Lawyers killed in terrorist trap (Credit: Baloch voices)
QUETTA, Pakistan: Pakistani lawyer Ataullah Lango had just arrived at the Civil Hospital in the southwestern city of Quetta to mourn the slain head of his provincial bar association when he heard a loud explosion and felt the pain of glass stabbing his face.
He lost some 60 colleagues in the suicide bombing that decimated the leadership of this tight-knit legal fraternity, probably for years.
“The cream of our legal fraternity has been martyred,” Lango told Reuters at the house of the slain bar president.
“Our senior leaders … are now gone.”
Pakistan has endured a wave of militant attacks in recent years, but lawyers have not been singled out on such a scale before.
That changed on Monday when a suicide bomber struck a crowd of lawyers who had crammed into a hospital emergency department to accompany the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the 3,000-member Baluchistan Bar Association.
At least 74 people were killed, most of them lawyers, in Pakistan’s worst bombing this year, claimed by both a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, and the Middle East-based Islamic State.
Across Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province surrounded by mountains, lawyers gathered for funeral prayers on Wednesday, visited families of lost friends, shouted slogans at protests and urged the government to protect them better.
Baluchistan is no stranger to violence, with separatist fighters launching regular attacks on security forces for nearly a decade and the military striking back.
Islamist militants, particularly sectarian groups, have also launched a campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations of minority Shi’ites.
After Monday’s attack, the legal community in Baluchistan and across the country said it felt leaderless but also vowed unity.
Kasi’s younger brother, Shoaib Kasi, himself an attorney, said the attacker had “pre-planned” to first kill the bar association president and then target the hospital, knowing that mourners would gather there.
“It will take centuries for us to make up this loss,” lawyer Abdul Aziz Lehri told Reuters at the district court building, largely deserted due to a strike by his colleagues.
The president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Ali Zafar, called the attack a “turning point”, and gave the government until Thursday to present a security plan to protect lawyers and other “soft targets”.
ANGER AND DEFIANCE
Emotions ran high at a press conference where lawyers expressed anger, particularly against the country’s powerful military, but also voiced defiance.
“We are not tense because of the terrorists,” said senior lawyer Manzoor ul Hassan. “We have sadness, of course, but no fear.”
Lawyers have held a special place in Pakistan’s democratic process.
A lawyers’ movement emerged as the vanguard of a campaign against the then army chief Pervez Musharraf after he suspended the country’s top judge in 2007 for opposing plans to extend the general’s term in office.
Lawyers organized convoys traveling from city to city to support ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and the government was forced to re-instate him.
Musharraf emerged from the confrontation a much diminished figured and stepped down as president in 2008.
“Lawyers were the targets, because we fight for the rights of the people,” Ali Zafar told the press conference. “They think we will be weakened … I say we will become stronger.”
Prominent lawyer Ali Ahmed Kurd said those left would carry the torch.
“The juniors who are left, they are filled with the passion for working hard, for honesty … that will make up the difference,” Kurd told Reuters in Quetta.
But he added that the lawyers of Baluchistan were afraid to call a meeting of the bar association to map out the legal fraternity’s next steps.
“If you convene a meeting now, who will come?” Kurd said. “There’s no one. None is left.”
(Writing by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
QUETTA / ISLAMABAD: At least 53 people killed and over 50 others were injured when a bomb exploded in Civil Hospital Quetta on Monday.
The blast, followed by firing was heard after president of Balochistan Bar Association Advocate Bilal Anwar Kasi was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Quetta.
Facebook activates ‘safety check’ feature following Quetta blast
Television footage from the site showed scenes of chaos, with panicked mourners fleeing through debris as smoke filled the corridors of the hospital’s emergency ward.
A heavy contingent of Frontier Corps and police arrived and cordoned off the hospital following the blast, restricting access to the area. According to police and rescue officials,
Kasi was targeted by two unidentified gunmen who opened fire on his car near Quetta’s Mengal Chowk on Mannu Jan road. The bar association president was shifted to Civil Hospital, where he succumbed to injuries.
The subsequent suicide attack appeared to target his mourners, Anwar ul Haq Kakar, a spokesperson for the Balochistan government, said. “It seems it was a pre-planned attack,” he said.
More than 50 mourners, including lawyers and journalists were entering the emergency department of the hospital, accompanying Kasi’s body, when the bomb went off, Faridullah, a journalist who was at the scene, told Reuters.
College principal gunned down in Quetta
Several lawyers were reported injured in the explosion and aerial firing could still be heard near the hospital’s emergency’s ward. Meanwhile, former Balochistan Bar Association president Advocate Baz Muhammad Kakar succumbed to injuries.
According to reports, Aaj TV journalist Shehzad Ahmed was also killed in the blast, while Dawn News cameraman was critically injured. Following the incident, emergency has been declared in hospitals across Quetta.
Targeted killings have become increasingly common in Quetta, the capital of a province that has seen rising violence linked to a separatist insurgency as well as sectarian tensions and rising crime. Quetta has also long been a stronghold of the Afghan Taliban. The motive behind Monday’s attacks, however, was unclear.
Army chief General Raheel Sharif arrived in Quetta and visited civil hospital where he inquired about the health of the injured, and was briefed about the deadly incident. Meanwhile, PM Nawaz is scheduled to arrive in Quetta shortly.
President Mamnoon, PM Nawaz strongly condemn Quetta blast
President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the blast, Radio Pakistan reported.
KU professor shot dead in Karachi’s FB area
Deploring the loss of precious lives in the incident, PM Nawaz directed concerned authorities to maintain utmost vigilance and beef up security for the legal fraternity and members of civil society.
The premier said, “No one will be allowed to disturb peace in the province that has been restored due to countless sacrifices of security forces, police and the people of Balochistan.”
President Mamoon and PM Nawaz directed for provision of best treatment to those injured in the attack. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has also condemned the blast.
RAW behind Quetta attack, claims Balochistan CM
Meanwhile, Balochistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri has claimed that Monday’s attack was carried out by RAW, the Indian premier spy agency.
“I have the evidence of RAW’s involvement in Quetta’s attack which I will share with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the foreign ministry,” Zehri said while speaking with the Express News.
The chief minister said he has, at times, provided evidences of Indian involvement in stoking unrest in the province. Besides ordering an inquiry the chief minister also announced three-day mourning in wake of the Quetta blast.
Commander southern command inquires after injured
Commander Southern Command Lt-Gen Amir Riaz visited the civil hospital and inquired after the injured. He also directed the authorities concerned to provide best medical facilities to those injured in the blast.
PBC calls for nationwide strike, one week of mourning
Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on Monday called for a nationwide strike on August 9 and one week of mourning after the attack which left over people, including president of Balochistan Bar Association, dead.
PBC’s vice-chairman Dr Muhammad Farogh Naseem and chairman executive committee Abdul Fayaz strongly condemned the assassination of Kasi and the blast in Civil Hospital. They appealed the lawyers to observe a country-wide strike tomorrow i.e. Tuesday August 9 and one week of morning.
“The lawyers, while observing the strike and mourning, will hold protest meetings in their bar rooms and wear black bands to condemn the tragic incident,” a statement said.
CJP condemns Quetta attack
Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali has strongly condemned Kasi’s assassination and the bomb blast at Civil Hospital that claimed lives of innocent lawyers and other citizens besides causing injuries to many people, a statement said.
The CJP offered his heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and prayed for speedy recovery to the injured. He further hoped that the federal and provincial governments would leave no stone unturned to provide justice to the affected families.
Blast in Madina parking lot (Credit: siasat.com)DUBAI, July 8: Saudi Arabia identified on Thursday suspects in two of the three attacks that struck the kingdom on the same day this week, including one outside the sprawling mosque where the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is buried in the western city of Madina that killed four Saudi security troops.
In a statement released by the Interior Ministry late Thursday, authorities said the Madina bomber in Monday’s apparently coordinated attacks was 26-year-old Saudi national Na’ir al-Nujiaidi al-Balawi.
Three suicide bombers behind a botched attack, also Monday, outside a Shia mosque in the eastern region of Qatif in which no civilians or police were wounded, were identified as Abdulrahman Saleh Mohammed, Ibrahim Saleh Mohammed and Abdelkarim al-Hesni, all in their early 20s.
It was not immediately clear what nationality or nationalities the three carried.
The ministry said investigations following the attacks led to the arrests of 19 suspects, seven Saudi and 12 Pakistani nationals. No other details were immediately available.
On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia identified the suicide bomber who struck outside the US Consulate in Jeddah as a Pakistani resident of the kingdom who had arrived 12 years ago to work as a driver. It named him as 34-year-old Abdullah Gulzar Khan. It said he lived in the port city with “his wife and her parents.: The statement did not elaborate.
In that attack, the bomber detonated his explosives after two security guards approached him, killing himself and lightly wounding the guards, the ministry said. No consular staff were hurt. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks but their nature and their apparently coordinated timing suggested the militant Islamic State (IS) group could be to blame.
Pakistan has condemned Monday’s attacks in the kingdom. There are around 9 million foreigners living in Saudi Arabia, which has a total population of 30 million. Among all foreigners living in the kingdom, Pakistanis represent one of the largest groups.
The Saudi ministry said the attacker in the Madina assault set off the bomb in a parking lot after security officers became suspicious about him. Several cars caught fire and thick plumes of black smoke were seen rising from the site of the explosion as thousands crowded the streets around the mosque.
Worshippers expressed shock that such a prominent holy site could be targeted. The Prophet Muhammad’s mosque was packed on Monday evening, during the final days of the Muslim holy month of Ramazan, which ended on Tuesday. Local media say the attacker was intending to strike the mosque when it was crowded with thousands gathered for the sunset prayer.
Saudi Arabia is part of the US-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria, and the militant group views its ruling monarchy as an enemy.
The kingdom has been the target of multiple attacks by the group that have killed dozens of people. In June, the Interior Ministry reported 26 terror attacks in the last two years.
The Islamic world, at the end of this week, looks like a series of boiling cauldrons from Dhaka to Kabul through to Istanbul and Baghdad. Islamist rage depicts itself equally violently in killing other Muslims as it does infidels. This – Islamist terror – is the common thread between terrorist acts in Mumbai, Paris, Brussels, Orlando and all over Afghanistan. From Syria-Iraq, the scourge has spread to Libya and will reach out to the rest of Africa, Europe and even the US.
Let us make no mistake that Islamist terror is thriving globally. A section of the Muslims is using extreme violence to terrorise fellow Muslims. Yet, the other hard reality is that hundreds of thousands of Muslims are willing to die and kill in the name of Islam as that see that as the way to paradise.
The other issue is whether, in all this, the Dhaka attack is a manifestation of ISIS’s presence or an example of local radical groups using the ISIS brand to seek publicity through their gruesome acts. It is doubtful if ISIS have sent their CEOs to manage things in Bangladesh. What, however, is more likely is that those Bangladeshis who had gone to Syria and Iraq have returned and are now willing to be used by one or more of the several radical organisations that still exist in the country. These could be independent acts replicated all over the world. They are more like franchises than actual branches of the main group. It is a kind of common discourse with groups acting under peer pressure knowing that the rest of us do not have an adequate reply. Drones will kill but they do not prevent the birth of other jihadists.
To understand where the world stands today perhaps a short recap of recent history is necessary. The game was played in several playing fields. Vietnam had been a Cold War disaster for the US and an early reprieve was necessary. Proxy wars in Africa had not delivered satisfactorily and Iran had slipped out of the US orbit. Brezhnev provided the opportunity to the US in December 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. For the first time, the US used religion and not democracy and human rights as weapons when the Afghan jihad was launched. And for the first time in modern history, Muslims from different parts of the ummah got together to battle the Evil Empire. Ultimately, an exhausted, over-stretched Soviet Union withdrew and the Afghan mujahideen thought this was the result solely of their bravery and Islamic faith. No credit was given to the US contribution for this victory.
The 1990s were different; the US lost interest in the region. The jihadi presumed he had inherited the world because of his superior religion. When this did not happen, the mullah reverted with great vehemence to promising paradise in the other life to be attained through war and dying for the faith. Theological orthodoxy has been the ploy since then.
The US administration allowed Pakistan to develop its nuclear capability when it winked at Zia ul-Haq’s efforts to nuclearise. Pakistan launched its proxies in India (and later in Afghanistan) in the 1990s confident that it could use terror as a weapon under a nuclear umbrella. The US had fought an inconclusive war in Iraq; Saddam Husain continued to be the ruler and the Americans were seen as occupation forces in Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda was born and Osama bin Laden swore to cleanse the Holy Land of infidel forces. September 11, 2001 brought the US back into West Asia with all its might and instead of concentrating on eradicating the threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Washington once again diverted its attention to Iraq. The world knows what happened there and how.
Arab Winter not Spring
Iran emerged as the strongest force in the region. The Arab Spring in Iran-backed Syria turned into a long cold bitter winter. ISIS was officially born in June 2014 when Abu Bakr Baghdadi made his sole appearance and announced the ‘caliphate’.
This is not to say that ISIS or the Al Qaeda are solely the result of US policies and interests. Local dictators and monarchs have contributed to this by suppressing any attempt at collective emancipation of their people and denied them any hope of power sharing. ISIS was helped in its phenomenal rise by the Saudis and the Qataris in their regional and sectarian battles against Iran. But even they did not expect the group to be so successful in its efforts at state-building. In fact, the caliphate would be a great danger to all the Muslim allies of the West in the region. There may be some truth in reports that the Iranians and the Saudis secretly met in an effort to try and dissolve the caliphate. Turkey tried to play the dangerous game in several ways with and against ISIS in order to contain the Kurds. The Istanbul airport bombing is the result of this double game, just as much as the recent onslaught in Baghdad with hundreds killed is obviously mean to exhibit its strength and discredit reports that its hold is slipping.
It is impossible to fully discuss here the complex nature of the relationships in West Asia, which is compounded further by the interests of other outside powers that drive the present chaos. The Al Qaeda-ISIS rivalry in West Asia is another factor that adds to the confusion. At some point they are conjoined twins – for instance Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have the ‘Shahada’ as their banner. ISIS concentrates currently in its own region, followed by Europe and the US. It is a kind of a reverse-crusade.
While ISIS brutality is particularly frightening, there are two factors that cause greater concern. One, the deliberate use of certain Quranic verses by the ISIS to justify its brutality is accepted by a section of Muslims in different parts of the world. This frightens others, especially non-Muslims whose knowledge about Islam is bound to be inadequate. The second is that we often make the mistake of assuming that others see themselves as we see them. While the rest of us assume that everyone considers ISIS to be evil incarnate, there are others who think otherwise. For us in India, we have the problem that confirmed Pakistani terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba plan a ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ and dream of establishing three caliphates in India.
This fits admirably with the dreams of the Pakistani military mindset that seeks parity with India through confrontation. (Both share the same motto – ‘Jihad in the name of Allah’). Pakistani terror outfits dreamt of caliphates in India decades before Abu Bakr Baghdadi announced his caliphate in Iraq two years ago.
ISIS conceivably has no ethnic Arab presence or even interest in our region apart from the usual rhetoric. Bangladesh and Pakistan have Syria-Iraq returnees in larger numbers, who could be the vanguard of ISIS franchises. They would opt for the brand equity of ISIS and the latest attack in Dhaka was to register an international presence. Fortunately for India, we do not have those kinds of numbers in Syria or returning to wage jihad in their own country.
While one may be reasonably confident that ISIS will not make a mark in India, one should not be complacent and there is continued need to monitor the growing radicalisation of the youth in our major cities. Conscious efforts are being made to spread jihadist ideology. Inflammatory speeches and videos and violence against other sects are the usual ploys. There is little difference between Barelvi groups like the Raza academy and ISIS on theological principles such as blasphemy, apostasy and Shia Muslims. The number of Salafist mosques and madrassas all over the country has grown. These are funded illegally from abroad and tolerated and even, encouraged by state governments and the Centre. These institutions propagate Islamist supremacist ideologies that would ultimately lead to conflict.
We were lucky in Hyderabad with the recent arrest of 11 suspects alleged to be plotting terrorist strikes on behalf of ISIS. The problem is that for every terrorist plot disrupted, there could be several others in the pipeline. But to blame ISIS without evidence would be to create a scare. Since there is no real presence of ISIS capability, the only way this can happen in India is if Lashkar-e-Tayyaba wears the ISIS mask and begins to operate here. This will let Pakistan off the hook, the US would not have to push Pakistan any more and we will not be able to contemplate any action. India must not fall into the trap of changing the narrative about terrorism in the country without adequate proof.
Vikram Sood is the former chief of Research and Analysis Wing
Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between Islamic State militants and Afghan forces as the extremist movement renewed efforts to seize parts of eastern Afghanistan.
Fighters pledging allegiance to the movement, also known as Daesh, attacked police checkpoints in the Kot area of Nangarhar province.
As many as 36 attackers were reported to have been killed in the assaults, with at least another dozen police and civilians also dead from the fighting.
The assault comes just three months after the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, said the militant movement had been wiped out in Afghanistan.
Afghan extremist fighters set up an offshoot of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil) in 2014 and have since fought both the Government and Taliban to increase their influence.
Saleem Khan Kunduzi, Nangarhar province governor, said: “There is no doubt that Daesh do not respect anyone.
“They kill people, regardless of whether they’re a child or a woman. They burn down madrasas, mosques and schools.”
Sediq Ansari, the head of Afghanistan’s civil society federation, blamed local leaders for failing to tackle the threat from Islamic State.
He told the Reuters news agency: “They should be accountable for every drop of blood that has been shed in Nangarhar so it becomes a lesson to other officials.”
Isil is also a bitter foe of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which it accuses of lacking Islamic zeal. The US Air Force has begun launching air strikes on its positions in the country. So far this year, between 60 and 80 American air raids have targeted Isil in Afghanistan, including those by drones and strike aircraft.
Isil’s leadership is now believed to have left Nangarhar and moved northwards into the neighbouring Kunar province. That could be the next target if the group has the strength to expand.
The attack on Istanbul airport by suspected Islamic State terrorists is a classic example of unintended consequences, or what the CIA calls blowback.
But having turned a blind eye to the menace of Islamic State across its southern border for strategic reasons, Turkey can hardly be surprised at what is now occurring.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says it is highly likely Islamic State is responsible.
If so, it will be the third terror attack committed by the group in Turkey this year.
Add in the gathering violence committed by Kurdish separatists and it is clear that Turkey, once described as the most cosmopolitan country in the Islamic world, now faces a worsening crisis of religious and political violence.
The problem has been incubated by Ankara’s policies. Since the war began Turkey has used Syria’s innumerable opposition groups as a foil against the Assad regime, Turkey’s enemy and rival in the region.
Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has been increasingly supportive of Islamist movements across the region, including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which in 2013 was overthrown in a military coup.
But as the Americans discovered when they funded the Mujaheddin against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, terror groups like Islamic State and al-Qa’ida are “cold monsters’’. They have their own agendas, which will never align with the secular, liberal and peaceful society most Turks aspire to create. They are not your allies.
As a NATO member, Turkey has been an ally in the coalition air campaign against Islamic State, but a deeply reluctant one. Late last year it finally began launching sorties against Islamic State targets inside Syria and northern Iraq after much international pressure and a suicide attack in the border town of Suruc, which killed 34.
Turkey has also been broadly supportive of Australia’s efforts to suppress Islamic State, catching, where it can, transiting Australian fighters and deepening its co-operation with our police and intelligences agencies.
But traditionally Ankara has shown more enthusiasm for bombing hostile Kurdish groups such as the PKK which have exploited the chaos in Syria and northern Iraq to establish a foothold on its border.
This has hindered the campaign against Islamic State as Kurdish fighting units are among the most effective troops in the Syrian-Iraq theatre.
Turkey has also allowed Islamist militants free reign at the border, both to smuggle foreign fighters into Syria and to move contraband, like oil, out of it. This has greatly contributed to Islamic State’s strength and wealth. But now, like spores to the wind, Islamic State’s attackers are spreading across the globe.
Yesterday’s attack was the third Islamic State assault in Turkey this year. It is unlikely to be the last.
Amjad Sabri, a master of qawwali, the devotional music that is wildly popular across the Indian subcontinent and well beyond, was gunned down in Karachi, Pakistan. The man who spent his life singing the praises of the prophet Muhammad, continuing a centuries-long tradition of musical veneration, was accused of blaspheming the prophet, and he was executed for it.
During Ramadan.
That is so important, so painful and so hard to make sense of for the many Muslims — particularly for Pakistanis like me — because qawwali is part of our religion. At a time when Islam is reduced to warlike, uncivilized violence and portrayed as an angry, intolerant faith, qawwali is evidence of something different. The historic spread of Islam through much of what we call the Muslim world happened largely through architecture, calligraphy, poetry, but perhaps above all, music.
In South Asia, home to an astonishing one-third of the world’s Muslims, preachers and poets composed verse that survived for centuries, embedding Semitic values into local languages, a mix that was as intoxicating as it was unique. Qawwali is the soundtrack of that tradition.
The poetry, often Urdu or Punjabi, is set to music, usually in praise of God or the prophet Muhammad. A band of singers joins together to deliver songs that ecstatically convey the deep love of God, which classical Muslims expressed in secular metaphor: an intoxicating beloved, or an intoxicant itself.
Masters of qawwali, known as “qawwals,” are world famous. In fact, qawwali was the first concert I ever went to. His name was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and only later would I know enough about who he was, and what he sang, that my mind could be fully blown.
When I entered graduate school, it was to study Islam in South Asia, which means the many ancestries —Punjabi and Urdu, Hindu and Muslim, Arab and Turkish, Eastern and Western —that gave birth to me. There was a lot there for me to try to make sense of, an attempt to grasp not just facts and figures, but emotions and feelings.
My parents were religious, and very much socially conservative, and taught us that we shouldn’t dance in public, and certainly never men with women. But when I was 11, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan came to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where I was in grad school, and this very large man, cross-legged on a carpet spread out on the stage, joined by a team of musicians, began singing. Now, Nusrat was perhaps the greatest qawwal of all time; when I was growing up, the only names mentioned alongside him were the Sabri Brothers — one of whom was the father of Amjad Sabri.
There in that auditorium, I felt like a visitor on an alien planet, like someone who had seen the invasion of the body snatchers. My parents and their friends were up and dancing, and it wasn’t just that nobody cared; they loved it. They saw it as worship, probably.
History, heritage, theology, piety.
Qawwali emerges from the conviction that, before the majesty of God and the span of Creation, reason fails; only art, only music can possibly evoke the deepest feelings stirred in the human soul. So you have a musical form that reflects, in its very effect on you, the nature of faith as Muslims once believed it to be: A deep, romantic love, between a dependent human being, and an all-powerful Divine.
Here’s Nusrat performing “Allah Hu,” a simple, stunning song, whose very performance embodies the meaning of artistic endurance, which glorifies God by drawing attention to His utter otherworldliness, the translation of Islam’s radical monotheistic theology into rhyming verse: “when this land was not, when this sky was not, when this here was nowhere…. You, You….” Here’s a Pakistani rock band, Junoon — the name means ecstasy, passion, madness — performing the same song with a modern spin.
In the first moments of Junoon’s performance of “Allah Hu,” singer and guitarist Salman Ahmad announces, “The whole concept of a qawwali is not the performer performing, but the performer and the audience being in a spiritual bond.”
Maybe that’s why Sabri’s assassination hit so hard. Not just who we lost, or that we lost a piece of ourselves, but that many Muslims, especially Pakistanis and Indians, see qawwali as a bond between themselves and their history.
On Wednesday, I heard from many friends and colleagues, many but not all Pakistani, mourning Amjad Sabri’s death. One woman said she fought back tears the whole day.
Journalist Murtaza Hussain of the Intercept said it hit particularly close to home. “It was the music we grew up hearing around the house,” Hussain recalled. Not just Sabri, he meant, but all qawwali. “It was distinctively Pakistani and was our own unique expression of Islam. That’s why this killing really strikes at the heart and soul of Pakistan.”
“I don’t know if people outside the subcontinent can appreciate how much qawwali music is our own expression of religion,” Hussain said.
Sabri’s assassination happened in a Pakistan that itself would not exist without poetry — the great 20th century philosopher and poet, Muhammad Iqbal, might be said to have willed the Pakistan movement into existence. It was Iqbal’s poetry that roused the masses, that animated the idea of an Indo-Muslim homeland, that is read in every part of the Muslim world today. And that poetry is, as you would expect, also performed and sung.
But I don’t think it’s a time of mourning all the same, because I don’t think Sabri himself would have wanted us to see his death that way. The Sufis call the day of your death the wedding day, the day the lover leaves his temporary home to join his Beloved. It is a day for songs, for music, for crying out to God above and stamping your feet against the ground below, which is pretty much the best way I can think to describe our time here in this world, as long as it lasts.
It is with great regret that I must admit that I never had the chance to see Amjad Sabri in concert, but when I think about his passing, I keep remembering that Amherst auditorium.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a very large, very intense man, who seemed to be operating on a different plane of existence, who was among us, but not really with us. A hall where men and women, my aunties and uncles, as we addressed them, who always seemed so much older, so distant, so disconnected from the world I was born into, very soon jumped out of their seats and let loose, and turned round and round, laughing and dancing and clapping, ageless and joyous, as if they had, at last, come home. This was the music that connected generations of Muslims, that gave us a shared religious language.
I hardly understood a word out of his mouth, and yet I cannot forget it.
Kidnapped Owais Ali Shah (Credit: Indianexpress.com)
ISLAMABAD, June 26: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Saturday said that the assassination of renowned Qawwal Amjad Sabri and kidnapping of Owais Ali Shah, son of Chief Justice Sindh High Court Sajjad Ali Shah in Karachi, are aimed at creating panic in the port city.
Speaking to Geo News, Khan said that these two incidents did not raise question mark on Karachi operation.
Nisar said he was in touch with all the agencies for the recovery of Barrister Owais Ali Shah.
The minister strongly condemned the killing of Amjad Sabri and said the purpose of Qawwal’s killing was to create panic among the masses.
He was optimistic the security agencies would soon bring to book the murderers of Amjad Sabri.
Sabri was travelling with an associate when two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on his car on Wednesday.
He was shot multiple times and pronounced dead by medics at a local hospital where he was taken after the attack.
On Monday, The son of Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was kidnapped by unknown persons in Karachi and the law enforcement agencies seem to be clueless about his whereabouts.
This is not the first high-profile kidnapping in the country. In August 2011, slain governor Punjab’s son Shahbaz Taseer was kidnapped from Lahore by the Taliban. He returned home after four years of torture in captivity in March this year.
Former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s son Ali Haider Gilani was kidnapped from an election rally in Multan in May 2013. He was rescued in an operation in Afghanistan by American forces in May this year.
A mother accused of domestic abuse and described as “paranoid.” A father became a supporter of the Taliban. Parents who spent years in and out of courtrooms. That’s the family that gave rise to mass-murderer Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando last Sunday.
As investigators continue to search for a motive in the largest mass-shooting in U.S. history, they are focused intensely on the three years prior to the attacks, including the period when Mateen, who worked as a private security guard, was on a terrorism watch list.
But a portrait of the killer’s upbringing also is beginning to emerge, through snapshots of a childhood marked by domestic strife, struggles in school, and outbursts of violence, which may yield some insights about why Mateen embarked on his murderous rampage.
Mateen grew up in a house of four children, where he was the only boy. School records obtained by The Daily Beast show that the New York-born Mateen struggled in school and stayed in English for Speakers of Other Languages classes through middle school. As he grew older, the bad grades became supplemented with violent outbursts, including at least two instances in which Mateen hit another child. One teacher noted that Mateen “lacks remorse.” When the family moved school districts in the eighth grade, he was suspended for 25 days from his new school. In his freshman year of high school, he was even sent to another school after fighting a student.
Between eighth and 10th grade, Mateen was suspended for 48 days for fighting and other behavioral issues. The final suspension recorded for Mateen came in the new school year, two days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Mateen, whose parents were born in Afghanistan, was given a five day in-school suspension at the alternative school for an “other disciplinary violation” on Sept. 13.
In school records, Mateen’s mother, Shahla, seemed largely absent from the discussion.
Official records suggest the couple had a history of marital problems. In 2002, when Mateen was 16, police came to the family house on Waterlily Place, in Martin County, Fla., and arrested Shahla on charges of beating her husband. According to a police report, the couple, then married for 20 years, had been arguing while their children slept. Seddique went to brush his teeth, and Shahla began cursing at him, and then pulled his hair and pinched him on the bicep hard enough to leave a red mark visible to police officers.
Shahla was carted off to the police station, where officers took her mug shot. Seddique asserted that his wife had threatened to hurt him in the future. “She said she knows what to do with him,” an officer reported. To the question, “Has the defendant previously assaulted or battered you,” Mateen answered, “Yes.”
Seddique didn’t press charges, and even posted his wife’s bail. There are no records of further domestic disturbances. But the incident would find disturbing echoes years later when Omar Mateen’s ex-wife accused him of beating her while they were married. (The allegations came to light after the shooting.)
The altercation between Seddique and Shahla wasn’t the couple’s only interaction with the legal system. They have been a party in at least eight civil lawsuits in St. Lucie and Martin counties since 1994, according to court records.
In at least three cases, the Mateens were dragged to court to settle an alleged debt; in five, they’ve been plaintiffs. In 1998, Seddique sued his employer, Equitable Life Insurance, saying they failed to make good on his own disability insurance policy after he became unable to work following an automobile accident and alleging they “harassed and intimidated” him while he sought payment.
In 2010, he sued Progressive Express Insurance Company; the case was dismissed in 2012.
The Mateens also sued two individuals: a couple in small claims court in 1996, and a woman in 2011 for auto negligence. The details of those cases weren’t immediately available. And in a handwritten letter to the Martin County court announcing his intent to sue his property owner’s association for what he said were unfair charges he refused to pay, Seddique scrawled, “I’m not a punching bag!”
Becky Diefendorf, 57, who worked with Shahla at two St. Lucie County Walgreens stores, told The Daily Beast she had several explosive run ins with her former co-worker, whom she described as “paranoid.”
Diefendorf, who said she left the chain in 2011, was a manager; Shahla worked the makeup counter. She said that Shahla had once accused her of throwing eggs at the family’s home and of slashing the tires on Shahla’s car.
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“I would guess that [she could be violent],” Diefendorf said of Shahla Mateen’s arrest for domestic abuse. “My daughter had to come to the store one night to make sure I was okay. That was the night she accused me of doing that to her house. And I got so upset that I was crying…and then it just became a really big mess.”
Diefendorf said Mateen’s mother rarely mentioned her son at work, but that she often alluded vaguely to problems at home.
“I do remember her leaving because she had family problems,” Diefendorf said. “She would just come at me and say, ‘I have to go, family problem,’ and leave.”
A client of Mariam Seddique, one of the family’s three daughters, who managed a beauty salon, said she sometimes saw Shahla at the shop.
“These are nice people, these are nice, friendly people,” the client, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Daily Beast. “They’re generous, they’re lovely…. I mean, I’ve never gone to her salon, had my hair done, and not come away with a gift.”
But while Mariam spoke often of her sisters and parents, the client said she rarely mentioned her brother, Omar. “I don’t think she has the relationship with him that she has with the rest of her family,” the client said.
She told The Daily Beast that she and Mariam would often discuss the differences between Islam and Christianity, and that it seemed like Mariam was “searching.” Mariam even worked for a time as a secretary at a now-defunct church in town, the client said.
The client also attended Mariam’s wedding in 2015, which she described as “the United Nations,” because so many people from different backgrounds and walks of life came. The Mateen family has said that Mariam’s husband, Masood Khan, is from Dubai.
The client said that the Mateens never told her that they were from Afghanistan. “They said they were Persian,” she recalled.
Of all the Mateen family members, Seddique has been the most visible, outspoken both in his condemnation of his son’s actions and his insistence that he can find no explanation for what drove Omar to commit mass murder.
Over the years, the elder Mateen has worked mainly as an insurance salesman. But recently he has turned to politics and made it into a family business. He founded a non-profit organization whose sole purposes appears to be the promotion of TV and Internet broadcasts of a political talk show he hosts. His daughters Sabrina and Mary are listed as directors of the company, the Durand Jirga Inc.
Since at least 2011, Mateen has hosted the show, which airs on a station in California that’s predominately aimed at the Afghan diaspora in the U.S. and Europe. In the 100-plus videos of the show posted to his YouTube page, Mateen usually sits at a desk in front of a video backdrop of mountains or animated graphics. Occasionally he’s joined by a guest or a panel, and from time to time Mateen turns roving reporter and interviews people in the field.
The theme of the videos is consistent: Mateen is an unabashed Afghan nationalist with a visceral hatred of Pakistan. The so-called Durand Line, a 19th Century border between the two countries, is a subject of frequent, heated discussion. Mateen styles himself as a kind of peacemaker–in at least one video he offers up a detailed peace plan for the two rival nations.
But he can be wildly inconsistent, too, at one moment praising the Taliban–the militant group that sponsored al Qaeda before 9/11 and continues to attack U.S. forces–and then condemning them for their violent acts.
Lately, the videos have taken on a delusional tone. Mateen has appointed himself president of Afghanistan and has posted to his Facebook pages the names and photos of people he claims are serving as ministers in his cabinet. Recent videos on his Facebook timeline show Mateen wearing camouflage fatigues and saluting the camera.
Mateen has something of a following in Afghanistan, but probably not the kind he’d like. “Many Afghans on social media have circulated his videos just to laugh and write some funny comments,” said one person who translated some of the videos for The Daily Beast and asked to remain anonymous. “In his videos, he addresses Afghan people to raise against the government of Afghanistan and Pakistan to pave the way for him to come to Afghanistan. … He is known among Afghans because of his abnormal statements.”
Since the shooting at the Pulse nightclub, other commenters have left pornographic images in the comments of Mateen’s Facebook page, condemning his son for attacking LGBT people. But there’s nothing in the videos that suggest Mateen was a religious fundamentalist. His diatribes are more nationalist and engineered for self-aggrandizement and political effect.
In comments after his son was killed by police, Mateen made remarks that seemed to condemn homosexuality on religious grounds, but he subsequently tried to walk them back, suggesting that while he might not personally approve of homosexuality, it was no basis for his son to kill 49 people.
“He doesn’t have the right, nobody has the right to harm anything, anybody,” Mateen told CBS News. “What a person’s lifestyle is, is up to him. It’s a free country. Everybody has their own choice to live the way they want to live.”
And yet his support for the Taliban stands in stark contrast to such live-and-let-live attitudes. The group is notoriously homophobic and has murdered gay men.
Omar Mateen was surely aware of his father’s political views. And according to men who knew the son and said they had talked with him in gay clubs in Orlando, he complained about his strict father.
For his part, Seddique Mateen has insisted that he knows his son wasn’t gay. “He wasn’t gay. I know 90 percent, 95 percent,” Mateen told The Advocate, the influential LGBT news publication. Mateen doesn’t deny that Omar may have gone to gay clubs. “Based on what I’m thinking of, he must have gone scouting or something,” he said, in preparation for the attacks.
But in the interview, Mateen acknowledged that his son–whose childhood misbehaviors he had defended–clearly had hidden a lot about himself. The father said had thought the two were close. “But he fooled me,” Mateen said.
Federal investigators don’t seem convinced. On Friday, Mateen was placed on the federal no-fly list, along with Mateen’s widow, Noor Salman, who has given conflicting accounts about what she knew of Mateen’s plans before the attack. Prosecutors are reportedly bringing evidence to a grand jury, an indication that they intend to charge Salman.
ORLANDO, Fla. — A gunman who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State opened fire in a crowded gay nightclub here early Sunday in a shooting that left 50 dead and another 53 wounded. The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, had been investigated twice by the F.B.I. for possible connections to terrorism, the bureau said, but no ties could be confirmed.
Mr. Mateen, 29, an American citizen whose parents were from Afghanistan, called 911 and talked about the Islamic State at the time of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub, the worst mass shooting in American history, Ronald Hopper, an assistant agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Tampa Division, said at a news conference. Other federal officials said more explicitly that he had declared allegiance to the group.
“The F.B.I. first became aware of him in 2013 when he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties,” but could not find any incriminating evidence, Agent Hopper said.
Law enforcement officials said the suspect in the attack on an Orlando nightclub on Sunday had been monitored for possible terrorist ties, but was still legally able to buy guns.
In 2014, the bureau investigated Mr. Mateen again, for possible ties to Moner Mohammad Abusalha, an American who grew up in Florida but went to Syria to fight for an extremist group and detonated a suicide bomb. Agent Hopper said the bureau concluded that the contact between the two men had been minimal, and that Mr. Mateen “did not constitute a substantive threat at that time.”
The suspicions did not prevent Mr. Mateen, who lived in Fort Pierce, Fla., from working as a security guard, or from buying guns. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Mr. Mateen legally bought a long gun and a pistol in the last week or two, though it was not clear whether those were the weapons used in the assault.
The gunman stormed the Pulse nightclub armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and a handgun around 2 a.m., turning what had been a celebratory night of dancing to salsa and merengue music into a panicked scene of unimaginable slaughter, the floors slicked with blood, the dead and the injured piled atop one another.
Terrified people poured onto the darkened streets of the surrounding neighborhood, some carrying wounded and bleeding victims to safety; police vehicles were pressed into service as makeshift ambulances; and hundreds of people gathered at hospitals and on the fringes of the law enforcement cordon around the nightclub, hoping for some word on the fate of their relatives and friends.
“I saw bodies on the floor, people on the floor everywhere; it was a chaos, everybody trying to get out,” said Ray Rivera, a D.J. at the club who was playing reggae music on the patio area while Latin music played inside the building, when the shooting began. “I heard shots, so I lower the volume of the music to hear better because I wasn’t sure of what I just heard. I thought it was firecrackers, then I realized that someone is shooting at people in the club.”
Joel Figueroa and his friends “were dancing by the hip-hop area when I heard shots, bam, bam, bam, and the only thing I could think of was to duck, but I ran out instead,” he said. “Everybody was screaming and running toward the front door. I didn’t get to see the shooter.”
Some people who were trapped inside hid where they could, calling 911 or posting to social media, pleading for help. The club itself posted a stark message on its Facebook page: “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.”
A three-hour standoff followed the initial assault, with people inside effectively held hostage until about 5 a.m., when law enforcement agencies led by a SWAT team raided the club in force, using armored vehicles and explosives designed to disorient and distract.
Hours after the attack, the Islamic State claimed responsibility in a statement released over an encrypted phone app used by the group. It stated that the attack “was carried out by an Islamic State fighter,” according to a transcript provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist propaganda.
But officials cautioned that even if Mr. Mateen, who court records show was born in New York and had been married and divorced, had been inspired by the group, there was no indication that it had trained or instructed him, or had any direct connection with him. The pair who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December also proclaimed allegiance to the Islamic State, but investigators do not believe they had any contact with the group.
“The F.B.I. is appropriately investigating this as an act of terror,” President Obama said from the White House. He said that the gunman clearly had been ”filled with hatred” and that investigators were seeking to determine any ties to overseas terrorist groups.
“In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another,” he said. “We will not give in to fear or turn against each other. Instead, we will stand united as Americans to protect our people and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us.”
As he had after previous mass shootings, the president said the shooting demonstrated again the need for what he called “common sense” gun measures.
“This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or a house of worship or a movie theater or a nightclub,” Mr. Obama said. “We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. To actively do nothing is a decision as well.”
The shooting was the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001, and the deadliest attack in the nation’s history on a specifically gay gathering. The F.B.I. set up a hotline for tips.
Law enforcement officials increased security at gay pride events and gay landmarks in cities around the country, including Washington, New York and Chicago. Officials in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday confirmed the arrest of a heavily armed man who said he was in the area for West Hollywood’s gay pride parade. The authorities, however, said they did not know of any connection between the arrest and the Orlando shooting.
Some terrorist attacks, like the San Bernardino killings in December, have been carried out in the name of Islam by people, some of them born and raised in the West, who were “self-radicalized.”
The Islamic State in particular has encouraged “lone wolf” attacks in the West, a point reinforced recently by a spokesman for the group, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, in his annual speech just before the holy month of Ramadan. In past years, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda ramped up attacks during Ramadan.
“Make it, Allah permitting, a month of hurt on the infidels everywhere,” Mr. Adnani said, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group. Noting that some supporters have lamented that they cannot strike at military targets, he took pains to explain why killing civilians in the land of the infidel is not just permitted but encouraged.
Rasha Mubarak, the Orlando regional coordinator of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, released a statement saying: “We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence.”
The toll of the dead and injured far exceeded those of the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, where 32 people were killed, and the 2012 shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were killed.
The club posted a message on its Facebook page about 3 a.m.: “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.”
The Gay Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center of Central Florida said it was offering grief counseling to victims and survivors.
Officials at Orlando Regional Medical Center asked members of the families of victims and missing people to gather at the north entrance, where they would be escorted inside.
The slaughter at Pulse occurred a day after the singer Christina Grimmie, a star of YouTube and the reality TV show “The Voice,” was shot down after a concert in Orlando. The police said she had been killed by a St. Petersburg, Fla., man who drove to Orlando with the specific intention to kill Ms. Grimmie. The man, Kevin James Loibl, killed himself moments later.
Chief Mina said Mr. Loibl had traveled to Orlando with two handguns, several loaded magazines and a hunting knife. Police officials were examining his telephone and computer to try to determine a motive.
Lizette Alvarez reported from Orlando, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by Wendy Thompson and Les Neuhaus from Orlando; Alan Blinder in Fort Pierce, Fla.; Rukmini Callimachi from Paris; Eric Lichtblau and Eric Schmitt from Washington; and Steve Kenny, Richard A. Oppel Jr., Rick Rojas and Daniel Victor from New York
QUETTA / ISLAMABAD: At least 53 people killed and over 50 others were injured when a bomb exploded in Civil Hospital Quetta on Monday.
