Foreign Affairs – Page 21 – Aboard The Democracy Train

March 23, 2015March 23, 2015

Pakistan pushing a ‘series of global terrorist networks’ onto Afghanistan – Ghani

Afghan president with Pak army chief (Credit: thenews.com.pk)

KABUL, March 21: Afghanistan faces a difficult spring in terms of security as the so-called “fighting season” with the Taliban begins, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Saturday, adding that Pakistan was “pushing a major series of global terrorist networks onto” war ravaged country.

“The winter has been extraordinarily difficult. And barring major breakthroughs in the region, spring will be difficult,” he told a press briefing at the presidential palace, several hours before leaving on a four-day official visit to the United States.

Ghani, who came to power in September, said he had not asked for any specific aid from the United States nor any changes to planned troop withdrawals.

“What I’ll be explaining to the Congress of the United States is what we’re doing. What we’re underlining is both the nature of the threat and what we’re doing with the existing resources and capabilities,” he said.

Ghani will be travelling to the US along with Chief Executive Officer Dr Abdullah Abdullah. They are due to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House on March 24.

“A partnership is about appreciation of conditions…. You cannot just simply request assistance,” the president added.

The United States was due to reduce its 10,000 troops to 5,500 by December, but that number is expected to be reassessed.

Pakistan ‘pushing’ terrorists onto Afghanistan

According to Ghani, Pakistan’s military operations in Waziristan and Khyber “are pushing a major series of global terrorist networks onto us”.

But he stressed he considers neighbouring Pakistan a key partner in the peace process, saying success depends on “an enduring peace” with Islamabad.

Creating conditions for talks with the Taliban

The Afghan government has been “actively engaging” with its neighbours in the region over the past few weeks “from Azerbaijan to India” to create conditions for discussions with the Taliban, Ghani said.

“We have not had face-to-face discussions, we’re preparing the conditions for those,” he added.

Diplomatic efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table have gained pace recently, even as security forces have launched offensives against the insurgent group without NATO assistance for the first time since 2002.

For their part, the Taliban have yet to officially acknowledge that talks are being held. They continue to impose their own tough conditions, including the absence of any foreign troops on Afghan soil, as a precondition to negotiations.

IS ‘swallows its competitors’

Ghani and his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah will also have an opportunity to discuss the emergence of the Islamic State group (IS) on their US visit.

Ghani said IS “swallows its competitors”.

“If you compare al Qaeda and Daesh, it’s like going from Windows 1 to Windows 5,” he said, referring to IS by an alternative name.

“These groups do not fit with the classic insurgency.”

The Middle East-based group has not formally confirmed it is operating out of Afghanistan, though Pakistani and Afghan commanders have pledged their allegiance to the outfit in recent months.

In the United States, Ghani said he expects to field questions about the country’s finances.

“The question we will be asked is about fiscal sustainability. Will we be able to afford our own forces?” the president said.

“This is precisely why we’re examining the system of expenditure — the efficiency, the effectiveness, the transparency from top to bottom.”

The trip is also seen as an important step toward mending relations between the United States and Afghanistan, which deteriorated towards the end of former president Hamid Karzai’s ten-year rule.

March 9, 2015

Outcry and fear as Pakistan builds new nuclear reactors in dangerous Karachi

China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group — whose members agree not to transfer to treaty non-signers any technology that could be used to develop a nuclear weapon — in 2004. But it claims that it had already promised to help Pakistan, allowing it to continue developing the reactors.

Beijing is helping Pakistan build reactors at the same time that the Obama administration is trying to implement a 2008 deal that would smooth the way for U.S. companies to invest in new nuclear power plants in India. India, which first tested a nuclear weapon in 1974 and remains Pakistan’s chief rival, has also balked at signing the nonproliferation treaty. Both President Obama and former president George W. Bush have sought an exception for India.

“China’s expanding civilian nuclear cooperation with Pakistan raises concerns and we urge China to be transparent regarding this cooperation,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement Thursday.

Until now, Pakistani leaders have faced little public discontent over the country’s nuclear advances. After all, Pakistan celebrates a national holiday each May marking the anniversary of its first atomic weapons test in 1998. But the country’s progressive movement is evolving, sparking novel protests over environmental and public safety issues. And the prospect of 20-story reactors rising next to a public beach used for swimming, camel rides and picnics is a vivid illustration of what’s at stake.

Though international monitors generally give Pakistan satisfactory reviews for safeguarding nuclear materials, industrial accidents causing hundreds of fatalities remain common here. There are concerns that Pakistani technicians won’t be able to operate or maintain the Chinese nuclear technology.

Karamat Ali, chairman of the Pakistan Institute of Labor Education and Research, noted that the world has already experienced three major nuclear accidents — at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986, in addition to the Fukushima disaster.

“Those are three highly advanced countries,” Ali said. “This is Pakistan. We don’t live on technology and science. In fact, we are quite allergic to that.”

Of particular concern is the threat of terrorism, especially considering Karachi’s long history of head-scratching security lapses.

Terrorists overran a Pakistani naval base in Karachi in 2011, killing five people and setting several aircraft on fire. A similar attack occurred in June, but this time Pakistan Taliban militants stormed a section of Karachi International Airport, killing about two dozen people. And in September, al-Qaeda militants, perhaps with help from renegade sailors, attempted to hijack a heavily armed Pakistan navy frigate docked in Karachi’s port. It took hours for security forces to repel the assault.

If a major attack or accident were to occur at a nuclear power plant, activists say there would be unimaginable chaos.

Karachi, whose population has doubled in just the past two decades, includes vast, packed slums, as well as districts under the thumb of criminal gangs and Islamic militants. And with more than 2.7 million registered cars, buses, rickshaws and motorcycles, it can take hours to cross the city.

“You couldn’t even dream of evacuating Karachi,” said Hoodbhoy, the physicist. “The minute an alarm was sounded, everything would be choked up. There would be murder and mayhem because people would be trying to flee. Others would be trying to take over their homes and cars.”

But Azfar Minhaj, general manager of Karachi’s reactor project, said Pakistan sought the ACP-1000 reactor because it makes a radiation leak far less likely. Each reactor will have a double containment structure capable of withstanding the impact of a commercial airliner, he said, adding that there is also an elaborate filtration system and that the reactor will be able to cool itself for 72 hours without power.

“If a new car comes with an air bag, would you start thinking, ‘This is a new feature, it’s never been tested in Pakistan, never built in Pakistan. Should we use it or not?’ ” Minhaj asked.

Because of the enhanced safety features, Minhaj said, authorities are planning for an impact zone no greater than three miles in the event of a worst-case accident. Most of the affected residents would be asked to shelter in place, not evacuate, he said. Hoodbhoy points out that even today, the no-go zones around the Chernobyl and Fukushima plants are 18 and 12 miles, respectively.

Minhaj said concerns about the effect of a tsunami are also overblown because the new reactors are being built on a rock ledge about 39 feet above sea level. Pakistan’s meteorological office recently concluded that Karachi could face a tsunami of up to 23 feet in the event of a 9.0-magnitude earthquake in the region.

Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he suspects that the new Chinese design is indeed less prone to accidents. But he noted that most poorer countries have shied from developing a nuclear energy footprint since Fukushima.

“If there was a lesson we learned from the Fukushima accident, it’s that, if you are going to get into the nuclear business, and if you don’t have world-class technology, good logistics, enough personnel, a lot of money and experience managing crisis situations, then you are not going to be able to manage a severe accident,” Hibbs said.

Zia Mian, a Pakistani physicist at the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University who is also fighting the project, notes that the existing Canadian reactor was designed in the 1960s to generate just 100 megawatts of electricity. The new reactors will produce 22 times that amount and use a combined 40 to 60 tons of enriched-uranium fuel each, he said. And each year, one-third of that spent fuel will also be removed from the core and stored in large containment pools at the plant, Mian said.

“You put all of that together, and the hazards are unimaginably larger,” he said.

After Sharif showed up in Karachi in December 2013 to break ground on the new reactors, Pirzada and other activists began organizing against it on Facebook. Last summer, they filed a lawsuit against the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority alleging that construction began without a proper environmental impact study.

In December, a court halted vertical construction — but allowed excavation work to continue — until a new environmental assessment is completed, about a month from now. If major construction is then allowed to resume, the reactors will have an expected life span of at least 60 years.

“Of course, we need electricity, but we don’t need electricity to commit suicide,” Ali said.

Musadaq Malik, a Sharif adviser on energy issues, counters that a country that trusts its military to possess nuclear weapons can also trust its government to maintain a Chinese nuclear power plant.

“We may look irresponsible, but we are not that irresponsible,” Malik said. “We have engineers, we have scientists, we have our security apparatus. . . . Like other nations, we have done all of this before, reasonably well.”

February 28, 2015

Islamic University Islamabad: My education in a Saudi funded university

Whenever I hear these empty notions of ‘No Space for Extremism Left’ so confidently floated in wake of Peshawar Attack, I remain unconvinced.

My doubts about these ‘Anti-terrorism’ measures strengthen when I give a cursory look at the present unchecked activities of International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI).

The national consensus against extremism means nothing when you know that Saudi’s takfiri ideology is being expanded every day, inch by inch, into small towns of KPK and Punjab with the launch of IIUI Schools & Colleges.

I studied Environmental science in IIUI. Among the 46 courses that I took over the period of 4 years, I also had to study Arabic, Sharia and Law, Pakistan studies, and Islamic studies. Environmental economic teacher used to patiently wait outside our class; he would cough and clear his throat loudly and wait until our Class Representative (CR) would come out and assure him that every girl in the class had their ‘nangey sar’ covered with dupatta.

Pakistan studies teacher used to write the contact number of Al-Huda in addition to writing Hadiths and Quranic verses on white broad whenever she took the class. Class discussions in Social Studies would invariably divert to state of Islam and purdah in Pakistan.

Chemistry teacher would start talking about water cycle and move swiftly to discussing the scientific miracles of Quran and the number of times water cycle is mentioned in Quran. Because chemistry in Quran was a miracle, so we were to memorize the ‘facts’ of both the world and incorporate them into one single comprehensible answer in order to get credit hours for that course.

Ecology teacher talking about human population curves and population boom would dutifully remind us that we are Muslim so there is NO concept in Islam about population control, and some ‘Islamic scholars’ even consider use of contraceptives haram- “No wonder that there are going to be more women burning in fiery depth of hell”- she would laughingly chirp later as an afterthought.

Burqa catwalk was a real event. Notice boards were sometimes liberally used as JI and Al-Huda activity promotion board. Canteen walls were amply plastered with warnings and premonition of hell for those who were not careful enough and brought Shezan juice.

In the morning, when university buses poured-in from all parts of twin cities, the campus entrance would often be dotted with burqa cladded women distributing pamphlets. No one was missed; everyone got a copy of her Al-Huda course announcement advertisement paper, or a pamphlet bemoaning the cruelty of state against the innocent students of Lal Masjid.

Pamphlets that cursed America and wanted Afia Sadiiqa back and pamphlets warning bey-purdha immodest women about fiery depths of hell were also shoved into hands.

Pamphlets told us every day that Blasphemous cartoon makers should be killed. All blasphemers should be killed. Salman Taseer should be killed.

Some papers demanded justice for students who were arrested form hostels in ‘alleged’ connection with the terrorists.

Piety came before curiosity. That was the lesson overriding all other lessons. Learning did not mean that one had to abandon moderate behavior.

Women campus and Men campus might have been a separate universe, but news often came floating one way or other. Women campus once held a festival, ferris wheel and merry-go-rounds were installed, students shrieked in excitement as the amusement ride caught speed. But then sounds waves could not be contained and males who existed beyond the barbed wires of female campus heard the shrieks.

Modesty came under a threat instantly. JI came into action and women happy shrieks potentially became a means of sexual arousal for some males.

Sickness of thought came over everyone, everyone was ashamed. The rides had to be dismantled. Modesty had to be restored. So the festival was cut-short and modest Islam reigned again.

If you wanted your transcripts on emergency basis then you were in for a churning that would take every ounce of your best temperament.

It took me almost three weeks to sort-out office formalities and get my transcripts, after the sum total of getting four page fees clearance documents signed.

Why? Because it was the Holy month of Ramzan, and the holiest of the places, i.e. an education institution was under siege by holy men and women, not doing their duty but attending Quran and Hadith dars, all in Al-Huda and Tableeghi style.

During those three weeks I would come to the university, and would often go back, without moving an inch forward in my desperate efforts to get my degrees and transcripts. Upon reaching the administration office, I would find offices desks and chairs stacked neatly close to the wall- making a space in the middle of the office hall room- white chadder laid out and all women employees sitting on floor, with one pious lady giving them dars and educating them about the fazaail of prayer in Ramzan.

Some were listening silently and some women were crying (may be out of sheer exhaustion and hunger) but none were found at their desks doing their job.

I don’t know if those women found blessing of Ramzan, but I was certainly showered with all the blessing of the holy-month that one could hope for.

Not to mention that these employees were sure to draw their halaal salary that month.

Conspiracy was juicy. Conspiracy gave legitimacy to claims that IIUI is serving Islam and is under attack by liberal forces all the time. Any change in the faculty was taken a conspiracy against Islam.

Once a teacher was inducted in Sharia and Law department, nothing unusual about hiring a teacher. No one would have known that the newly inducted teacher was slightly liberal until a spat with Sharia students got intensified and one day that poor ‘liberal’ teacher was thrown down stairs for being part of an Amereekan conspiracy.

So I could totally understand the fears of one visiting faculty teacher who taught us Globalization and Foreign Policy, as he often used to stop him-self short during a lecture and would say that he cannot carry-on the discussion further because his opinions on politics should remain outside the boundary of this Fort of Islam i.e International Islamic University Islamabad.

If Pakistanis are really serious about eradicating extremism and terrorism, this University (IIUI) and the likes of it should sever ALL links with Saudi Arabia.

The administration of IIUI must go directly under the authority of government of Pakistan.

A foreign Arabic speaking Saudi national should not be the overseer i.e. Pro-chancellor of this university.

The funding of this university has to be checked. The spread of extremist ideology under the cover of promoting ‘modern’ education needs to be checked by HEC. The course contents should be standardized and modernized.

But of course we are busy fighting a war on extremism, and all our fights will be fought on wrong fronts.

We are a poor country, we need money. So let the money pour in from all shady sources and let us produce a brainwashed educated middle class that likes to sit on the fringes and silently watch Taliban wreak havoc in Pakistan.

February 24, 2015

Talks could begin between Taliban and Afghan government after 13 years of war

Pak Army chief with Afghan president, Feb 17 (Credit: aajtv)

Islamabad/Kabul, Feb 19 – After more than a decade of war, formal talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban will begin in the coming weeks, the country’s president has told key aides.

According to a senior government official, the president, Ashraf Ghani, believes meetings could begin in early March after Pakistan signalled its support for the move.

Previous western-sponsored attempts to get Afghan government and Taliban representatives around the same table failed under Ghani’s predecessor, Hamid Karzai.

Although the Afghan Taliban’s spokesman denied there were any plans for talks, hopes are rising following Pakistan’s decision to pressurise the insurgent leadership.

On Tuesday, Gen Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s powerful military chief, travelled to Kabul to tell Ghani the Taliban were increasingly amenable to discussions.

Pakistan has considerable influence over the Taliban, a movement that was supported by Islamabad in the 1990s and which since 2001 has been free to use Pakistani territory to launch attacks against the western-backed government in Kabul.

Since becoming president last year, Ghani has worked assiduously to secure Pakistan’s help in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table by addressing Pakistani fears that Afghanistan is a base for its enemies.

Ghani has won plaudits from Islamabad by putting on a hold an arms deal with Pakistan’s arch-rival India and by deploying troops against anti-Pakistan militants based in Afghan territory.

In return Ghani expects Pakistan to tell the Taliban to enter negotiations and drastically reduce the surge in militant attacks inside Afghanistan.

Sartaj Aziz, the foreign affairs adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister, said reports of an immediate breakthrough were premature but that progress had been made amid the “quite unprecedented” improvement in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“These things have been going on for the last few weeks,” he said, referring to contacts between Taliban and the Afghan government. “We suggest the right kind of people to talk to and that kind of thing, but this is an Afghan-led process.”

Pakistan has also been pressured to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table by powerful ally China, which is alarmed by the overspill of militancy in the region into western China.

Previous attempts to find a political solution to the 13-year war in Afghanistan came to nothing. In 2013, the Taliban was allowed to open an “office” in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, where talks could be held.

But the process collapsed before it could begin after the Afghan government reacted furiously to the Taliban being allowed to raise their flag over the building as if it was the embassy of a sovereign power.

On Thursday, the US embassy in Kabul denied reported claims by Afghan Taliban sources that insurgent leaders would hold an initial round of talks with US officials as early as Thursday.

“There is no truth to the reports of US involvement in direct talks with the Taliban,” a US diplomat said.

Ajmal Obaid Abidy, spokesman for Ghani, said the international community had accepted demands that peace talks be conducted between the Afghan government and the Taliban, not with outside actors. So the reports of directs talks between the US and the Taliban, Abidy said, “are only rumours”.

Michael Semple, one of the world’s experts on the movement, said Doha was the most likely site of any talks as the Taliban’s “political commission” is already based there.

But he warned there was no guarantee talks would succeed given the Taliban have ramped up attacks in recent months.

“I don’t think we’ve seen the signs on the Taliban side that they are preparing to end the war,” he said. “Maybe there will be a round of talks, but the real test will be whether there will be another spring military campaign.”

Afghan analysts say Ghani will not be able to sustain his tilt towards Pakistan, which is proving unpopular with sections of the public, unless he is rewarded with a sharp decline in violence.

This week Ghani attempted to sooth the concerns of powerbrokers, including former president Hamid Karzai, who was famously distrustful of Pakistan.

“Ghani’s biggest challenge is if the coffins keep coming,” said Bilal Sarwary, one of the country’s top journalists. “But the Taliban have only been preparing to fight.”

February 24, 2015

Afghans arrested Chinese Uighurs to aid Taliban talks bid: officials

Afghans arrest Uighurs (Credit: thediplomat.com)

Kabul, Feb 20 – Afghanistan arrested and handed over several Muslim Uighur militants from China’s west in an effort to persuade China to use its influence with Pakistan to help start negotiations with the Taliban, Afghan security officials said on Friday.

The deal sheds light on China’s increasing importance in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with its involvement in efforts to end the war with Taliban, who have been fighting since 2001 to re-establish Islamist rule in Afghanistan.
Hopes for a peace process were raised on Thursday when Pakistani and Afghan officials said members of the Taliban leadership had signaled they were willing to begin talks as soon as next month.

The apparent Taliban change of position was said to have been made under pressure from Pakistan, although the official Taliban spokesman denied any move toward negotiations with the Afghan government.
Pakistan has been under pressure from China, which is concerned about Islamists among its Muslim minority, to step up pressure against militants. Three senior Afghan police and intelligence officials described the operation last month to capture ethnic Uighur militants, members of a separatist movement opposed to Beijing’s rule over the Xinjiang region, which is home to the Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim Uighurs.

“We offered our hand in cooperation with China and in return we asked them to pressure Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban or at least bring them to the negotiating table,” said one of the security officials, who attended a meeting with Chinese officials to arrange transfer of the prisoners.

Chinese officials in Beijing and at the embassy in Kabul did not respond to requests for comment.

The Uighurs, who the Afghan officials said had trained in militant camps across the border in Pakistan, were handed over to Chinese officials last month.

A second security official said a total of 15 Uighurs were arrested – three in the capital, Kabul, and 12 later in the eastern province of Kunar bordering Pakistan.

They had been in contact with al Qaeda and other militants operating in Pakistan, according to a member of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.

A Pakistani Taliban commander in the border area said by telephone that a group of Uighurs had been based in the Pakistani border region of North Waziristan but left when the Pakistani army launched an offensive there last year.

“They have shifted to Afghanistan,” he said.

‘PLAYING ITS ROLE’
China has increasingly been concerned about activists from Xinjiang getting militant training in Pakistan. It says Uighur militants were behind attacks in Xinjiang and other parts of the country in recent years in which hundreds have been killed.

Exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists, however, say repressive government policies in Xinjiang, including controls on Islam and on Uighur culture, have provoked unrest.

China’s concerns have led it to engage in the so far fruitless effort to negotiate an end to the Afghan war, said Barnett Rubin, a former State Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation.

In particular, China is believed to have used its influence with Pakistan to persuade it that it was not in Pakistan’s interests to turn a blind eye to the Afghan Taliban and other militants operating along its border.

“Pakistan’s attitude to militant groups fighting in Afghanistan has evolved … China has played a role in Pakistan’s evolution because China is very concerned about militants from Xinjiang province receiving training in Pakistan,” Rubin said.

China is likely to have played a significant role in moves toward starting talks with the Taliban, he said.

“I’m sure they have weighed in quite decisively, quietly.”

Pakistan is seen as having other reasons for pushing the Afghan Taliban to talk to Kabul, in particular the hope of Afghan help in tackling Pakistani Taliban hiding in east Afghanistan and launching attacks in Pakistan, including the massacre of 153 people at an army-run school in December.
Pakistan has long seen the Afghan Taliban as a tool if old rival India were to become too influential in a hostile Afghanistan.

But Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who took office last year, has made improving relations with both Pakistan and China a cornerstone of his administration.

Ghani’s first foreign visit was to Beijing in October when he assured Chinese President Xi Jinping of Afghanistan’s help in fighting militants.
Last week in Pakistan, visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would help mediate in efforts to engage the Afghan Taliban in negotiations.

A week later, Pakistan’s powerful army chief visited Afghanistan with a message for Ghani that Taliban leaders had signaled they were open to talks.

It is not clear how significant Afghanistan’s arrest of the Uighurs was in the push for negotiations. A Pakistani military officer said China was “playing its role” in the effort.

Pakistani Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said it was unfair to suggest that China or any other outsider was behind Pakistan’s involvement in pushing for talks.

“Peace and stability in Afghanistan are in Pakistan’s interest,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Katharine Houreld and Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad and Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Robert Birsel)

February 12, 2015

British Jihadi, Imran Khawaja jailed after faking his own death to flee ISIS

Imran Khawaja (Credit independent.co.uk)

A British jihadi nicknamed “Barbie” who sneaked back to the UK from a training camp in Syria has been jailed for 12 years.

Imran Khawaja, a “poster boy” for an Isil-linked terror group, got fed up with the conditions in the war-torn region, so he faked his own death by falsely spreading rumours online and fled for the UK, a court heard.

But the 27-year-old bodybuilder was caught trying to re-enter the UK at Dover and was today handed a 17-year extended sentence, 12 of which will be spent in custody.

Woolwich Crown Court heard that Khawaja – who has links with British hostage executioner Jihadi John – had complained of a lack of toileteries, cocoa butter and condoms for the “war booty” during his six-month stint with the Rayat al-Tawheed (RAT) insurgents in the Middle East last year.

ICSR / King’s College London

Extremist: Imran Khawaja got fed up with the conditions in Syria

During the two-day sentencing hearing, the court was shown disturbing footage of Khawaja reaching into a bag of severed heads before pulling one out with his bare hand, getwestlondon.co.uk reports.

The 27-year-old can be heard saying: “Heads, kuffars [non-believers]. Disgusting.”

However, a psychological assessment of the defendant concluded he had restricted cognitive ability, a lack of critical thinking, poor concentration and an IQ that was within the lowest 12% in the country.

As a consequence he was found to be vulnerable to manipulation and radicalisation.

Khawaja travelled to Syria in January 2014 and became a leading figure within Rayat al–T awheed (RAT), a group linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the court was told.

By the end of May the group had released an image of the defendant, who pleaded guilty to terror charges last month, claiming that he had been killed in battle.

He was, in fact, on his way back to the UK, being driven by his co-defendant and cousin Tahir Bhatti, 45, from Watford.

In text messages read out in court, Khawaja – who was also known as Imz, Iron, Immi, Touchi and Cashew – complained of not having moisturiser and toilet paper while in Syria.

He had demanded cocoa butter and toiletries as well as “condoms for the war booty” and complained when his friends failed to send it.

Psychological assessment: Jihadi fighter Imran Khawaja has an IQ that within the lowest 12% of the UK Woolwich Crown Court was told

The court heard that Khawaja’s family repeatedly begged him to come home even cajoling him with images of Nando’s food.

He lied and told them he was doing charity work, telling his sister that he cared more for Allah than his family.

His sister replied on many occasions saying that “their parents’ hearts were breaking” and that if “he didn’t come home she would come and get him”.

In messages home, Khawaja put pressure on his friends and family to send him money because “guns, cars cost money” and he wanted a “Rambo gun” and needed “shooters”.

When that failed, prosecutor Brian Altman QC told the court that Khawaja decided, in May 2014, to briefly come back to the UK to sort funds out himself.

He was stopped by port officials at Dover while trying to regain entry to the UK with his cousin Bhatti.

Jihadi: Southall bodybuilder Imran Khawaja was jailed for 12 years

In a letter to the court, Khawaja apologised for his actions and urged other young Britons not to make the same mistakes he had.

In the note to the judge, he said: “I will just like to apologise for the laws I have broke [sic]. I am sincerely sorry. I have let my country, my family and my community down.

“I have nightmares about Syria. I am lucky to be alive. I would hate to see the young men of Britain to make the same mistake I made and say to them ‘do not get attracted by the propaganda’.”

Jailing Khawaja at Woolwich Crown Court today, judge Jeremy Baker handed him a 17-year term for the most serious offence.

It will comprise a 12-year custodial term before being released on licence.

He will serve a minimum of eight years.

February 2, 2015

Blast at Shi’ite mosque in southern Pakistan’s Shikarpur city kills scores

Lakkhi Dar, Shikarpur (Credit: presstv.ir)

SHIKARPUR, Pakistan Jan 30 – At least 49 people were killed in a powerful explosion at a crowded Shi’ite mosque in Pakistan during Friday prayers, the latest sectarian attack to hit the South Asian nation.

Police said the blast was caused either by a suicide bomber or an explosive device which went off when the mosque was at its fullest on Friday afternoon in the center of Shikarpur, a city in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh.

Radical Sunni Islamist groups often target mosques frequented by minority Shi’ites, whom they see as infidels.

Earlier this month, six people were killed and 17 wounded by a suicide bomber outside a Shi’ite mosque in the city of Rawalpindi, also after Friday prayers.

“We are trying to ascertain the nature of the blast,” said Shikarpur police chief Saqib Ismail Memon. “A bomb disposal squad is examining the scene.”

Saeed Ahmed Mangnejo, head of the regional civil administration, told Reuters that the death toll had reached 49.

In chaotic scenes that followed the blast, part of the mosque collapsed after the explosion, burying some of the wounded under rubble. Bystanders pulled people from the debris and piled them into cars for the journey to hospital.

Locals said there were not enough ambulances and the army later sent additional vehicles to transport people to hospitals.

The atmosphere was tense in Shikarpur after the explosion, with shops boarded up and crowds of emotional residents massing outside hospitals.
“The entire city is in lockdown and there is tension in the air. There is a heavy police presence and the Rangers are patrolling the city,” said Pariyal Marri, a local resident.

“THEY ARE OUR ENEMIES”
Jundullah, a splinter group of Pakistan’s Taliban which last year pledged support for the Islamic State group based in Syria and Iraq, claimed responsibility.

“Our target was the Shia mosque … They are our enemies,” said Fahad Marwat, a Jundullah spokesman. He did not elaborate.
Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen, a Shi’ite organization, has called for a province-wide strike on Saturday in protest.

Sain Rakhio Merani, a regional police official, said the blast was probably caused by a bomb, although Pakistani television quoted some residents as saying they saw a man wearing a suicide vest.

The attack came as Pakistan tries to adopt new measures to tackle Islamist extremists following a massacre of 134 children last month at an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The government has pledged to crack down on all militant groups, reintroduce the death penalty, set up military courts to speed convictions and widen its military campaign in lawless tribal areas.

Yet Pakistan’s religious minorities, among them Ahmadis, Christians and Hindus, say the government is doing little to alleviate their daily struggle against humiliation, discrimination and violence.

Shi’ites make up about a fifth of Pakistan’s mainly Sunni population of around 180 million. More than 800 Shi’ites have been killed in attacks since the beginning of 2012, according to Human Rights Watch.

(Additional reporting by Syed Raza Hassan in Islamabad and Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

February 2, 2015

Middle East Providing Funds to Religious Seminaries – Inspector Generals

ISLAMABAD: During Friday’s session of the Senate, Minister of State for Interior Baligur Rehman informed the House that Middle Eastern countries namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iran and the United Arab Emirates were giving aid to religious seminaries in three provinces.

The information was compiled on the basis of a report sent by provincial Inspector Generals (IGs). However, Rehman said he would not support or defend the statements made by the IGP on the matter.

According to the report presented before the Senate, 23 religious seminaries in the country are receiving foreign assistance. Out of the 23 seminaries, five belong to the Shia sect and are located in Balochistan.

Other seminaries are based in KP, Sindh and Balochistan and are part of the Sunni sect. No information was given with regards to the province of Punjab. However reports have said that the seminaries in Punjab are not receiving any assistance.

Following a demand made by Senator Sughra Imam, Acting Chairman of the Senate Sabir Ali Baloch referred the question to Senate Privileges Committee with directives that IG of Punjab police may be summoned before the committee to explain his position on foreign assistance being received by religious seminaries in Punjab.

The federal minister told the Upper House of Parliament that according to the anti-money laundering law, financial transaction of religious seminaries and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) would be monitored.

The minister further told the House that some NGOs are receiving assistance from the United States, Netherlands and Australia.

Earlier, the opposition also walked out from the proceedings of the House over the absence of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar and Minister of State for Interior.

Later, on directives issued by the chair, Rehman showed up at the house and responded to the questions relating to the Interior Ministry.

The Senate has been adjourned to meet again on Monday at 4 pm.

JUI-F chief warns govt‏ against stopping foreign funding
Meanwhile, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazal (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has warned the government against stopping foreign assistance from being received by Pakistan’s religious seminaries.

“The government cannot stop this and if the buildings of seminaries are occupied, we would continue to teach under the shadow of trees,” he told the media after chairing a parliamentary committee meeting on Kashmir.

He said the government was taking this action to please the United States which he alleged was creating disturbance within the country.

January 29, 2015

Saudi Oil Blurs Criticism of its Human Rights Violations

Michelle Obama in Saudi Arabia (Credit: facebook.com)

It is clear that any attempt to draw the West’s attention to Saudi Arabia’s history of glaring human rights violations, would require an urgent amendment to the terminology we regularly use to describe the Saudi regime.

The most genial words have been pouring in from across the world for King Abdullah, the “reformer”.

President Obama cancelled his trip to the Taj Mahal to fly to Saudi Arabia.

In his statement on the death of King Abdullah, Obama spoke about the king’s initiatives “that will outlive him as an enduring contribution to the search for peace in the region”.

The National Defense University in the US announced an essay competition to pay tribute to the deceased Saudi monarch.

The Japanese government praised him as a “peacekeeper”.

Perhaps the most baffling commendation came from the IMF’s Christine Lagarde, who called King Abdullah “a strong advocate for women”.

The four adult daughters reportedly house-arrested by King Abdullah, just to keep them from returning to his ex-wife were apparently not available to rebut Lagarde’s tribute.
Nor were the millions of other Saudi women who, regrettably, could not leave their homes without their husbands’ permission.

David Cameron applauded the Saudi monarch for his “commitment to peace and for strengthening understanding between faiths”. This, in spite of a leaked diplomatic cable in which Abdullah personally prodded the US to invade Iran; and in spite of his support for extremist outfits engaged in what can only be described as a ‘Shia genocide’.

While praise has been pouring in from nearly every corner of the world, there’s a reason for us foregrounding the West’s adoration of Abdullah in particular.

There is a stark contrast between these countries’ official advocacy for democracy and freedom, and the kind of non-democratic rulers they choose to lionise.

Many Western nations, particularly the United Kingdom, have visible sympathy for monarchism. Never mind the fact that the unelected monarch is basically a ‘dictator’, the British have nevertheless taken great comfort in their country’s “symbolic dictatorship”.

This ‘soft corner’ for monarchism is periodically displayed with utmost zeal, as the common Englishmen proceed to curtsy before the men and women of supposedly superior bloodlines.

Monarchism – which is basically the arbitrary division of humans into peasants and high-borns, based simply on the accident of birth – is systematically glorified in art, music, children’s literature, and even mainstream politics in a surprising number of countries.
It’s easy to imagine why the word ‘King’ may appear less threatening to the denizens of such nations.

“Dictators” are men like Saddam Hussein and President Bashar Al-Assad. Kings and Queens are decorated, well-starched, and assuredly benign figures that inspire us with their radiant smiles and gentle waves.

Problematically, the Elizabethan/Disney description of a monarch gets projected onto the assuredly non-benign figures of the Middle East, and beyond.
These diplomatic geniuses have always used the simple power of linguistics to route and reroute global outrage, however they find profitable – subjectively sifting out the ‘rebels’ from the ‘terrorists’, and a ‘coup’ from a ‘takeover’.

We say the word “killed” when we want to provoke outcry, and the word “died” where an outcry is politically inconvenient.

Yes, “died”, like from high cholesterol or old age.

Now, with the ideological boundaries between the brutal Saudi administration and ISIS growing blurrier by the day, we find ourselves engaged in Olympics-grade verbal gymnastics, trying to wedge them apart.

Let’s not do that.

An unelected ruler of a country that publicly decapitates and lashes its citizens – often hastily and for archaic, moralistic reasons – and exports fanatical ideas to many politically volatile corners of the world, may be safely described with a word less lenient than “King”.

January 26, 2015

Shia Militia Capture Yemen Threatening Iran Saudi Proxy War

Shia Sunni divide in ME (Credit: Geocurrents.com)

It wasn’t long ago that President Obama touted Yemen as a success in the fight against terrorism. “This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us while supporting partners on the front lines is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years,” he said in a major speech in September, outlining his approach to defeating Islamic State. Within weeks of that pronouncement, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia occupied the capital city of San’a. Now matters are getting worse.

On Tuesday Houthi forces seized the presidential palace along with the headquarters of the presidential guard, taking dozens of hostages and seizing an arsenal of tanks and artillery. The country’s nominal president, the U.S.-backed Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was last seen inside his residence; his fate wasn’t clear as we went to press. The U.S. Embassy in San’a reported that Houthi gunmen fired on one of its diplomatic vehicles, though nobody was injured.

This comes days after the West was brutally reminded in Paris that it cannot remain indifferent to chaos in a poor Arab country. At least one of the Kouachi brothers had weapons training in Yemen, and the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda took credit for sponsoring the attack on the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo. If the Houthi have now overthrown our partner government in Yemen, we’ll need either a new partner or a new strategy.

The Houthi are often described as a sect or a tribe. But it’s more accurate to say they are a radical Shiite political movement similar to Hezbollah, whose guiding slogan is “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam.” Last year, the Houthi gained control of the Yemeni port city of Al Hudaydah, just north of the Bab El-Mandab strait separating the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. Along with the Strait of Hormuz, this gives Iran the ability to threaten both maritime chokepoints surrounding the Arabian peninsula.

One temptation will be to see a silver lining in the Houthi takeover, on the theory that the Shiite group is at war with al Qaeda and its radical Sunni affiliates. But the “let Allah sort it out” approach to foreign policy espoused by Sarah Palin won’t work, given that neither side is likely to defeat the other and a de facto partition of the country into two radical camps would complicate and multiply the dangers. The Hadi government cooperated with U.S. forces targeting al Qaeda in Yemen, but the Houthi won’t do the same. We could face two terrorist havens.

What should the U.S. do? The Obama Administration should insist that the Houthi guarantee Mr. Hadi’s safety and release him if he’s in custody. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia may also need to coordinate a strategy to dislodge the Houthi from San’a. The collapse of Yemen is another reminder, along with Iraq, that counterterrorism-lite doesn’t work, and that the U.S. has to do more to prop up its allies, if necessary with troops on the ground.

If it can’t be reversed, the fall of Yemen takes the Mideast closer to a regional war between radical Sunnis and radical Shiites, with U.S. allies caught in the middle. It’s an illusion to think that if we withdraw the carnage will stay over there.