad of the Prophet and many other customs which are prevalent in the Muslims today were not found in the people of earlier ages of Islam. These things can not be regarded Islamic and so the Salafi don’t acknowledge them. We acknowledge Jehad (fight against evils), but that Jehad only which established justice and peace in the world, by which the honour and prestige of people was protected, children and women were provided safe and secure position, dishonesty and cruelty came to an end. The same kind of Jehad is required today also. Today Jehad has been defamed. To kill innocents for no reason, to squander wealth and treasure for nothing, to frighten and terrorise people by bomb blast in a cruel and brutal way, and to regard them as Jehad or to call the doers as Jehadi is absolute craziness and bankruptcy of intelligence. This is such a crime that any punishment prescribed for it is insufficient. Everyone should blame such a heinous crime, and should bring about Jehad against inhuman acts and terrorism. The Salafi are called as Ahle-Hadees too, because they give first and foremost importance to the Quran and the Hadith, and such people have already been called Ahle-Hadees in the early books of Islamic religion. The Salafi acknowledge the authoritative interpretation of Islamic law and take decision with thinking and apprehension regarding problems of every day life in the light of the Holy Quran and the examples set for us by the Holy Prophet. We don’t admit narrow-mindedness. The problems we face today have a wide scope; it is better to acknowledge right things than to show haughtiness in accepting them. We respect all the Imams and pay our regard to them as Imam. They were those men who have served Islam and humanity, their position is very high, their services are great; but mystic knowledge and learning can not be besieged nor any person can claim to do it. So we should always make search for truth and should accept the truth that has been proved, may it be in favour of or against to the saying of any Imam. The truth is with God and the Prophet; this is our view-point, this is our principle and this is our proclamation. We teach principles, lead people on the right path, make them learned; but it is up to their own conscience whether to accept them or not, as it is their right. We pray to ALLAH to give us strength to realize truth and stick to it. REFERENCE: Meaning of Salafiat http://www.aljamiatussalafiah.org/what_is_salafiah.html

Mani Shankar Aiyar & Indo-Pakistan Relations - 2 (Capital Talk - 2nd Feb 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aaawXJM33E

Mani Shankar Aiyar & Indo-Pakistan Relations - 3 (Capital Talk - 2nd Feb 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFb4EUZdB3E

KARACHI, Nov 12: Speakers at a conference on Saturday emphasised the need for working together in South Asia if the region is to tread the path of progress and prosperity. The international conference titled The Situation in South Asia – Global and Regional Implications was organised by the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) at the institute’s auditorium. The conference commenced with the welcome address delivered by Prof Dr Amanat Ali Jalbani, followed by senator Raza Rabbani’s speech in which he discussed Pakistan’s present geopolitical situation and reiterated the basic red lines, which were (1) respect for territorial sovereignty (2) issues should be dealt with sovereign equality (3) no boots on ground (4) cessation of drone attacks (5) no pressure from any power on decision-making vis-à-vis national security. The first session of the moot (Changing Situation in South Asia) was presided over by former foreign secretary Najumddin Shaikh. Dr Didier Chaudet of the Institute of Political Studies (Paris) was the first speaker of the day. He said when Pakistan came into being it was impossible to imagine to have no influence in Afghanistan. He said for Russia, Afghanistan was not the main issue: it only wanted to see what the US was doing. Global powers didn’t care much about Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said. Dr Julian Schofield of the Department of Political Science (Montreal) opined that China’s interest in Pakistan was shallow and superficial. Dr Ayesha Siddiqa contested Dr Schofield’s view and said the geo-strategic plates in the region were shifting as US-Pakistan relations were complex — there were strategic diversions and tactical conversions in the relations. She said there was an increased Chinese interest in Pakistan and the Chinese were moving very smartly. She said China wanted to get access to Pakistan’s resources but at the same time it didn’t want to take on additional liabilities. Replying to a question Ayesha Siddiqa said the military’s backing for certain non-state actors had negative implications. It could go to Afghanistan like India with options such as development and cultural exchange. She said one shouldn’t confuse equality with parity. The second session (Indo-Pak Relations: a Framework for Peace) was presided over by member of Indian parliament Mani Shankar Aiyar. The first speaker of the session historian Dr Mubarak Ali told the gathering that in the past efforts were made to write joint history textbooks, which didn’t materialise. He said our historical narratives carried hostility. There were attempts to isolate ourselves from India through history, then by using the Two-Nation Theory it was established that there’s nothing common between Hindus and Muslims. After the making of Bangladesh hostility towards India increased. He said Pakistan became an ideological state and thus liked to remain in isolation. He maintained though we read about Pakistan giving India the status of the Most Favoured Nation, it hadn’t made any effect on the life of the common man. Secretary-General of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan I.A. Rehman said there was a time when Jinnah said that Pakistan would defend India’s boundaries, but then two things changed the whole situation (1) 1947 riots which were economically motivated (2) the issue of Kashmir after which Pakistan developed the theory of security concern and relied on the US. He said today instead of cooperating in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan were determined to compete. It’s unwise for both countries to think that either didn’t have a stake in Afghanistan. He said they were creating a problem which was as difficult as Kashmir. He said we needed to unscramble the mess that we’d created. A beginning had to be made, he articulated. Ahsan Munir said trade between India and Pakistan was governed by political interests rather than economic. Mr Aiyar said Pakistan was an irreversible historical fact and that “India and Pakistan are like Siamese twins”; they couldn’t float away from each other. He said we could either carry on punching one another or work together towards a common goal. He said history didn’t divide us but historiographers did. It led to the Two-Nation theory which manifested in Pakistan and then into a three-state reality. He said there were Muslims shrines in India just as there were Hindu shrines in Pakistan. He lauded the idea of writing a joint history which was a difficult task. He commented that communalised approach to history was dangerous. “We must recognise the diversity of our heritage.” He said there were people in the Indian foreign office who were ignorant of and prejudiced against Pakistan — foreign offices of both countries were a problem. We must resume restructuring of an uninterrupted and uninterruptible dialogue and prevent hostile elements from not letting the dialogue take place. He stressed we shouldn’t let the non-state actors disrupt dialogue. He said a window of opportunity in Nov 2011 had been seen (he appreciated that the prime minister of India had called the prime minister of Pakistan a man of peace) and we must consolidate that point. For that to happen we still had two and a half years. Agreeing with I.A. Rehman on working together on different forums, he said India and Pakistan should also work with each other for UN reform and nuclear disarmament. Two presentations were made in the third session, presided over by economist Kaiser Bengali: one by Dr Tipu Sultan (on health-related issues) and the other by Iffat Ara (on matters pertaining to trade). In the concluding session Mr Aiyar delivered a longish speech in which he by giving a detailed historic perspective emphasised the point that civilizationally India and Pakistan shared more than what set them apart. He began by suggesting that two words, asymmetry and non-reciprocity, were key to coming closer — one should be friendlier to the other. He argued trade between the two had to be dealt with in a sensitive manner rather than bringing down all barriers. After tracing the centuries’ old common history, and after touching upon the phase when Indian leaders (Gandhi, Nehru, etc) suffered inferiority complex vis-à-vis Europeans and then restored self-confidence, he said it was Tagore and Iqbal who started Asian Renaissance in the region. He said in early 1947 through a conference Nehru wanted Asia to be the centre of the world. He said if Pakistan had ancestral relations with West Asia and Central Asia, it shouldn’t bother India; similarly India also had relations with these regions. But the fact remained that there were more civilisational similarities between India and Pakistan. He said Mughals ruled India for hundreds of years and during that time only 24 per cent of the population was Muslim, which clearly indicated that there was no major attempt to forcibly convert Hindus into Muslims. He said South Asia had survived on the basis of plurality whereas West Asia had survived on the basis of uniformity. He disagreed with Javed Jabbar who wrote in one his books that there’s a Muslim nation in India. He said sub-identity had to be given recognition. He said we had common civilisation and only when India’s hostility got asserted a reaction from Pakistan was witnessed. He again suggested that a structured uninterrupted and uninterruptible dialogue was necessary and for that to happen there should be a designated day (Thursday) at the Wagah-Attari border; the foreign offices of both countries shouldn’t be allowed to prevent the meetings from happening; all subjects should be discussed etc.Najmuddin Shaikh said he was a bureaucrat and remained so, but Mr Aiyar was a bureaucrat who became a politician and had now turned into a visionary. REFERENCE: Historiographers, not history, blamed for India-Pakistan dividePeerzada Salman November 13, 2011 http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/13/historiographers-not-history-blamed-for-india-pakistan-divide.html

Mani Shankar Aiyar & Indo-Pakistan Relations - 4 (Capital Talk - 2nd Feb 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9mGZAf3Lz0

These dazed and confused Political Mullahs have no idea of International Politics, International Relations and Trade Relations when they miserably try to defend Pakistan and Pakistan's National Interest through Islamic Lense. Please go through the public statements issued by two Chiefs of Jamat-e-Islami and then read the details about Saudi-India Diplomatic and Trade Relations while keeping in mind the Rampant and Deviant Statements of Jamat-e-Islami Chiefs on Diplomatic Relations with Non-Muslim States.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Former Amir (Chief) Jamat-e-Islami

Qazi sees international conspiracy against nuclear Pakistan GEO TV Updated at: 1719 PST, Sunday, May 10, 2009 http://www.geo.tv/5-10-2009/41789.htm SIALKOT: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) former Amir Qazi Hussain Ahmed on Sunday said that international conspiracies were being hatched against Pakistan due to its nuclear capability. Addressing a news conference here, he said that United States, Israel and India were behind these conspiracies against nuclear Pakistan. He regretted that Pakistan is an ally of non-Muslim states instead of Muslim nations. Ahmed underscored that the country needed to end its alliance with the U.S. to resolve all of its problems. Former JI Amir further said that “The United States wants to see Indian dominance in this part of the world.”

Syed Munawar Hassan, Amir (Chief) Jamat-e-Islami

The JI Ameer stated this while addressing a large rally of party activists on The Mall on Sunday [Military action may lead to martial law, says Munawwar By Our Correspondent LAHORE Monday, May 11, 2009 - The News International http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=176929] Speaking on the occasion, the JI Ameer said Pakistan at the moment was facing three enemies in form of US, Israel and India which were the centre of evils. Terming India a state full of conflicts, Munawwar said “India was the name of contradiction and conflict.” The JI Ameer stressed that focus should be made on the eastern border of the countries and a strict check must be kept on the evil designs of India. “Our army should concentrate on the eastern borders of the country”, said the JI Ameer.

SAUDI-INDIA TIES [MUSLIM AND NON-MUSLIM RELATIONS]

New Delhi, January 21-26, 2006.

2006 News Story

King Abdullah receives a warm welcome in India 01/26/2006

http://www.saudiembassy.net/2006News/News/NewsDetail.asp?cIndex=5900

King Abdullah, Prime Minister Singh and President Abdul Kalam at National Day

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz is currently on a state visit to India, the first such visit by a Saudi king in more than 50 years. The visit aims to expand energy cooperation and trade relations with India, one of Asia’s fastest growing economies. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh broke protocol by personally receiving King Abdullah at the airport January 22, a sign of how much importance India attaches to the royal visit, the Arab News reported. King Abdullah was also the guest of honor at India’s Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi today. King Abdullah and the Prime Minister held official talks yesterday after a ceremonial reception at the presidential palace, which included a 21-gun salute.

King Abdullah and Prime Minister Singh

The talks focused on long-term security cooperation, including fighting terrorism, international crime and energy security. The two nations signed a number of agreements, including a Memorandum of Understanding on fighting terrorism, an accord to avoid double-taxation, and a convention to promote bilateral investment. Following their meeting, King Abdullah and the Prime Minister opened a Saudi business exhibition, where Saudi and Indian businessmen signed 10 economic agreements. Yesterday evening, King Abdullah met with Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam at the presidential palace in New Delhi. In remarks, the King offered his thanks for the warm reception, and expressed optimism that his visit to India would be a vital step towards closer cooperation between the two nations. “India’s economic growth has attracted world attention. We are happy that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be one of India's major trade partners,” King Abdullah said. “Moreover, the Kingdom is also happy to host more than 1.5 million Indians who are contributing to the progress, development and prosperity of the two countries.”

King Abdullah and President Abdul Kalam

King Abdullah also expressed the hope that India would continue its supporting international efforts to achieve a fair and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Speaking to Saudi reporters in New Delhi Monday, Indian Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed described King Abdullah’s visit as “important and historic.” He said India attached great importance to the visit, which would further strengthen longstanding relations between India and Saudi Arabia, the Arab News reported.

King Abdullah discusses trade in India

Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said that India would extend an offer to Saudi Aramco to collaborate on a Hindustan Petroleum refinery project in Visakhapatnam in India’s southern Andhra Pradesh region. Aiyar also said he hopes to discuss bilateral issues with Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, who is part of King Abdullah’s delegation. “The issue of hydrocarbon cooperation is also a component of bilateral talks that are going to be held between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Saudi king,” Aiyar said, as quoted in the Arab News. “So far as the oil component of our energy security is concerned, we have a strong assurance from Saudi Arabia that any incremental requirement will be met by them,” he said. Aiyar also said that a 26 percent dependence on Saudi Arabia is optimal and that now there is a need to diversify oil sources. Saudi Arabia accounts for nearly a quarter of India’s total oil imports, which amount to around 1.9 million barrels per day.

King Abdullah at ceremonial reception

In an interview with India’s NDTV channel over the weekend, King Abdullah discussed bilateral relations between the two countries, as well as a number of regional and international issues of common interest, including energy and terrorism. The King underscored the friendly relations between Saudi Arabia and India, and said that he hopes India and Pakistan resolve their differences peacefully. Everything can be achieved through dialogue, he said. He also said he believes India can play a role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, possibly as an observer, like Russia. On oil, King Abdullah said that Saudi Arabia has the capability to meet the petroleum needs of India and other countries. He remarked that the Kingdom prefers lower oil prices because higher prices are not in the interest of developing countries. In the interview, King Abdullah also said that Saudi Arabia’s friendly relations with China and India would not affect its good relations with the United States, which has been a friend of the Kingdom for over 60 years. In addition, he stressed Saudi Arabia’s staunch opposition to terrorism.

OIC: Saudi king hopes Pakistan will sponsor India by Our Correspondent

http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/23/top11.htm

NEW DELHI, Jan 22: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has expressed the hope that Pakistan would sponsor India’s membership as an observer of the OIC even as he called on the two countries to resolve their differences. In a rare interview to India’s NDTV news channel King Abdullah did not name Kashmir as the dispute but left no doubt that he was seriously concerned about the issue. “I do believe that India can play a role in such an organisation, just like Russia does. Russia has an observer status in the Organisation of Islamic Conference and I believe that it will be very beneficial if the application of India could be put forth by a country such as Pakistan,” said the king.

Asked whether his country’s ties with Pakistan had impeded relations with India, the monarch said: “You are correct. The issue of Pakistan has had an impact on Saudi-India relations. I believe that the conflict that exists, the complication that exists, do not help the image of either country.” He said Pakistan is a “brotherly country and friendly country with which we have great ties.”

On the other hand, he said, India is a friendly country with which the kingdom has historic ties. “There is no doubt that the relationship of Saudi Arabia with Pakistan is a great relationship.”

He said Saudi Arabia was not funding terrorism directly or indirectly against India or any other country through its funds in Pakistan.

About his present visit to China, he said ties with China and India were not to come about at the expense of the United States its old ally and solid friend.

Hinting at a deeper partnership with India, King Abdullah admitted that current oil prices were too high and thus hurting developing countries. He said Saudi Arabia had the ability to meet any requirement that India may have for its energy security.

“We want to strengthen the link between India and Saudi Arabia with regards to energy and the ability to provide energy to India over the long term. From our perspective I personally feel that the current price of oil is too high.

“The price is damaging to developing countries who subsequently have to suffer. The price needs to be at a more moderate level. With regards to the export of crude oil to India, we would like to provide India’s requirement of energy in the future,” he said.

He also said he would like to move ahead with reforms in all areas, such as women’s rights. But he felt his country needed to be ready for this.

The king will arrive in New Delhi on Jan 24 and will be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations.
===

SAUDI-INDIA TRADE RELATION [Muslim Country and Non-Muslim Country]

From January 1991 to 2004, Government has approved 26,588 foreign collaboration (technical & financial) proposals with a corresponding foreign direct investment of Rs. 2,497.18 crore (US $ 67.15) billion and Cumulative inflows of FDI during 1991-2004 (up to November) is Rs. 131,387 Crore (US $ 32.15) billion.

The tables given below indicate the year-wise figures of foreign Investment approved with Saudi Arabian companies since 1991.

(* Updated up to November 2004)

(Inflow is 9.22% of the FDI approved)

The Industry-wise break-up of foreign direct investment and technical collaboration approved for Saudi Arabian companies during 01.08.1991 to 30.11.2004 is at Annex. I.

Details of FDI cases approved for Saudi Arabia during 01.08.1991 to 30.11.2004 is at Annex-II.

India-GCC Trade

Note: Imports figures for 200-2001 onwards do not include import of Petroleum Products (27100093) and Curde Oil (27090000)

Source: Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry,Government of India.

Trade between India and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

(From 1999 to 2007)

List of Indian Companies Participated in Saudi Arabia’s

http://www.cgijeddah.com/cgijed/COMM/bilateral/Indian%20comp%20in%20tradefairs.htm

List of Saudi Companies/ Government Departments participated in the

“Saudi Arabia in India” Exhibition

http://www.cgijeddah.com/cgijed/COMM/bilateral/Saudi%20comp%20in%20tradefairs.htm

Mirza Aslam Beg & Hamid Gul Support Sectarianism.

2012-02-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

MULTAN: Even if the government decides to restore Nato’s supply route, the country’s religious parties plan to robustly oppose the move. At the Difa-e-Pakistan conference here on Sunday, the leaders threatened a siege of parliament if the Nato supply line was restored. Jamaat-e-Islami chief Munawwar Hassan said on Sunday that any resolution submitted in parliament favouring restoration of the US-Nato supply routes would be a step against Pakistan. The speakers declared that parliamentarians approving the resolution for allowing Nato supply resumption and those who granted the most favoured nation (MFN) status to India must be ready to “face the music”. Chief of Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ) Ahmed Ludhianvi said that if the government decides to restore Nato supply routes, his party workers would block the route themselves. The supply route was suspended by Pakistan after the November 26, 2011 Nato air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and took Pakistan’s fragile alliance with the US to new lows. The JI chief, referring to the chief of army staff, said: “Enough is enough. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani should be very clear with regards to the policies and relations with the US and India.” Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami chief Maulana Samiul Haq also addressed the convention and said that “if the US, Israel, India or Nato forces” attack Pakistan’s border, they will retaliate against them with “full force”. Malik Ishaq, the former head of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, also attended the gathering on the special invitation from the ASWJ leadership. “We will not let this government negotiate with India and the US who are the greatest enemies of Pakistan,” said Difa-e-Pakistan Council Chairman Maulana Samiul Haq. “The government will see its worst days if they restore the Nato supply line. We will surround the parliament and will not allow them to move outside unless they change their decision,” he added. The ASWJ had expected an attendance of more than 200,000 people for the gathering but intelligence sources estimated that about 50,000 participants came to the venue. The meeting was attended by the Sheikh Rasheed, Hafiz Saeed, Hameed Gul, and leaders of many religious parties from across the country including Ijazul Haq, Abdul Rehman Maki, Hafiz Saifullah Mansoor and Maulana Ameer Hamza. Meanwhile, the Markazi Jamiyat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees (JAH) demanded an inquiry into the funding of the event. The group’s local chief Allama Khalid Mehmood Nadeem said the government should take notice of the “millions of rupees” wasted in organising the Difa-e-Pakistan convention. Published in The Express Tribune, January 30th, 2012. REFERENCE: Difa-e-Pakistan convention: Religious parties threaten to besiege parliament Published: January 30, 2012 http://tribune.com.pk/story/329145/difa-e-pakistan-convention-religious-parties-threaten-to-besiege-parliament/ Current situation retribution for allowing our soil’s use against Afghans: Hafiz Saeed By Mudassir Raja Published: January 22, 2012 http://tribune.com.pk/story/325492/current-situation-retribution-for-allowing-our-soils-use-against-afghans-hafiz-saeed/

Shaikh Rasheed Ahmad & Sectarian Parties - 1 (Lekin - 4th Feb 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnegSRJA_xk

Sectarian conflict in Pakistan is the direct consequence of state policies of Islamisation and marginalisation of secular democratic forces. Co-option and patronage of religious parties by successive military governments have brought Pakistan to a point where religious extremism threatens to erode the foundations of the state and society. As President Pervez Musharraf is praised by the international community for his role in the war against terrorism, the frequency and viciousness of sectarian terrorism continues to increase in his country. Instead of empowering liberal, democratic voices, the government has co-opted the religious right and continues to rely on it to counter civilian opposition. By depriving democratic forces of an even playing field and continuing to ignore the need for state policies that would encourage and indeed reflect the country's religious diversity, the government has allowed religious extremist organisations and jihadi groups, and the madrasas that provide them an endless stream of recruits, to flourish. It has failed to protect a vulnerable judiciary and equip its law-enforcement agencies with the tools they need to eliminate sectarian terrorism. Constitutional provisions to "Islamise" laws, education and culture, and official dissemination of a particular brand of Islamic ideology, not only militate against Pakistan's religious diversity but also breed discrimination against non-Muslim minorities. The political use of Islam by the state promotes an aggressive competition for official patronage between and within the many variations of Sunni and Shia Islam, with the clerical elite of major sects and subsects striving to build up their political parties, raise jihadi militias, expand madrasa networks and, as has happened on Musharraf's watch, become part of government. Like all other Pakistani military governments, the Musharraf administration has also weakened secular and democratic political forces. Administrative and legal action against militant organisations has failed to dismantle a well-entrenched and widely spread terror infrastructure. All banned extremist groups persist with new labels, although old names are also still in use. The jihadi media is flourishing, and the leading figures of extremist Sunni organisations are free to preach their jihadi ideologies. Leaders of banned groups such as the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Sipahe Sahaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed appear to enjoy virtual immunity from the law. They have gained new avenues to propagate their militant ideas since the chief patrons of jihad, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), have acquired prominent and powerful roles in Musharraf's political structure. The Islamisation of laws and education, in particular, graphically illustrates the Sunni sectarian bias of the Pakistani state. General Zia-ul-Haq's Islamic penal code, retained by General Musharraf, is derived entirely from classical Sunni-Hanafi orthodox sources. The same is true of "Islamic" textbooks in public schools and colleges. The Shia minority -- and, in some cases, even the majority Sunni Barelvi sect -- is deeply resentful of this orthodox Hanafi Sunni bias in state policies. Within Sunnism itself, the competition for state patronage and a share in power has turned minor theological debates and cultural differences into unbridgeable, volatile sectarian divisions. After decades of co-option by the civil-military establishment, Pakistan's puritanical clergy is attempting to turn the country into a confessional state where the religious creed of a person is the sole marker of identity. Except for a few showcase "reformed" madrasas, no sign of change is visible. Because of the mullahs' political utility, the military-led government's proposed measures, from curriculum changes to a new registration law, have been dropped in the face of opposition by the MMA (Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal) and its madrasa subsidiaries. Instead, financial and political incentives to the mullahs have raised their public profile and influence. The government's approach towards religious extremism is epitomised by its deals with extremists in the tribal areas, concluded through JUI mediation after payment of bribes to militant leaders. The anomalous constitutional status and political disenfranchisement of regions like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Northern Areas have turned them into sanctuaries for sectarian and international terrorists and centres of the arms and drugs trade. Parallel legal and judicial systems, which exist in many parts of the country with the blessing of the state, undermine the rule of law. The reform of discriminatory laws and procedures has, at best, been cosmetic -- they remain open to abuse by religious fanatics. Bereft of independence, the judiciary is unable to check the rising sectarian violence. Subjected to political interference, an inefficient police has become even more incapable of dealing with sectarian terrorism. President Musharraf's lack of domestic legitimacy has forced the military to rely on alliances of convenience with the religious right, based on the politics of patronage. In the absence of international support, moderate, secular and democratic parties will remain in the political cold. The choice that Pakistan faces is not between the military and the mullahs, as is generally believed in the West; it is between genuine democracy and a military-mullah alliance that is responsible for producing and sustaining religious extremism of many hues. Given the intrinsic links between Pakistan-based homegrown and transnational terrorists, the one cannot be effectively contained and ultimately eliminated without acting against the other. The government's unwillingness to demonstrate political will to deal with the internal jihad could cost it international support, much of which is contingent upon Pakistan's performance in the war against terrorism. The U.S. and other influential actors have realised with regard to their own societies that terrorism can only be eliminated through pluralistic democratic structures. Pakistan should not be treated as an exception. REFERENCE: The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan Asia Report Nº9518 Apr 2005 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/pakistan/095-the-state-of-sectarianism-in-pakistan.aspx FULL REPORT http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-asia/pakistan/095_the_state_of_sectarianism_in_pakistan.pdf

Shaikh Rasheed Ahmad & Sectarian Parties - 2 (Lekin - 4th Feb 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGw2jaehpbs

Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan: The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) was formed in 1985 in Jhang mainly by four anti-Shia clerics: Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, Maulana Zia-ur-Rehman Faruqi, Maulana Easar-ul-Haq Qasmi and Maulana Azam Tariq. The group had grown out of the Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba, and was supported by the Zia regime to deal with what was considered in Islamabad and Riyadh as the Iranian threat. Moreover, as renowned academic Vali Nasr claims, establishing the SSP was part of Zia’s strategy to counter the Shia sect in Pakistan, as he considered it inimical to the Islamisation of the state and society. Allegedly, the ISI was therefore involved in sectarian killings and was supportive of such rabid Sunni outfits. The deliberate ouster of Shia-based militant outfits after 1989 is evidence of the enigmatic agency’s support for a particular ideology. According to writer and columnist Khaled Ahmed, whose book on sectarian violence in Pakistan will be published soon, the initial financing for the SSP was secured from both internal and external sources. The internal source was mainly the local trader-merchant class in Jhang, especially the likes of local businessman Sheikh Yusuf, who was also a primary contractor for the army. The external source, on the other hand, comprised funding received from the Arab rulers of the Gulf, who used to visit Rahim Yar Khan on hunting trips. He claims that Maulana Jhangvi also enriched himself through this connection. Moreover, due to the links of its leaders with South Punjab, the outfit grew most exponentially in this particular region. It is hence not surprising to see a rise in sectarian violence in South Punjab, especially during the 1980s and the 1990s. For those who forget that there was ever the influence of such militant outfits in the Punjab, it would be advisable to recall SSP terrorists like Riaz Basra, who had 300 murders to his credit before he was finally killed in 2002. The SSP was also responsible for an attack on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 1997/98. Sharif escaped a bomb explosion on a bridge en route to his farmhouse in Raiwind. The rivalry between the SSP and the Sharifs began after Shahbaz Sharif had some SSP terrorists eliminated. It has, however, been reported that the divide between the PML-N and the SSP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) has been bridged recently through negotiations between the parties. Ostensibly, a deal was struck, in which the PML-N Punjab government promised to create job quotas for SSP members in exchange for the withdrawal of the LeJ candidate standing against Shahbaz Sharif in Bhakkar. The SSP advocates Deobandi ideology and served as the basic ideological and militant curry paste out of which several other jihadi outfits grew, such as the LeJ, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Ansar and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). The SSP has been involved in both sectarian violence and war, initially against the former Soviet Union, and later the US. In fact, Ramzi Yusuf, who was involved in trying to blow up the World Trade Centre in 1993, was linked to this militant outfit. This group is also reputed to have been the first to dispatch its jihadis to join Al-Qaeda. In any case, it had gone to fight in Afghanistan in 1985. Domestically, it was involved in a spate of Shia killings, particularly those of Shia doctors in Karachi in 2001. However, the SSP also developed itself as a political entity, with some of its prominent members contesting elections. For instance, Maulana Azam Tariq, who was one of its founding members and became its head in 1997, contested the 1990, 1993 and 2002 elections. The political and militant wings of the SSP, like those of Hamas, are difficult to distinguish – the latter continues to be involved in jihad and now supports the Taliban. The SSP seems to have been resurrected in South Punjab in the past couple of years and also has links with other outfits such as the JeM. Apparently, in a meeting in October 2008, Masood Azhar performed the dastaarbandi of SSP’s Maulana Zia-ul-Haq Qasmi, who was appointed the chairman of the supreme council of the SSP. REFERENCE: Brothers in Arms By Ayesha Siddiqa 9 SEPTEMBER 2009 http://www.newslinemagazine.com/2009/09/brothers-in-arms/

Shaikh Rasheed Ahmad & Sectarian Parties - 3 (Lekin - 4th Feb 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE-gqBGzIiw

Lashkar-e-Tayyaba - Ideologically different from the other organisations, the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) is an organisation based in Central Punjab that has now spread its tentacles throughout South Punjab as well. Established during the early 1990s in the province of Kunar in Afghanistan, by Hafiz Saeed, the LeT has its headquarters in Muridke, near Lahore. However, this might only be the token centre of the operation, which has franchises in other sub-regions including South Punjab, particularly Punjabi ethnic settlements in Seraiki-speaking areas. For instance, in the Bahawalpur division, it has greater influence in villages with Punjabi settlements, e.g. Yazman, Shahiwala, Kalanchwala, Bahawalnagar and those parts of Cholistan where there are new settlements. The LeT is extremely ingenuous and creative in attracting people, including women, to its fold. It probably has to work harder than other outfits in this area, as it is predominantly known as a Barelvi stronghold with only a secondary influence of Deobandism. Most of the Deobandi followers view the LeT with suspicion. However, outright conflicts between the Deobandi groups and the LeT have not yet occurred. The LeT continues to draw people to its fold through intelligent propaganda mechanisms, which include large congregations at the ghaibana namaz-e-janaza and wall graffiti. In the past few years, the LeT has also earned a name for its welfare activities and for helping the Pakistan Army in Kashmir, especially in the wake of the 2006 earthquake. The organisation seems to now be active once more, as it has been allowed to operate in the refugee camps for the Swat IDPs, providing welfare and relief. REFERENCE: Brothers in Arms By Ayesha Siddiqa 9 SEPTEMBER 2009 http://www.newslinemagazine.com/2009/09/brothers-in-arms/

Shaikh Rasheed Ahmad & Sectarian Parties - 4 (Lekin - 4th Feb 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DXSGBtSSc8

Jaish-e-Mohammad: The mastermind behind the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) is Maulana Masood Azhar of Bahawalpur, who created the outfit after returning from India in 2000. Azhar was initially a member of the SSP. Later, he joined the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), and was instrumental in forming the Hartak-ul-Ansar (HuA) by combining the HuM and another outfit called the Harkat-ul-Jihad (HuJ). The HuA was deeply involved in Afghanistan. According to one report, 39 out of 113 jihadis caught in Afghanistan in 1997 belonged to this group. Azhar was caught in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1993, from where he managed to return to Pakistan in 2000, courtesy of the Taliban and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. Subsequently, he established the JeM, due to his differences with the Pashtoon militant leader Fazlul Rehman Khalil. Reportedly, they had separated due to ideological differences, including the fact that Khalil did not necessarily support the Kashmir jihad on grounds that the majority of Kashmiris were Barelvis. In any case, breaking up old organisations and building newer ones is not an anomaly. It must be remembered that at the time of 9/11 there were about 72 militant outfits operating in the Punjab. Many of these splinter groups were created by breaking up parent organisations, if they were seen as not delivering or spinning out of control. Masood Azhar and his party have a long-standing relationship with the intelligence agencies who have, on several occasions, come to his rescue, even helping to free him in 2002/2003. Sources claim that Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, who was close to both the Shujaat Hussain/Pervaiz Elahi government and the secret agencies, was instrumental in the release, which went through despite the opposition of the district police. The ISI was also allegedly instrumental in building up the JeM. Azhar belonged to a humble family of Bahawalpur. Born to Ustad Allah Bakhsh, a primary school teacher with nine children who lived in a one-and-a-half marla house inside the old city, Masood Azhar and his family now own about four kanals of property in Bahawalpur, and another six-and-a-half acres outside the city. The value of their vehicles and military equipment runs into further millions of rupees that are unaccounted for. The group itself recently purchased land in Bahawalpur, which many believe is being used as a training camp. It seems a payment of Rs 7,600,000 was made from untraceable sources. The general perception about the organisation is that it has more than sufficient resources, obtained from multiple sources, including its welfare susidiary, the Al-Rehmat Trust. A former jihadi and JeM accountant told me he was frustrated to see the money received for the martyrs and their families being used by Masood Azhar for the construction of a new room and a toilet for his residence after his marriage. Similarly, police officials responsible for keeping an eye on the organisation talk about the questionable behaviour of Azhar’s younger brother, Abdul Rauf Azhar. It is possibly due to the overly centralised structure of the organisation that Masood Azhar’s brother-in-law parted ways with him and set up another group called Al-Furqan, which was allegedly involved in the assassination attempts against Musharraf. One of the proclaimed offenders in this case, Hafiz Ahsan, and his family are from Khankah Sharif, Bahawalpur. A common link between the JeM, SSP and the LeJ is that they all follow the Deobandi ideology, which is also subscribed to by the Taliban. Furthermore, all three drew upon human resources that were trained during the initial Afghan war. Although known for being an organisation dedicated to the Kashmir conflict, the JeM has also been engaged in Afghanistan lately. This is not such a leap, considering that Al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden directly played the role of a benefactor of the organisation when it was being established in 2000. Rumour has it that bin Laden compensated the HeM for JeM’s takeover of the former’s assets, which had caused a conflict between the two. Most negotiations were facilitated and negotiated at the Banuri town madrassa in Karachi. The state, however, was said to have provided most of the logistic support and ensured that law-enforcement agencies stayed away. In 2000, the JeM got into a confrontation with the local administration in Bahawalpur over the imprisonment of some of its members for their involvement in the harassment of a local transporter. The outfit’s jihadis surrounded the local town hall and Masood Azhar threatened that rivers of blood would flow if the state of Pakistan shifted its attention away from Kashmir. Eventually, most of the group’s members were freed and the senior superintendent of police responsible for the action against the outfit was transferred out – subtle evidence of government support for the JeM. Similarly, the police remained silent about the murder of Al-Furqan activist Rab Nawaz, who died in a shootout between the JeM and Al-Furqan in Bahawalpur a few months ago. In the recent past, the JeM has won acclaim among its ilk for its links with Umar Saeed Sheikh, who was involved in the murder of Daniel Pearl. However, some experts claim that Sheikh was actually working for the Hizb-ut-Tehreer, with only a minor partnership with the JeM. Yet, it is indisputable that he was seen in the company of Maulana Masood Azhar, the outfit’s domineering leader. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) grew out of the SSP and was established by two prominent SSP members in 1996, namely Malik Ishaq and Riaz Basra – one belonging to Khanewal and the other to Sargodha. The group itself was founded in Bhakkar, South Punjab. While Malik Ishaq is currently imprisoned in Sahiwal jail, Riaz Basra was killed in a police encounter in 2002. This only happened, however, after he managed to gain a lease on life from several governments. For instance, he was allowed to escape from police custody in 1994, after the Benazir Bhutto government and the LeJ’s parent organisation – the SSP – had entered into an election partnership. The organisation was initially focused exclusively on the elimination of Shias. After 9/11, it diverted its attention towards fighting the war on terror against the US. In fact, the LeJ was allegedly one of the first outfits to send recruits to Al-Qaeda. According to renowned journalist Khaled Ahmed, this was due to the SSP and LeJ’s contacts with Arab rulers that visited South Punjab. Later, it had links with Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, who allegedly ordered the attack on the Karachi Corps Commander in 2004. Another prominent Al-Qaeda leader associated with this outfit is Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Currently, the group is seen as being instrumental in numerous terrorist attacks in Pakistan, especially in Lahore and Islamabad. The LeJ has developed stronger links with the Taliban as well, and enjoys a growing influence in a number of South Punjab towns and rural areas. This outfit plays a critical role in supplying manpower from within Punjab that is used in terrorist activities inside the province. The Islamabad Marriott bombing and the suicide attack on the police training facility in the capital have been linked with men from South Punjab, organised by the LeJ. More recently, four men from Jhang linked with the SSP and the LeJ were arrested in connection with the attack on the 15 headquarters in Islamabad. The organisation has also propagated sectarian violence, such as the killing of the Iranian diplomat Sadiq Ganji, a group of Iranian technicians and a group of Iranian Air Force cadets visiting Pakistan. These killings during the 1990s blighted relations between Islamabad and Tehran. However, the state has yet to sentence Malik Ishaq, convicted in the aforementioned murders. A case of non-sectarian domestic violence is the attack against the Christian community in Bahawalpur city. The LeJ’s Shakeen Anwar, who belonged to Bahawalnagar, was instrumental in the attack on a church in October 2001. Although experts tend to argue that the SSP and the LeJ have a different policy from militant groups dedicated to Kashmir, evidence of linkage between the two is visible, especially in South Punjab. REFERENCE: Brothers in Arms By Ayesha Siddiqa 9 SEPTEMBER 2009 http://www.newslinemagazine.com/2009/09/brothers-in-arms/

MULTAN: Sarwat Ijaz Qadri, Chairman Sunni Tehreek (ST) said on Tuesday that his party was still contemplating joining the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and that the ST was yet to reach a consensus on the move. “I cannot confirm as the executive council will decide but we will soon reach a positive decision and the nation will hear good news. We are pondering over all aspects for becoming the part of the movement lead by PTI,” he said. Qadri was talking to the media in Multan after visiting Bahauddin Zakriyah’s shrine. The ST chairman added that his party had also requested PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi to bless them with his generosity, leadership and guide the ST as part of an impending move to join the ‘tsunami’. ‘Sufism can save Pakistan’ Qadri said that only in Sufism lay Pakistan’s survival. He added that inter-faith harmony was imperative to save the nation from destruction. He added that sectarianism, suicide attacks and bomb blasts were signs of extreme intolerance in society which could be cured through serenity, peace and love for all as taught by Islam. “Extremism can only be controlled by propagating tolerance for every faith and religion in society according to Islam.” Qadri said that funds collected from mausoleums and shrines of holy saints in the country were sufficient to run the country. “The donations collected from these shrines are more than the demand of the budget of Pakistan. If these funds will be used properly and honestly, then they are sufficient to fulfill the needs of the people of Pakistan and if government cannot do it, then we can take up the challenge and prove ourselves. He added that the democratic government should complete its tenure as it was in the interest of the country but the government should not take advantage of democracy and avoid actions which compel people to protest against them. Talking about peace in Karachi, he said that criminals who had been arrested with evidence against them for being involved in target killings and other crimes, must be put behind bars. “They should be given stern punishment, only then would peace prevail in Karachi,” he said, adding peace in Karachi was a victim of police and political reconciliation. While calling for Rangers to be allotted police powers in Karachi to maintain peace in Karachi, he said “I can only request the Supreme Court of Pakistan to announce punishment for all those criminals who were arrested for target killing, extortion, kidnapping and militancy in Karachi.” REFERENCE: Swept by Tsunami: Sunni Tehreek contemplates joining PTI By Owais Jafri Published: January 17, 2012 http://tribune.com.pk/story/322918/swept-by-tsunami-sunni-ittehad-council-contemplates-joining-pti/

Salman Taseer, American Funded Mullahs, Imran Khan & WikiLeaks. (Bolta Pakistan - 12-1-12)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3G5viJq4Tw

ISLAMABAD: The US gave money to a Pakistani Muslim group that organised anti-Taliban rallies, but which later demonstrated in support of an extremist who killed a leading liberal politician, the US Embassy in Pakistan said Wednesday. US government website Usaspending.gov shows that the group, the Sunni Ittehad Council, received $36,607 from Washington in 2009. A US diplomat said that the embassy had given money to the group to organise the rallies, but that it had since changed direction and leadership. He said it was a one-off grant, and wouldn’t be repeated. He didn’t give his name because he wasn’t authorised to speak about the issue on the record. The grant was first reported by the Council of Foreign Relations on its website. The Ittehad council was formed in 2009 to counter extremism. It groups politicians and clerics from Pakistan’s traditionalist Barelvi Muslim movement, often referred to as theological moderates in the Pakistani context. The American money was used to organise nationwide rallies against militants and suicide bombings, the embassy official said. The demonstrations received widespread media coverage, and were some of the first against extremism in the country. The rhetoric at the rallies was mostly focused on opposing militant attacks on shrines, which Barelvis frequent but are opposed by Deobandi Muslims, Pakistan’s other main Muslim sect. In 2011 and also this month, however, the council led demonstrations in support of the killer of Salman Taseer, a governor who was killed a year ago for his criticism of anti-blasphemy laws. The displays have appalled Pakistani liberals and stoked international fears that the country is buckling under the weight of extremism. Taseer’s assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, is a Barelvi. He claimed he acted to defend the honour of Prophet Mohammed. At its rallies, the group maintains its criticism of the Taliban even as it supports Qadri — a seemingly contradictory stance that suggests its leaders may be more interested in harnessing the political support and street power of Barelvis than in genuinely countering militancy. Two leading members of the council who have been with the group from the beginning of its existence denied receiving any American funds. The apparent discrepancy could be explained by lack of transparency within the organisation. However, given the current anti-American climate, owning up to receiving funds from the United States would invite criticism. ”This propaganda is being unleashed against us because we are strongly opposed to Western democracy and American policies in the region and in the world,” said Sahibzada Fazal Karim, the head of the council, before reiterating the group’s support for Qadri. ”We are against extremism, but we support Qadri because he did a right thing,” he said. REFERENCE: US aided Pakistan group which supported extremists AP January 11, 2012 http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/11/us-aided-pakistan-group-which-supported-extremists.html US Aided Pakistan Group Which Supported Extremists By CHRIS BRUMMITT Associated Press ISLAMABAD January 11, 2012 (AP) http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-aided-pakistan-group-supported-extremists-15337104#.TxbIPKXrrje http://www.usaspending.gov/explore?typeofview=complete&recipname=SUNNI%20ITTEHAD%20COUNCIL&tab=By+Prime+Awardee&overridecook=yes&frompage=assistance&target=_parent&carryfilters=on&federal_award_id=SPK33010GR009&fromfiscal=yes&fiscal_year=2010&recipientid=605899

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Saturday said WikiLeaks has made the greatest disclosure that the Pakistani politicians, whether they are in government or in opposition, are American stooges. Imran, who has come clean like a handful of other politicians, alleged Pakistani politicians proved themselves as Mir Jaffars and Mir Sadiqs (two hated characters in the Islamic history for they betrayed the valiant Muslim ruler Sultan Tipu). Speaking at a news conference here after his foreign visit, the cricketer-turned-politician regretted that the incumbent was a dummy parliament and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had proved it by asking the US authorities to continue with drone strikes, as he would take care of the legislature. Referring to the startling cable disclosures, Imran said neither the people of Pakistan were free nor the nation had a free and independent foreign policy. He added a political party, which was a part of the movement for the judiciary’s independence, had supported the government in undermining the judiciary’s independent character through the 18th Amendment. His reference was towards PML-N. The PTI chief went on to say that the NRO-tainted politicians involved in money-laundering could never safeguard the national interests. REFERENCE: WikiLeaks proves Pak politicians US stooges: Imran Mumtaz Alvi Sunday, December 12, 2010 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2622&Cat=13

Imran Khan's Press Conference After WikiLeaks

He said that the on-going peaceful protest demonstrations of the PTI against price hike in consumer goods, corruption in high places and against RGST, would lead to civil disobedience soon. He claimed that the corrupt political elite had obtained as many as 0.4 million electricity connections and Wapda had no will to lay a hand on them. Replying to a question, Imran ridiculed the idea of giving powers to parliamentarians under the parliamentary committee to approve appointment of superior court judges. He charged that one of the committee members had grabbed 80-kanal piece of land in Bani Gala. Imran also has his residence in the picturesque locality near Rawal Lake. The PTI chief welcomed the formal joining of the PTI by 40 lawyers of Rawalpindi bar on the occasion and cautioned them to beware of the government’s efforts to divide them for which money was being doled out. “Majority of those named in the committee are corrupt and how can corrupt people be authorised to appoint judges,” he said. REFERENCE: WikiLeaks proves Pak politicians US stooges: Imran Mumtaz Alvi Sunday, December 12, 2010 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2622&Cat=13

Sunni Tehreek is a Gang of Criminal (AAJ TV)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdssekCLeDg

KARACHI: A young man was killed and at least two injured in a clash between Sunni Tehreek (ST) workers and the police in the PECHS area on Wednesday. Tension and fear gripped various areas of the city following the incident and unknown men torched at least three vehicles. The incident took place outside the house where slain ST leader Abbas Qadri used to live. Qadri was killed in the Nishtar Park suicide blast. The house is located within the limits of Ferozabad police station and is its residents are Qadri’s relatives. Trouble started when the police arrived at the house to vacate Qadri’s family. A score of ST workers had gathered to stop the police. They hurled stones at the police, which retaliated with aerial firing, baton charges and tear-gassing. According to eyewitnesses, both the police and ST workers not only aerial fired but also took shots at each other, resulting in the death of a man and injuries to two.

However, the police and the ST have traded allegations of being responsible for the incident. The youth killed in the incident was identified as Wasim Ahmed Siddiqui, 25, a resident of Shah Faisal Colony. Police: SHO Farooq Satti said the police did not fire at ST workers and instead it them who fired at the police from different sides. The SHO said that the police hadn’t even reached the house and were some distance away when ST workers started firing. “They also used kalashnikovs,” he said. “The man was killed due to the firing of ST workers and it is still unclear whether he was one of them or a passerby,” the SHO said. “An FIR against ST workers is being registered.” The owner: The house where Qadri’s family is living belongs to Additional Secretary (LE) Riazuddin. “They (Qadri’s family) have occupied the house and the police was taking action on court’s order,” Riazuddin said. ST: ST’s central leader Shahid Ghouri said that the police on the behest of Riazuddin tried to vacate the residents of the house. He claimed that the deceased and the injured were their party workers. “Wasim (the deceased) was deputed at Qadri’s house due to security concerns,” Ghouri said. The ST leader said that Qadri’s family was living in the house since six years on Rs 20,000 per month rent, but Riazuddin and his family had disappeared since the last four years and therefore the rent was being paid in the court.

“The house is a memorial of our beloved leader and we are ready to pay money for it, but won’t vacate it,” he added. Ghouri also demanded that an FIR be registered against Riazuddin and the police officials involved in the incident. Tension: Soon after the incident, tension and fear gripped various areas of the city including Shah Faisal Colony, Saddar, PECHS, New Karachi Town, Kharadar, Meethadar and other ST-dominated areas after unidentified people restored to aerial firing. Routine life was suspended due to panic and shops were shut down. Unidentified people also torched a route no W-11 passenger bus in New Karachi area, a route no 17-D passenger bus in Jut Line and one motorcycle near Merewether Tower. REFERENCE: Tension prevails in various areas of city, 3 vehicles set ablaze: One killed, two hurt as ST workers clash with police By Faraz Khan Thursday, July 02, 2009 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\07\02\story_2-7-2009_pg12_1

According to the cable, the local police believes that “MQM-H still maintains its armed groups in the areas of Landhi and Korangi, and that the party will re-organise itself once its leadership is released from jail. MQM-H had broken from the main MQM and its strongholds in Landhi and Korangi were regarded as no-go zones. It was in 2003 that the MQM, as a precondition to join the government, asked for the elimination of the MQM-H. The local police and Rangers were used to crack down on MQM-H, and its leaders were put behind bars. The rank and file of MQM-H found refuge in a local religious/political party, Sunni Tehrik,” the assessment reads. The cable goes on to note that the “ST is a small religious/political group with a presence in small pockets of Karachi. The group has only managed to win a handful of council seats in local elections but militarily it is disproportionately powerful because of the influx of MQM-H gunmen. ST has organised the party and its gunmen along the lines of MQM by dividing its areas of influence into sectors and units, with sector and unit commanders”. REFERENCE: ‘Armed gangs outnumber police in Karachi’ By Idrees Bakhtiar | From the Newspaper (18 hours ago) Today http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/23/armed-gangs-outnumber-police-in-karachi.html

Karachi Sunni Tehreek's Encroachment

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uueVB7KfWMQ

KARACHI, July 30 The Fereozeabad police registered on Thursday an FIR against the additional home secretary for the murder of a Sunni Tehreek activist. The police acted on the orders of a sessions court, which acknowledged a complaint from the ST that the senior provincial official, Riazuddin Qureshi, was behind the July 1 shootout that killed one of its activists. An ST worker was killed and another was wounded during the shootout with the police in front of the rented house of the party`s slain chief, Abbas Qadri, in PECHS. The house was originally owned by the mother of Mr Qureshi. The police authorities claimed that the law enforcers had gone with a bailiff for the compliance of court orders for the eviction of the tenants when ST workers opened fire on the police party to prevent eviction. The ST, however, alleged that the police opened heavy fire on the ST workers who were protesting against the police harassment on the instruction of the additional home secretary. The officials said the FIR was registered after district and sessions judge Munawar Sultana ordered the Ferozeabad police to entertain the ST request. “Under the court directive, we have registered an FIR (837/09) under Sections 302 and 324 of the Pakistan Penal Code against Riazuddin Qureshi and some police officials,” said Javed Akbar Riaz, the SP of Jamshed Town. “In the court orders there are no specific names and ranks of the policemen to be nominated in the FIR. So, only Mr Riazuddin has been mentioned by name and for police there are `several personnel`.” After the July 1 incident, the Ferozeabad police had registered a case (FIR 748/2009) against ST workers under Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapons), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of a common object), 302 (murder), 324 (attempted murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the court bailiff. REFERENCE: KARACHI: Bureaucrat booked for killing ST worker By Our Staff Reporter July 31, 2009 http://archives.dawn.com/archives/163212

ST (Sunni Tehrik – Sunni Movement) ———————————- 9. (S) ST is a small religious/political group with a presence in small pockets of Karachi. The group has only managed to win a handful of council seats in local elections but militarily it is disproportionably powerful because of the influx of MQM-H gunmen after the government crack-down on MQM-H (see above). ST has organized the party and its gunmen along the lines of MQM by dividing its areas of influence into sectors and units, with sector and unit commanders. ST and MQM have allegedly been killing each other’s leadership since the April 2006 Nishtar Park bombing that killed most of ST’s leadership. ST blames MQM for the attack. There appears to have been a reduction in these targeted killings since 2008. REFERENCE: 2009: US assessment of Karachi violence http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/23/2009-us-assessment-of-karachi-violence.html

Imran Khan meets Sunni Tehreek delegation in Islamabad By Hammad Cheema 6821 Views Press Release, Islamabad, Karachi http://www.insaf.pk/News/tabid/60/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2298/Imran-Khan-meets-Sunni-Tehreek-delegation-in-Islamabad.aspx http://www.insaf.pk/News/tabid/60/articleType/ArchiveView/month/5/year/2011/Default.aspx

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) stopping NATO supply with Empty Chairs

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_WFJwgZxU4

PTI Karachi Dharna, Massive Media Campaign but result "Zero"

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHAqUlbisrI

LONDON: The chief of Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan exchanged views over telephone and discussed national politics. Reports said the two highups, whose parties had been at odds with each other, shared views over current political scenario in the telephonic chat. Sources said they talked about Aafia Siddiqui’s issue, aftermaths of Raymond Davis’s release and US drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal belt. Reference: Altaf, Imran share views on telephone Updated: Saturday March 19, 2011 10:22:33 PM http://www.arynews.tv/english/newsdetail.asp?nid=43721
Saturday, March 19, 2011, Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1432 A.H

http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/mar2011-daily/19-03-2011/u65895.htm

Imran Khan's Evidence Against Altaf Hussain (GEO TV)

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOEi5njcXMA

Imran Khan knows what he opposes but does not seem to be sure what he proposes. This is a fundamental factor in determining the nature and degree of his relevance to the Pakistani politics. His is a political position that takes an extremely dim view of what is going on in the country as politics, governance, foreign policy, economic management and even development. As long as he continues to maintain his opposition to the polities that are not working for a large number of Pakistanis, he will find some ready audience – though mainly through television talk shows and Facebook fan following. But that is as far as it can go. To capture the imagination of the voters and to compel them to take the trouble of participating in a public meeting or making it to a polling booth on the election day takes much more than just that. First, it needs a crisp message – a catchy one liner a la Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s “Roti Kapra aur Makan”. Secondly, it needs a distinct political target – in the same vein that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was for Nawaz Sharif when he started off as a politician on his own. Thirdly, there has to be a well-defined ideological quotient – like Jamaat-e-Islami has. And lastly, there has to be an electoral machine up and running to ensure that the other side cannot capture polling booths and rig elections. Khan, so far, does not have any of these. His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has yet to come up with a catch-all phrase that strikes a chord with a cross section of Pakistanis. His unrelenting references to match fixing and other cricketing terms while talking about political events do not cut much ice with a lot of people in the country who have become disillusioned with the game and the victories and defeats attached to it. Even for the most ardent of Imran Khan fans his famous world cup victory in 1992 happened almost 20 years ago and at best lingers as a hazy memory of a past glory that cannot be possibly repeated in the near future. His emphasis on Insaaf or justice as a panacea is already going through its first real test after the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on the back of a movement run purely in the name of justice. Even for its proponents, including Khan, the results so far have been mixed at best. REFERENCE: What ails Imran Khan By Badar Alam | DAWN.COM May 19, 2011 (6 days ago) http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/19/what-ails-imran-khan.html

His political targets are too many for him to be able to focus on any of them. Everyone who was, has been and is anyone in the country’s politics is his enemy. In Pakistan’s fractured polity along regional, ethnic and ideological lines such an opposition to all and sundry does not automatically create an electoral appeal that can cut across all these great divides. He, therefore, ends up giving a confused message to the electorate, more so when he does things that contradict his all-encompassing political hostility. He sided with General (retired) Pervez Musharraf up until the 2002 referendum and then opposed him; he opposed Nawaz Sharif from the day he launched his party in 1990s but chose to attend an all parties conference that Sharif convened in Islamabad in 2007 to boycott the 2008 general election. In 2007, he went to London with a legal brief against Altaf Hussain and his Muttahida Qaumi Movement but in 2011 the two met and had only good things to say about each other. Khan is considered close to religious parties but his aversion to Maulana Fazlur Rehman is also all too well known. Here is a historical parallel: When Sharif managed to woo voters on a mass scale, he did so by choosing his enemy carefully and then consolidating all anti-Bhutto, and anti-PPP segments of the society behind him. Khan’s political ideology is a curious mix of reactionary Islamism especially vis-à-vis the women and the minorities, gung-ho anti-Americanism and narrow nationalism peppered over with convenient anecdotes and selection of quotes from the west, most specifically the United Kingdom whose political and social system and political class invariably get a laudatory mention in all his conversations. He even goes to the extent of giving the British Empire and its colonial administration in India the credit of maintaining an exemplary law and order and providing impeccable governance. REFERENCE: What ails Imran Khan By Badar Alam | DAWN.COM May 19, 2011 (6 days ago) http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/19/what-ails-imran-khan.html

Rallies against capitalism and in favour of Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed killer of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, paralysed life in downtown for several hours on Saturday. Thousands of people gathered on MA Jinnah Road in a show of support for Mumtaz Qadri, who was recently convicted by a Rawalpindi court for killing Punjab Governor Slamaan Taseer. The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), a conglomerate of more than a dozen religious parties, staged a protest rally, which started from Old Numaish and culminated at Tibet Centre. Carrying party flags and pictures of Qadri, the participants converged at Old Numaish from different parts of the city. The rally was led by Sahibzada Fazal Karim, Haji Hanif Tayyab, Sarwat Ejaz Qadri, Syed Shah Turab-ul-Haq and others. REFERENCE: Rallies cause hours-long traffic chaos Shamim Bano Sunday, October 23, 2011 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=73950&Cat=4

Daily Jang, Sunday, October 23, 2011, Ziqad 24, 1432 A.H.
http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/oct2011-daily/23-10-2011/main.htm

Non Barelvis Are Kaafir (Apostate) says Pir Syed Irfan Shah

http://youtu.be/FTANZusPICU

Note: There are millions of Non-Barelvis i.e. Shias, Salafis, Deobandis and others who are in every Political Party including MQM!!!

Saudi Fatwa Against Barelvis (The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) belongs to Barelvi Sect)

"QUOTE"

CREED \ Deviant groups and individuals \ The ruling concerning the Braylwiyyah

http://www.fatwa-online.com/fataawa/creed/deviants/0010517_5.htm

Question: There is a particular group in Pakistan called the ((Braylwiyyah)) or ((Jamaa'ah Nuwaaree)) which is a reference to their current leader known as ((Nuwaaree)). I ask your excellencies the Sharee'ah ruling regarding them and their 'aqeedah, and the prayer behind them as this is a contentious issue which many people are unaware of the reality. I will mention some of their defective ways and beliefs:

1) The belief that the Messenger of Allaah (sal-Allaahu `alayhe wa sallam) is alive;

2) The belief that the Messenger of Allaah (sal-Allaahu `alayhe wa sallam) is present and all-seeing, especially immediately after Salaat al-Jumu'ah;

3) The belief that the Messenger (sal-Allaahu `alayhe wa sallam) is the foremost intercessor;

4) They believe in "saints" and the dead in their graves, and they offer salaah at the graves requesting them for their needs to be met;

5) Their commendation of domes and lighting up of graves;

6) Their saying ((Yaa Rasool, Yaa Muhammad (sal-Allaahu `alayhe wa sallam)));

7) Their hatred towards whoever loudly says ((Aameen)) and raises his hands in the salaah, considering such a person to be a Wahhaabee;

8) Their great astonishment at the use of the miswaak before the salaah;

9) Kissing the thumbs whilst doing wudhoo., the adhaan and after the salaah;

10) After the salaah, their imaam repeating the aayah:

{Allaah sends His prayers on the Prophet and also His angels too}, [Soorah al-Ahzaab, Aayah 56].

11) They gather after the Salaat al-Jumu'ah standing and reciting anaasheed and sending praises (to the Prophet (sal-Allaahu `alayhe wa sallam));

12) After they complete the Noble Qur.aan in the Salaat at-Taraaweeh in the month of Ramadhaan, they prepare alot of food and distribute it in the dining area of the masjid, in addition to sweets;

13) They build masaajid and seek much importance in decorating them, writing ((Yaa Muhammad)) above the mihraab (standing place of the imaam);

14) They consider themselves the people of the Sunnah and correct 'aqeedah and that (all) others are in error;

15) What is the Sharee'ah ruling regarding performing the salaah behind them (their imaam), considering I am a medical student in Karachi and live next door to the masjid where they are in (overall) control (i.e. their beliefs and practices prevail)?

Response: Whoever has these characteristics and attributes, then it is not permissible to offer your salaah behind them (their imaam), and whoever knows of their condition, then their salaah is not correct. This is because most of their characteristics and attributes are of kufr and bid`ah which negate the tawheed (oneness) with which Allaah had sent His messenger and revealed in His Book, and that which conflicts with the Qur.aan, such as His (Subhaanahu wa Ta'aala) saying:

{Verily, you (Muhammad) will die and verily, they (too) will die}, [Soorah az-Zumar, Aayah 30]

And His saying:

{And the mosques are for Allaah (alone), so invoke not anyone along with Allaah}, [Soorah al-Jinn, Aayah 18]

And their bid`ah which they practice should be detested with good manners, and if they accept (and leave these pratices) then all praise is for Allaah (alone); And if they do not accept (and continue in these practices) then you should leave them and offer your salaah in the masjid of the Ahlus-Sunnah. And in this, with respect to Ibraaheem (alayhis-salaam) there is a good example:

{And I shall turn away from you and from those whom you invoke besides Allaah. And I shall call on my Lord; and I hope that I shall not be unblest in my invocation to my Lord}, [Soorah Maryam, Aayah 48].

And with Allaah lies all success and may Allaah send prayers and salutations upon our Prophet (sal-Allaahu `alayhe wa sallam) and his family and his companions.

The Permanent Committee for Islaamic Research and Fataawa, comprising -

Head: Shaykh 'Abdul 'Azeez Ibn Abdullaah Ibn Baaz;

Deputy Head: Shaykh 'Abdur-Razzaaq 'Afeefee;

Member: Shaykh 'Abdullaah Ibn Qu'ood

Fataawa al-Lajnah ad-Daa.imah lil-Buhooth al-'Ilmiyyah wal-Iftaa., - Volume 2, Page 396, Fatwa No.3090

"UNQUOTE"

What about those who Participated in Salman Taseer's Funeral Prayers

Founder and Leader of Muttahida Quami Movement Mr Altaf Hussain has said that religious extremism, bigotry and intolerance are pulling down the country and in order to save the country from utter devastation it is necessary to promote the principles of harmony, toleration and live and let live. He said this while talking to a delegation of NGOs at Nine Zero over telephone. Members of the Co-ordination Committee were also present on the occasion. Mr Altaf Hussain said that Islam guarantees protection to the life and property and places of worship of all non-Muslims. He further said that the founder the country Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had made it clear in his speech to the Constituent Assembly on 11h August 1947 that the followers of all the religions would have the freedom to worship in the country according to their beliefs but unfortunately religious extremism and bigotry was encouraged that has brought the country on the edge of the precipice. Mr Altaf Hussain said that he has been trying to wake the people up for quite some time now and informing them that Talibanization is being promoted in the country which is wrong and lethal for the country and hence it should be stopped. He lamented that his statements were not taken seriously and some elements not only ridiculed his statements but also denied them altogether. He deplored that the situation has come to a point that masjids, imam bargahs, shrines of saints, religious gatherings and even funeral processions are not safe from the hands of the terrorists and suicide attacks and bomb blasts have become commonplace. Mr Altaf Hussain bewailed that all this terrorism is being carried out in the name of Islam which is tarnishing the image of Islam and the Muslims throughout the world. Condemning the murder of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer and Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, he said that such incidents are increasing the sense of insecurity in the minorities. Mr Altaf Hussain said that the MQM considers that it is imperative to create the feeling of security in the minorities people belonging to various segments of the society must come forward to assure a sense of security for them. He said that it is necessary to promote the principles of toleration and live and let live in order to free the country from the menace of terrorism. Mr Altaf Hussain said that he personally opposes the use of the term “minority” for the non-Muslims. “I consider all citizens of the country as equal irrespective of their religion, religious persuasion and beliefs. I stand for religious and sectarian harmony and dignity of human beings. I have always been the proponent of sticking to ones beliefs and not touching the beliefs of others. Everyone should worship according to his belief and show respect for the beliefs of others.” Mr Altaf Hussain said that people should not be victimized on the basis of religion, faith and beliefs. Logic and reasoning should be adopted instead of intimidation and threats. He assured the delegation that MQM will continue to extend unconditional support for the religious harmony and tolerant views in the country. He also demanded of the government to apprehend the assassins of Mr Shahbaz Bhatti and give exemplary punishment to those resorting to bloodshed in the name of religion. REFERENCE: LONDON: 9TH MARCH 2011: RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND BIGOTRY DEVASTATING FOR THE COUNTRY: ALTAF HUSSAIN REFERENCE: Altaf appeals ‘Ulema’ for no protests on blasphemyAPP January 11, 2011 http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/11/altaf-appeals-%E2%80%98ulema%E2%80%99-for-no-protests-on-blasphemy-law.html Saturday, October 15, 2011, Ziqad 16, 1432 A.H. http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/oct2011-daily/15-10-2011/u84895.htm Court summons SHO for refusing to book Mirza By Ishaq Tanoli http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/16/court-summons-sho-for-refusing-to-book-mirza.html MQM to field candidates across country By Our Staff Reporter http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/17/mqm-to-field-candidates-across-country.html Mr Hussain urged the Supreme Court and religious scholars to take notice of alleged blasphemous remarks of a former Sindh minister who had also said that Mohajirs were hungry and destitute when they migrated from India to Pakistan.MQM to field candidates across country By Our Staff Reporter http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/17/mqm-to-field-candidates-across-country.html PAKISTAN COUNTRY OF ORIGIN INFORMATION (COI) REPORT COI Service 29 September 2011 September 2011 http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/pakistan/report-0911.pdf?view=Binary PAKISTAN COUNTRY OF ORIGIN INFORMATION (COI) REPORT COI Service 17 January 2011 http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/pakistan/report-0111.pdf?view=Binary http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/pakistan/

Late. Governor Punjab Salman Taseer Meets Altaf Hussain in London

http://youtu.be/yJiUBxXGC84

Barelvi Mullah Shah Turabul Haq & Barelvis support Killing.

URL: http://youtu.be/dTbzufzijvY

MQM Delegation attended Funeral of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer

URL: http://youtu.be/7RPrwrQ99ag

Ulema press not to offer Taseer’s funeral prayers

Most religious parties avoid outright condemnation; Sajid Mir, Piracha assail murder - KARACHI: Leading Ulema of Jamaat Ahle Sunnat Pakistan (JASP) in a joint statement have asked Muslims not to offer Namaz-e-Janaza nor try to lead funeral prayers of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer. In a joint statement issued here they have also asked not to express regrets or sympathies over his assassination. Those issuing the statement include the JASP Central Ameer Prof Syed Mazhar Saeed Shah Kazmi, Allama Syed Riaz Hussain Shah, Shah Turab-ul-Haq Qadri, Allama Zamir Sajid, Pir Khalid Sultan, Pir Ghulam Siddiq Naqshbandi, Allama Syed Khizr Hussain Shah, Alhaj Amjad Chishti, Allama Ghulam Sarawar Hazarvi, Allama Syed Shamsuddin Bokhari, Pir Syed Ashiq Ali Shah Jilani, Mufti Muhammad Iqbal Chishti, Allama Fazal Jamil Rizvi, Agha Muhammad Ibrahim Naqshbandi Mujaddidi, Maulana Muhammad Riaz Qadri, Maulana Gulzar Naeemi, Allama Syed Ghulam Yaseen Shah, and over 500 other ulema and honorable muftis attached to the JASP. Those favouring the person indulged in blasphemy are themselves blasphemous, they announced. Paying glowing tributes to Malik Mumtaz Hussain, and his courage, who killed Governor Salman Taseer, they said he is lover of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and is a ‘Ghazi’. Mumtaz had revived the 14-century-old tradition of Islam and put their head high in pride. It was only Prophet (PBUH) who could forgive any act of blasphemy but none other could ever do it. They asked the rulers to save their faith by announcing that they would desist from attempting to amend the law of blasphemy. Asim Hussain adds from Lahore: Leaders of majority of religious parties desisted from expressing their views on the murder of Salman Taseer, while others gave a guarded response, saying the slain Punjab governor had been inviting such kind of reaction for quite some time. He had continuously been violating the constitution of Pakistan by supporting an amendment to the blasphemy laws and interfering in the judicial process of the blasphemy convict Aasia Bibi, though he knew well that Muslims were very touchy on the matter, they said while talking to The News. Some religious leaders like Jamiat Ahle Hadith President Prof Sajid Mir and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Dr Farid Piracha, however, condemned the murder saying Islam forbids people to punish even the criminals by taking the law into their hands. Jamiat Ulema Pakistan (JUP) President Abdul Khair Mohammad Zubair said Islam strictly forbids taking the life of anyone without judicial or state order, but added that Salman Taseer had shown utter disregard for the religious sentiments of the entire nation. The mobile phone of Sahabzada Fazal Karim, chairman Sunni Ittehad Council, remained switched off throughout Tuesday evening. A spokesman for Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Syed Munawwar Hasan said he was not feeling well and could not be available on phone. The spokesman also expressed his helplessness to obtain any formal statement on the issue saying that any statement on the matter would be issued on the next day after consultations. Other main leaders of the Sunni Ittehad Council - Haji Hanif Tayyeb, Dr Ashraf Asif Jalali, Sarwat Ijaz Qadri - were also not available. Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat Mahaz (TNRM) leaders held an emergency meeting after receiving the reports of murder of Salman Taseer. The meeting, chaired by Razaul Mustafa Naqshbandi, continued for two hours. Later, in a statement the TNRM said Taseer had been violating the laws of the land by supporting a blasphemy convict, Aasia Bibi, from day one. His irresponsible acts from the high office of the Governor of Punjab were inappropriate and offending 170 million Muslims of the country. Meanwhile, Sunni Tehrik Lahore President Mujahid Abdul Rasool said Muslims should not attend the funeral prayers of Salman Taseer since he had wilfully committed blasphemy and shown disrespect towards protecting the honour of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). REFERENCE: Ulema press not to offer Taseer’s funeral prayers Wednesday, January 05, 2011 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=3126&Cat=13

LONDON: 9TH MARCH 2011: Founder and Leader of Muttahida Quami Movement Mr Altaf Hussain has said that religious extremism, bigotry and intolerance are pulling down the country and in order to save the country from utter devastation it is necessary to promote the principles of harmony, toleration and live and let live. He said this while talking to a delegation of NGOs at Nine Zero over telephone. Members of the Co-ordination Committee were also present on the occasion. Mr Altaf Hussain said that Islam guarantees protection to the life and property and places of worship of all non-Muslims. He further said that the founder the country Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had made it clear in his speech to the Constituent Assembly on 11h August 1947 that the followers of all the religions would have the freedom to worship in the country according to their beliefs but unfortunately religious extremism and bigotry was encouraged that has brought the country on the edge of the precipice. Mr Altaf Hussain said that he has been trying to wake the people up for quite some time now and informing them that Talibanization is being promoted in the country which is wrong and lethal for the country and hence it should be stopped. He lamented that his statements were not taken seriously and some elements not only ridiculed his statements but also denied them altogether. He deplored that the situation has come to a point that masjids, imam bargahs, shrines of saints, religious gatherings and even funeral processions are not safe from the hands of the terrorists and suicide attacks and bomb blasts have become commonplace. Mr Altaf Hussain bewailed that all this terrorism is being carried out in the name of Islam which is tarnishing the image of Islam and the Muslims throughout the world. Condemning the murder of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer and Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, he said that such incidents are increasing the sense of insecurity in the minorities. Mr Altaf Hussain said that the MQM considers that it is imperative to create the feeling of security in the minorities people belonging to various segments of the society must come forward to assure a sense of security for them. He said that it is necessary to promote the principles of toleration and live and let live in order to free the country from the menace of terrorism. Mr Altaf Hussain said that he personally opposes the use of the term “minority” for the non-Muslims. “I consider all citizens of the country as equal irrespective of their religion, religious persuasion and beliefs. I stand for religious and sectarian harmony and dignity of human beings. I have always been the proponent of sticking to ones beliefs and not touching the beliefs of others. Everyone should worship according to his belief and show respect for the beliefs of others.” Mr Altaf Hussain said that people should not be victimized on the basis of religion, faith and beliefs. Logic and reasoning should be adopted instead of intimidation and threats. He assured the delegation that MQM will continue to extend unconditional support for the religious harmony and tolerant views in the country. He also demanded of the government to apprehend the assassins of Mr Shahbaz Bhatti and give exemplary punishment to those resorting to bloodshed in the name of religion. REFERENCES: LONDON: 9TH MARCH 2011 RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND BIGOTRY DEVASTATING FOR THE COUNTRY: ALTAF HUSSAIN - Mr Hussain urged the Supreme Court and religious scholars to take notice of alleged blasphemous remarks of a former Sindh minister who had also said that Mohajirs were hungry and destitute when they migrated from India to Pakistan.MQM to field candidates across country By Our Staff Reporter | From the Newspaper (9 hours ago) Today http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/17/mqm-to-field-candidates-across-country.html

Great Britain and Blasphemy Law

Pakistan Country of Origin Information - Country of Origin Information Service. This page contains all Country of Information (COI) products for Pakistan published since January 2011. You can find COI products published between 2006 and 2010 on the UK government web archive. These products are produced by our COI Service, and do not contain any UK Border Agency opinion or policy. They are used by our staff at all stages of the asylum determination process. Last Updated: 30 September 2011 PAKISTAN COUNTRY OF ORIGIN INFORMATION (COI) REPORT

COI Service 29 September 2011 http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/pakistan/report-0911.pdf?view=Binary PAKISTAN COUNTRY OF ORIGIN INFORMATION (COI) REPORT COI Service

17 January 2011 http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/pakistan/report-0111.pdf?view=Binary http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/coi/pakistan/

Jamat-e-Islami's Violent Ideology & Siege of Holy Ka'aba in 1979.

2012-02-04T04:56:00.000-08:00

For example, after the 9/11, the former JI Amir Qazi Hussain Ahmad stated that al-Qaeda was a figment of the Americans’ imagination. On the contrary, the then JI Secretary General Syed Munawar Hassan, the current chief of the party, said that al-Qaeda leaders were our brethren (Nawa-i-Waqt, October 13, 2002). Commenting on these statements, Prof. Ahmad said: ‘There is no contradiction between the two. The Muslims in al-Qaeda are our brethren. They should be punished if they are criminals!’ He sounded mightily reluctant to hold Al-Qaeda responsible for 9/11. He even refused to give any credence to Gulbadeen Hikmatyar’s statement that Al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11. (It may be added here that Hikmatyar is Jamaat-i-Islami’s favorite Afghan leader.) Instead, he finds “dozens of scholarly books” casting doubt on the official version more credible. REFERENCE: The Muslims in al-Qaeda are our brethren, says the top Jamaat-i-Islami ideologue Prof. Khurshid Ahmad Dec 16th, 2010 By Shakil Chaudhary and Mohammad Shehzad http://www.pol-dev.com/?p=678

WAY BACK IN 1979: Some foreign observers thought in 1979 that traditionalism was no longer a strong force in Saudi Arabia. This idea was disproved when at least 500 dissidents invaded and seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca on November 20, 1979. The leader of the dissidents, Juhaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Saif al Utaiba, a Sunni, was from one of the foremost families of Najd. His grandfather had ridden with Abd al Aziz in the early decades of the century, and other family members were among the foremost of the Ikhwan. Juhaiman said that his justification was that the Al Saud had lost its legitimacy through corruption, ostentation, and mindless imitation of the West--virtually an echo of his grandfather's charge in 1921 against Abd al Aziz. Juhaiman's accusations against the Saudi monarchy closely resembled Ayatollah Ruhollah Musaui, Khomeini's diatribes against the shah. The Saudi leadership was stunned and initially paralyzed by the takeover. The Grand Mosque surrounds the Kaaba, symbol of the oneness of God and believed by Muslims to have been built by the Prophet Abraham. The courtyard is one of the sites where the hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, is enacted. Because of the holiness of the place, no non-Muslims may enter the city of Mecca. Furthermore, all holy places come under a special injunction in Islam. It is forbidden to shed blood there or to deface or to pollute them in any way. Despite careful planning on Juhaiman's part, a guard was shot dead by one of the nervous dissidents. Such a desecration is a major violation under Islamic law and merits crucifixion for the convicted offender. Juhaiman's party included women as well as men, other peninsular Arabs, and a few Egyptians. A score of the dissidents were unemployed graduates of the kingdom's seminary in Medina. They had provisions for the siege they expected as well as extensive supplies of arms. The government's initial attempts to rout the dissidents were stymied. Before any military move could be authorized, the ulama had to issue a dispensation to allow the bearing of arms in a holy place. When the religious problems were solved by announcement of the ulama's ruling, logistical problems bogged down the efforts of the military and the national guard for several days. Finally, two weeks later the military effort succeeded, and the dissidents were dislodged. All the surviving males were eventually beheaded in the squares of four Saudi cities. REFERENCE: 1979 Juhaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Saif al Utaiba http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/mecca.htm

Ka'aba under siege - 1 (1979 Grand Mosque Seizure)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9_vZ1S-TwA

Riyadh (10 January 1980). "63 Zealots beheaded for seizing Mosque". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 12 November 2010.

http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?id=wesNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rG0DAAAAIBAJ&dq=grand-mosque&pg=6830%2C1266886

Ka'aba under siege - 2 (1979 Grand Mosque Seizure)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r78QEwGukrk

Juhayman Bin Mohamed Bin Seif al-Otaibi was born in a Brotherhood settlement in the area of Quseim, close to the city of Ghatghat, the headquarters of Sultan Bin Bijad who was killed by the forces of the founding King Abdel-Aziz during the famous Sibla battle. Juhayman had a strict religious upbringing. He married the daughter of prince Sajer Al Mohaya who was arrested after the Haram incident, then later married the sister of Mohamed Ibn Abdullah al-Qahtani. He work for about two years on the national guard forces. Juhayman studied at the Islamic university in Medina and was the student of Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Bin Baz, former Mufti of Saudi Arabia. Juhayman returned to Qusaim in 1974 with a number of students and started promoting the establishment of a fundamentalist movement that he called “The Brothers’ Movement” at the time (different from the Egyptian group the Muslim Brotherhood). Juhayman exceeded the teachings and methodology of his teacher Sheikh Bin Baz, expressing direct criticism of Ibn Soud. Juhayman said that Sheikh Bin Baz never objected to the Brothers’ Movement teachings, but that he had blamed them for focusing on Saudi issue alone. Juhayman then stopped attending Sheikh Bin Baz’s meetings and lectures. In his third message “The Brothers’ Call” he said that they (he and his colleagues) had to educate themselves when they couldn’t find “pure” Sharia education in the official Sharia school. They promoted their movement in tribal areas and grew in number. They then moved to the capital Riyadh in 1976 where Juhayman published his first message under the title “The Law of Loyalty and Obedience: Corrupt Government” in which he attacked jurisprudents. In this message he said “People should not obey, but fight, Muslim rulers who do not adhere to the teachings of Quran and tradition. These corrupt rulers use Sharia to serve their own personal objectives and deal with unbelievers”. These ideas led to his arrest with 98 of his followers in the summer of 1978. However, they were not put on trial. Sheikh Bin Baz was asked to examine their ideas and discuss with them. After listening to them, Bin Baz refused to consider them traitors, thus the authorities had to release them after they spent six weeks in prison. They promised to stop preaching and attacking rulers. Contrary to Osama Bin Laden who has no significant writings, Juhayman wrote 14 fundamentalist messages that included his ideas, parts of which where published under the title “The Seven Messages”. The messages were banned in Saudi Arabia. According to these messages, Juhayman believed that Saudi religious education as was conducted at that time should be stopped. Many Wahabis said that Juhayman said that “he saw hundreds of the graduates of these schools became preachers, as if preaching was a government profession where employees look forward to receiving their monthly salaries.” He believed that such schools only produce religious representatives of the government, but not real ulama (religious scholars) or sheikhs, as he believed these should be independent leaders who think and act in accordance with the interests of Islam and society rather than the authorities as was the case in Saudi Arabia. In his first message Juhayman talked about the emergence of the awaited Mahdi. In 1979 he wrote that prophet Mohamed visited him in a vision, then God talked to him and ordered him to announce that he was the Mahdi, sent to purify the earth from corruption. Qahtani also claimed he had the same vision. Qahtani then married Juhayman’s sister. To be fair, not all Juhayman’s writings were of that type. In his 11 messages he expressed his position towards rulers of Muslim countries in general, and the Saud family in particular; he also addressed major Islamic jurisprudence issues, such as Jihad, in addition to his position towards emirs and obedience. In his message Juhayman wonders: “Can jihad be declared against atheist countries when we have exchanged ambassadors and experts? How can we promote Islam when we have Christians for professors? Can we contradict our professors? Can we call for raising the jihad flag while the Christian flag stands side by side with the monotheism flag? We shouldn’t be deceived to that extent, as there should be a clear distinction between what is right and what is wrong. We should stay away from these people, we should fight them.” This is the same logic that Bin Laden used 20 years later in the speech broadcast by Al Jazira where he divided the world into two “areas”: the area of Islam and the area of atheism. He described the issue as a “crusade” against Islam and Muslims. Thus he follows the same line as Juhayman, and finds justifications in the older literature of al-Mawdudi, Qutb, and others. On 20 November 1979, 500 dissidents led by the grandson of the leader of the Ikhwan rebellion – 38-year old Juhayman – seized Mecca’s Grand Mosque. Almost fifty years to the day, Juhayman reiterated his ancestor’s grievances as he grabbed the mosque’s loudspeaker and announced that the House of Saud had lost its claim to legitimacy through corruption, ostentation, and mindless imitation of the West. His words were chilling to the royal family, all the more so because they closely resembled Khomeini’s diatribes against the Shah. The Saudi leadership was initially paralysed by the takeover. The Grand Mosque surrounds Islam’s holiest shrine. Accordingly, no non-Muslim may enter the city of Mecca and shedding blood on such holy grounds is considered blasphemy. The Saudi royal family’s hands were tied for days as they deliberated how to dislodge the dissidents. The Ulema had to issue a dispensation to allow the bearing of arms in a holy place before any military move could be authorized. Once more, the traditional alliance of convenience between the religious establishment and the House of Saud served its purpose. The fatwa issued by the highest religious authority, Mufti Bin Baz, legitimised the unthinkable – spilling blood in Islam’s holiest site. But even when the religious dilemma was solved, the Saudi military failed to end the siege. This time, the House of Saud had to ask the Ulema to sanction that the mosque be stormed by ‘infidels’. This second fatwa set a precedent that was to be invoked again during the Gulf War.

US Embassy's Confidential/Secret Memo on the siege of Holy Ka'aba Nov/Dec 1979 - Research for The Siege of Mecca involved requesting the declassification of hundreds of secret State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and British Foreign Office documents that contain previously unknown details about the bloody events of 1979 and their consequences. The State Department was particularly forthcoming in releasing these documents. A selection of previously classified diplomatic cables below sheds unexpected new light on the Middle East’s political dynamic. http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/siegeofmecca/declassifiedDocuments.php

Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi - 1

Courtesy: Footage of Juhayman Al Otaybi Thursday, September 27, 2007
http://intelwire.egoplex.com/2007_09_27_blogarchive.html

Juhayman ibn Muhammad ibn Sayf al-Otaibi believed that an Islamic uprising was needed in order to create a more fundamentalist Sunni Islamic state. From an outside point of view this may appear rather strange given the fact that Islamic Sharia law governs Saudi Arabia and not one single Christian church or Buddhist temple is allowed. However, according to Juhayman al-Otaibi the ruling elites in Saudi Arabia were self-serving and radical change was needed. This single event in late 1979 still shakes the Sunni Islamic world today and the same applies to covert work done by CIA operatives. After all, the government of America violated the Constitution because CIA operatives were allowed to be converted to Islam in order to enter Mecca and to participate in quelling the uprising. The French government, the so-called bastion of secularism, allowed their commandos to be converted to Islam also in order that they could help different Saudi units to kill the jihadists. Religion and state is meant to be separate in America but CIA operatives were told to convert to Islam. This fact is a side issue but it shows you the clandestine nature of certain agencies in America and it signifies that government elites will do anything in order to protect Saudi Arabia. Of course, the same applies to France which participated in killing Sunni Muslim conservatives who believed that all non-Muslims must be expelled from Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the most powerful majority Christian nation in the world (America) and the most potent secular state (France) were involved in the attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca. It must also be stated that apart from one individual connected with the bin Laden family, every other militant was beheaded within a very short period after being captured. This fact, shows the nature of Saudi Arabian law and how fickle human rights are in America, France, and the United Kingdom, because Western nations were involved in crushing this revolt and they understood the consequences of what would happen. Therefore, Juhayman al-Otaibi and his followers were written out of the history books and why so little footage given the severe nature of this event in the Western media? If you fast forward to September 11 then it is clear that it doesn’t matter if the American government is Democrat or Republican. This applies to nearly every national who did September 11 coming from Saudi Arabia. Also, it is clear that ratlines existed between certain elites in Saudi Arabia and terrorist networks which did the terrorist attack against the people of America. However, this event meant little within powerful circles in Washington with regards to the role of Saudi Arabia and instead secular Iraq, with a Christian Deputy Prime Minister, was attacked and bombed. The irony being that Western powers re-installed Islamic Sharia law in Iraq, just like they had in Afghanistan and radical Sunni Islamists (the majority from Saudi Arabia) entered the Sunni-Shia civil war in this nation. REFERENCE: Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi: CIA and GIGN operatives converted to Islam by Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times http://leejaywalker.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/siege-of-mecca-and-juhayman-al-otaibi-cia-and-gign-operatives-converted-to-islam/

Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi - 2

Courtesy: Footage of Juhayman Al Otaybi Thursday, September 27, 2007

http://intelwire.egoplex.com/2007_09_27_blogarchive.html

Turning back to the Siege of Mecca in 1979 when Juhayman al-Otaibi and his followers stormed Mecca. It becomes clear that this galvanized America and Saudi Arabia to further bankroll Sunni Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and bordering regions of Pakistan. After all, the elites in Saudi Arabia needed a distraction and America was worried about the repercussions of this extremely important event. The year 1979 in the Islamic world was dramatic and this applies to the Iranian Revolution, the Soviet Union entering Afghanistan, and the Siege of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. However, the greater event was the Siege of Mecca because for America and Saudi Arabia the crisis in Afghanistan was a welcome distraction. Therefore, funding Sunni Islamic terrorism was a great way to take the “heat” of elites within Saudi Arabia and to unify Sunni Islamists into their version of an Islamic jihad. At the same time, it is also clear that the Islamic ulema violated the words of the prophet Mohammed because killing is forbidden in the Grand Mosque. However, the Islamic ulema supported the attack against the jihadists and Saudi units, the French National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), CIA operatives who were involved in the planning, and other covert security agencies, stormed the Grand Mosque and killed hundreds of Sunni jihadists. The true extent of the attack was hidden in general from the outside world but the repercussions remain powerful today. In an earlier article published by Modern Tokyo Times it was stated that “The Saudi Arabian regime in 1979 faced a major crisis because the siege of Mecca could have led to severe pressure on the House of Saud. Therefore, the regime turned to America in order to crush the uprising. CIA operatives were sent to help.” Ziauddin Sardar states in his article called “The battle at Islam’s heart” (1 November 2007 – The New Statesman) that “A horde of CIA operatives was quickly converted to Islam so that they could enter the Holy City to assess the battlefield for themselves. They recommended chemical warfare.” Therefore, the French GIGN which is a specialist counter-terrorism unit and which is trained in hostage taking events, alongside CIA operatives, were converted to Islam with the blessing of political elites in both America and France. The conversions lacked sincerity and is clear evidence that the House of Saud, the Islamic ulema in Saudi Arabia, the slave mentality of America and France which would do anything for the monarchy, all worked hand in hand. Irrespective if individuals agree with crushing the jihadist uprising, it is clear that individuals like Osama bin Laden would understand this event from “an Islamic point of view” and this applies to violating the Grand Mosque of Mecca. The trade-off between the Saudi regime and the religious leaders of Saudi Arabia was that they would be allowed to do whatever they liked apart from threatening the ruling elites. Therefore, terrorism in “not our backyard” was implemented and radical organizations were allowed to spread their ideology throughout the world and clearly with great success. Ziauddin Sardar further comments that “Thus began, on the morning of 20 November 1979, the Siege of the Sacred Mosque. What happened during the next two weeks has had a profound impact on most of the Muslim world.” He continues by stating that “The insurgents were led by a Bedouin preacher, Juhayman bin Seif al-Uteybi, and his brother- in-law Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani, the alleged Mahdi. The rebels included Egyptians, Pakistanis and American converts, but most were Saudis from the Oteiba tribe, which had actually helped King Abdul Aziz, founder of Saudi Arabia, to seize control of the Arabian Peninsula in 1902. They believed that the royal family had become corrupt, that the state was promoting heresy, that religious scholars were collaborating with the royal family in spreading immoral practices and that Saudi Arabia had become obsessed with money and consumerism. I knew their kind rather well.” It was also reported that you had a connection with the bin Laden family because “In the 1960s Osama bin Laden’s half-brother Mahrous bin Laden joined a rebel group opposed to the Saudi government. With his assistance, in 1979 the rebels smuggled weapons into Mecca using trucks belonging to the bin Laden family company. Five hundred rebels then seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca (sic), Islam’s holiest mosque in its holiest city. They try, but fail, to overthrow the Saudi royal family. All the men who took part are later beheaded except Mahrous. Eventually he is released from prison because of the close ties between the bin Ladens and the Saudi royal family. Mahrous apparently abandons the rebel cause and joins the family business. He is eventually made a head of the Medina branch and a member of the board. He will still hold these positions on 9/11. But a newspaper reports that “his past [is] not forgiven and most important decisions in the　[bin Laden family business] are made without Mahrous’ input.” (Collection of sources – Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 10/7/21; Ha’aretz ,12/18/2002; and New Yorker, 11/5/2001) Juhayman al-Otaibi was a powerful leader despite the lack of followers who supported his logic. He believed firmly that the House of Saud was polluting Islam and that materialism was destroying the fabric of society alongside other important factors. Therefore, he and his followers stormed Mecca in order to challenge the ruling elites and this event led to shockwaves within the Sunni Islamic community. Over two weeks you had an Islamic jihad against the Saudi regime and hundreds of Islamists were killed by a mixture of forces. Mecca had become a battleground and a place full of blood and devastation. Accounts vary about the forces which were instrumental in protecting the House of Saud but America, France, and Pakistan played their role and the CIA gave powerful support. Shortly afterwards, Afghanistan would become a rallying call in spreading radical Sunni Islam and clearly America had a shared objective with the House of Saud. Therefore, “several birds could be killed with one stone.” This applies to a much needed distraction for Saudi Arabia; the need to retake the mantle of being the guardians of　Sunni Islam; to undermine the role of Iran within the Muslim world because they followed the Shia faith; and to defeat communism in Afghanistan and unleash a brutal war for the Soviet Union. Therefore, from the siege of Mecca to the war in Afghanistan you had a shared geopolitical interest for both America and Saudi Arabia, alongside the CIA and other security operatives, who would covertly support Islamic terrorism via Pakistan. Firm objectives and ties were being made and Pakistan would also witness Islamization under General Zia- ul-Haq and once more it is clear that America favored General Zia-ul-Haq over democratic forces in India. REFERENCE: Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi: CIA and GIGN operatives converted to Islam by Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times http://leejaywalker.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/siege-of-mecca-and-juhayman-al-otaibi-cia-and-gign-operatives-converted-to-islam/

Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi - 3

Courtesy: Footage of Juhayman Al Otaybi Thursday, September 27, 2007

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US Embassy's Confidential/Secret Memo on the siege of Holy Ka'aba Nov/Dec 1979

Therefore, from 1981 to 1987 the USA provided over US$3.2 billion dollars in order to support radical Sunni Islam and this was followed by a further $4.2 billion dollars. More important, the CIA, MI6, the SAS, and other international covert agencies, were involved in training radical Islamists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The outcome being a multi-ethnic jihadist movement which would be armed and trained by America, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and other nations. However, America and Saudi Arabia would be the cornerstone and Pakistan would become the binding factor because of geopolitics. America and the United Kingdom would also allow Saudi Arabia to spread their version of Islam in both nations. This can be seen by huge funding to vast numbers of Sunni Islamic causes and even in jails both America and the United Kingdom would allow radical Sunni Islamic preachers to convert prisoners. Turning back to the Siege of Mecca then clearly the Cold War was still in full swing. Therefore, this event was sidelined despite the importance of this crisis and Afghanistan was a godsend to all interested parties. However, in late 1979 the Grand Mosque in Mecca was a battleground where blood was spilled in many areas of this mosque. The House of Saud, CIA, GIGN, and other international security agencies, were allowed to plan and assist in the killing of jihadists who had stormed Mecca. From this moment, al-Qaeda would be given “the green light” along with so many Sunni international terrorist organizations. The first rallying call would become Afghanistan and then America would allow the same Islamists to slit the throats of Orthodox Christians in Bosnia and once more these images were hidden to the outside world. If images of the Siege of Mecca had been shown throughout the Islamic world, then it would have shown dead bodies all over Mecca. Also, with CIA operatives and the French GIGN being allowed to convert to Islam then this would have gone down badly because these conversions were a sham. Not only this, the government of America is not meant to promote the conversion of people to any faith and this is a clear violation of the Constitution of America and the same applies to France. If media outlets had shown images of hundreds of Islamists being killed in Mecca whereby Saudi security forces and non-Saudi units were bombing Mecca, then clearly this would have inflamed the Sunni Islamic world. The House of Saud in time would completely finish the job by beading all captors apart from one individual who was a member of the bin Laden family group. Therefore, Juhayman al-Otaibi was turned into a non-entity whereby he disappears from history and nothing more remains. In an earlier article by Modern Tokyo Times it was stated that “The relatively unknown event which happened in Mecca in 1979 certainly can be linked to events in Afghanistan and the Balkans. This applies to the push for supporting radical Sunni Islam after this event in order to crush an internal Islamic threat. Therefore, Afghanistan became a convenient unifying factor. In turn, the Islamic network system and the use of Islamic charities in this conflict would be used in order to spread and support the Muslim cause in Bosnia.” “America and the green flag of Islam which is being led by Saudi Arabia may have different long-term objectives despite sharing similar goals since (and before) 1979 to the current period. However, Islamists are now embarking on a stealth jihad within the democratic world and America, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and others, need to understand that while certain nations may have long term goals it is clear that Islamists have long term objectives and this applies to Islamization.” REFERENCE: Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi: CIA and GIGN operatives converted to Islam by Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times http://leejaywalker.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/siege-of-mecca-and-juhayman-al-otaibi-cia-and-gign-operatives-converted-to-islam/

Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi - 4

Courtesy: Footage of Juhayman Al Otaybi Thursday, September 27, 2007
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“Even September 11 was manipulated by America because we all know that the majority of the Islamists came from Saudi Arabia and Bosnia was also an Islamic stepping stone in enabling this to happen. Therefore, former allies who supported terrorist networks in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Pakistan, in order to boost the foreign policy objectives of America and Saudi Arabia now became enemies after September 11.” Afghanistan was a way of crushing internal Islamic factions in Saudi Arabia by giving them a free hand to export radical Sunni Islam internationally. In a similar way September 11 was manipulated by the government of America and security agencies. Also, the media was utilized in order to create a new threat. This convenient threat was Iraq but the main purpose was to distract internal political movements in America who wanted to focus on the Saudi angle and the role of Saudi Arabia in spreading radical Sunni Islam. Not one individual from the regime of Iraq was involved in September 11 and the issue of human rights doesn’t enter the equation. After all, when the Iraqi regime used chemical weapons against the Kurds little was said. Given this, Iraq became a distraction whereby Saudi Arabia would escape the wrath of September 11. Therefore, the Siege of Mecca enabled the international Sunni Islamist movement to spread their ideology externally on condition that they never threatened the elites of Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Sunni Islamic ratlines and Western powers manipulated Afghanistan and Bosnia by covertly supporting radical Sunni Islamists. However, September 11 was evidence of not only “blowback” but of the ratline links because nearly everybody involved were Saudi nationals. Also, several Islamists who were involved in September 11 had been based in Bosnia and obtained valuable experience in killing not only Orthodox Christians, but in terrorist activities and all courtesy of “a blind American policy.” The spirit of Juhayman al-Otaibi was alive within individuals like Osama bin Laden but from a different perspective. Juhayman al-Otaibi wasn’t concerned about exporting radical Sunni Islam because his concern was Saudi Arabia. More important, Juhayman al-Otaibi didn’t support killing innocents on the grounds of so-called Islamic jihad. Instead, he was focused on Islamic jihad because he believed that the Muslim ulema and elites in Saudi Arabia were turning against the Koran. However, the spirit of Juhayman al-Otaibi was within Osama bin Laden when it came to outside forces influencing and protecting Saudi Arabia. In the mindset of Osama bin Laden it was a violation of Islam to allow America and other non-Muslim majority nations to protect the well being of Saudi Arabia. Juhayman al-Otaibi was also scornful about this and he wanted all non-Muslims to be expelled from Saudi Arabia. However, Juhayman al-Otaibi was a much bigger threat than Osama bin Laden because he wanted to overthrow the ruling elites in the House of Saud. Therefore, the Siege of Mecca was the real turning point in the covert war in Afghanistan which received greater funding and attention because of this event. The period of late November and December in 1979 in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan remain potent today. If Juhayman al-Otaibi and his loyal forces hadn’t stormed Mecca then the potency of Afghanistan would have been reduced and the power of Islamism would have been kept in check more in Saudi Arabia. Yet the Siege of Mecca threatened the status quo therefore a trade-off was made and from this period you have many murky deals between several nations involved in spreading radical Sunni Islam. For conservative clerics in Saudi Arabia and organizations it is their duty to spread the Sunni Islamic faith because they deem all non-Muslims and non-Sunni Muslims to be infidels. At the same time, Sunni Islamic terrorist ratlines could co-exist alongside American foreign policy objectives and the foreign policy objectives of other Western nations. Therefore, Afghanistan and Bosnia are clear evidence of the link between both competing forces which united in a common cause. September 11 over-stepped the mark and after this America would turn against Sunni Islamic terrorism which was aimed at America. However, America and Saudi Arabia would remain aloof providing events didn’t threaten either nation internally. Despite this, the spirit of Juhayman al-Otaibi remains alive within parts of the international Sunni Islamist movement. This applies to his thinking that all foreign influence should be forced out of Saudi Arabia, the ending of the reliance on Western powers to protect this nation, the eviction of all non-Muslims, the ending of rampant materialism amongst the elites of Saudi Arabia, preventing female equality in law, and so forth. Juhayman al-Otaibi was a threat to the Saudi elites but the policies of powerful Western nations have created a bigger threat which expressed itself by the events of September 11, when blowback happened against innocent American civilians. The reverberations of the Siege of Mecca remain today with elites in Saudi Arabia being concerned by domestic issues and foreign powers have been engulfed by not understanding the bigger picture. Therefore, the attack which happened in 1979 during the Siege of Mecca remains within the internal convulsions of the Sunni Islamic world and nations which sold their soul during this event continue to have learned nothing. REFERENCE: Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi: CIA and GIGN operatives converted to Islam by Lee Jay Walker Modern Tokyo Times http://leejaywalker.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/siege-of-mecca-and-juhayman-al-otaibi-cia-and-gign-operatives-converted-to-islam/

Siege of Mecca and Juhayman al-Otaibi - 5

Courtesy: Footage of Juhayman Al Otaybi Thursday, September 27, 2007
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Jamat-e-Islami Links with Al-Qaeda

Terror mastermind captured – Terror mastermind captured – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is thought to be the man who masterminded the attacks on 11 September. His capture in Pakistan was seen as a key success in the US fight to counter al-Qaeda. BBC News Online presents key video reports following the arrest. Tuesday, 4 March, 2003, 22:56 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/2820179.stm - KARACHI – Under immense pressure from the United States, a slow and gradual operation has begun in Pakistan against the strongest political voice of Islamists and the real mother of international Islamic movements, of which Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front is the spoiled child. In a surprise move this week, Pakistan’s federal minister of the interior, Faisal Saleh Hayat, listed a number of incidences in which members of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the premier fundamentalist party in the country, had been tied to al-Qaeda, and called on it to “explain these links”. “It is a matter of concern that Jamaat-e-Islami, which is a main faction of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal [MMA], has neither dissociated itself from its activists having links with the al-Qaeda network nor condemned their activities,” Faisal said, adding that “one could derive a meaning out of its silence”. The MMA is an alliance of six religious parties that gained unprecedented electoral victories in national elections in 2002. One of its members is the leader of the opposition in the Lower House, while the MMA controls the provincial government in North West Frontier Province. It also forms part of a coalition government in Balochistan province. The MMA has 67 seats in the 342-seat National Assembly, with just under a third of them held by the JI. Asia Times Online predicted that the JI would be targeted (Jihadi’s arrest a small step for Pakistan , Aug 10) and now contacts confirm that moves have already started against associates of the JI in its strongest political constituency, Karachi. The next phase will most likely be in Rawalpindi and southern Punjab. Several close affiliates are believed to have been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) without charges being laid against them. Pakistan turns on itself By Syed Saleem Shahzad Aug 19, 2004 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH19Df05.html Khalid: A test for US credibility By Syed Saleem Shahzad Mar 6, 2003 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EC06Df04.html Profile: Al-Qaeda ‘kingpin’ Page last updated at 14:04 GMT, Friday, 13 November 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2811855.stm http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12964158 ‘THE MASTERMIND’ For smug KSM, federal court could be perfect arena By Peter Finn Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 14, 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/11/13/ST2009111300917.html?sid=ST2009111300917

ISLAMABAD: One of the top security agencies on Wednesday picked up Raja Ehsan Aziz, a member of Tehrik-e-Islami (TI), for his alleged connections with terrorists who had attacked the Parade Lane Mosque in Rawalpindi and Moon Market in Lahore. Tehrik-e-Islami is a splinter group of the JI. Two female members of the Tehrik have already been taken into custody. Sarwat Wahid, another female member whose son’s car was used in the Parade Lane Mosque attack, is missing. Also her son, Jawad, who was studying in Faisalabad after doing A Level from Beacon House School System, is missing. Aziz, a graduate of Columbia University who also served on senior positions at the Foreign Office, is a retired professor of International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University. His elder son is an Army doctor. Aziz was taken away from his house in G/10-3 on Wednesday evening by sleuths of the Counter-Terrorism Cell, his wife Amira Aziz told The News. Amira, an ex-MNA of Jamaat-e-Islami and now a Shura member of the Tehrik, is a religious scholar and writes columns in an Urdu daily. Aziz’s driver, Phool Zeb from Nowshera, has already been arrested as investigators found a mobile SIM allegedly used for conversation during the attacks on the Parade Lane Mosque and Moon Market, was issued in his name. Likewise, the car used in the mosque attack belonged to Jawad, the son of a Tehrik-e-Islami woman, Sarwat Wahid, a resident of I-8 Sector, Islamabad. Both of them are missing since then. Likewise, Aziz’ son, Omer, a student of Islamic International University, has not returned home for the last five days. JI splinter group leader, females held for links to suicide attackers Friday, December 18, 2009 By Umar Cheema http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=214063&Cat=2&dt=12/21/2009

Jamat e Islami Terrorist Dr. Usman was mastermind of Attack on GHQ

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeUXYXiAkyM&feature=player_embedded

Aziz has been picked up for the second time, his wife said, denying any links of the family with terrorism incidents. “I’m a sworn enemy of America and can pay any price for it but I strongly oppose terrorism within Pakistan,” Amira Aziz told The News. She said the intelligence operatives had been following the women activists of Tehrik-e-Islami for the last six months and harassed them. She alleged that her husband was beaten black and blue when picked up last time and kept in illegal custody for a night. Amira said her son, Omer, a heart patient, was very upset when intelligence guys kept his father in their custody for a night. A female member of Tehrik, Najma Sana, who lives in G-9/1, is already in the agency’s custody for the last 10 days. Sarwat Wahid, after being chased by the intelligence agency, left Islamabad for Karachi where she was again pursued by the police. Her sister and children in Karachi have been arrested to press for recovery of Sarwat who has gone underground there. Sarwat’s son, Jawad, is also missing. Tahira Mumtaz, another female member of the Tehrik, was twice called for investigation over her alleged assistance to Sarwat to flee the capital. Altaf Aziz Khattack, SHO, said he was not aware of any such incident. He asked this correspondent to take up the matter with the R A Bazaar police in whose jurisdiction the mosque was attacked. When contacted, officials of the concerned police station said that they had not arrested Ehsan Aziz, adding the Army was investigating the attack and the matter may be taken up with them. The DG ISPR could not be contacted. REFERENCE: JI splinter group leader, females held for links to suicide attackers Friday, December 18, 2009 By Umar Cheema http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=214063&Cat=2&dt=12/21/2009

Saudi Arab's Fatwa (Religious Edict) against Al-Qaeda & Osama Bin Laden