<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Crisis in Balochistan</b>
Public Event
Date and Time
May 25, 2006
10:00 AM - 11: 30PM
Location
U.S. Institute of Peace
2nd Floor Conference Room
1200 17th St, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Directions Balochistan, a vast yet sparsely populated province in southwestern Pakistan, has been a source of conflict and instability for decades.
The Baloch people inhabit a poverty-stricken area rich in natural resources straddling Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Clashes between the government of Pakistan and local leaders over autonomy, wealth distribution, and the sheltering of insurgents have risen dramatically in intensity in the last year, with implications for regional stability and the war against Islamic militancy.
Speakers
Senator Sanaullah Baloch, (via video)
Senate of Pakistan
<b>Frederic Grare
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Selig Harrison
Center for International Policy </b>
J Alexander Thier, Moderator
U.S. Institue of Peace
RSVP
To RSVP, please send your name, affiliation, and name of the event to Kerem Levitas at klevitas@usip.org<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Religious Organization TNSM Re-Emerges in Pakistan
By Sohail Abdul Nasir
[From: Terrorism Focus (The Jamestown Foundation, USA)
Volume 3, Issue 19 (May 17, 2006)]
Western parts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) are gradually
coming under the grip of religious radicalism. People in Malakand and
Swat districts, populated mainly by the Yousafzai Pashtun tribe, have
been gathering in public places to burn personal electronics equipment
such as television sets, tape recorders, VCRs, computers, CDs and
other musical equipment. The significance of this development is that
it has been motivated by the religious sect
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), the Movement for the
Enforcement of Islamic Laws.
TNSM was formed by Maulana Sufi Mohammad, one of the active leaders of
Jamat-e-Islami (JI) in the 1980s. He left JI in 1992 and formed TNSM.
One of the main objectives of TNSM was to enforce Islamic laws, by
force if necessary. Sufi Mohammad encouraged and organized thousands
of people to fight against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan at the
time of the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. Most of his mujahideen
were killed or arrested by the Northern Alliance and only a few were
able to return to Pakistan, including Sufi Mohammad. The Pakistani
government immediately arrested him and for the past five years he has
languished in jail. Locals argue that thousands of mujahideen were
killed as a result of Sufi Mohammad's incompetence and lack of combat
skills. As a result, Sufi Mohammad lost much of his support.
Additionally, TNSM members have been killed and regularly arrested by
Pakistani authorities, reducing the organization's effectiveness. TNSM
has been almost completely dormant in its stronghold of Swat and the
adjoining areas. Recently, however, this situation has changed.
After the devastating earthquake that hit the region on October 8,
2005, Sufi Mohammad's followers capitalized on the incident and are
using it to revive TNSM. There is a strong and growing belief among
the people of Swat and Malakand districts that the earthquake was
punishment for their misdeeds. Remnants of the TNSM have been
encouraging them to burn their valuable electronic equipment in order
to avoid the sinful life and prevent further retribution.
The magnitude of this movement can be gauged from a news item reported
by the newspaper Mashraq on April 15 that after a short period, once
again people have begun to burn their electronic music appliances.
According to the report, on April 14 hundreds of people gathered after
Friday prayers at two different villages. Maulana Abdullah was leading
the procession at the Bilogram village in Malakand when he and his
followers gathered in a nearby area and set fire to thousands of audio
and videocassettes, televisions, computers and CDs. The same episode
took place simultaneously at Brikot village in Malakand. Furthermore,
the aftershocks from the October 8 earthquake are still occurring and
continue to frighten the region's inhabitants. On April 11, for
instance, another powerful aftershock jolted the whole area. These
aftershocks result in more determination by the local populations in
these districts to set their music-related appliances on fire
(Mashraq, April 19).
As a result of Sufi Mohammad's imprisonment, his son-in-law Maulana
Fazalullah is now leading the TNSM movement. Although it is not
operating at a high level and does not enjoy the influence of the
past, the earthquake has revived the organization to the extent that
thousands of people tune into its FM radio transmission. This radio
station was recently banned by the government and, as a result,
thousands of people staged demonstrations against this decision.
Fazalullah established this FM radio station at Imamdairi, a small
town in Swat district. The station is used to deliver teachings of the
Quran and persuade people to destroy their musical appliances by
arguing that listening to music and performing other sinful acts
caused the recent earthquake. According to the broadcast, if believers
do not give up their musical and electronics equipment, it may invite
the anger of God. As a result of these teachings, thousands of
inhabitants voluntarily destroyed their electronic goods in just a few
days and this chain of events has continued with short intervals.
Additionally, as a result of TNSM's religious urgings, 50 families
announced the end of their years-old rivalries, hundreds gave up the
use of drugs and unaccountable numbers disconnected their cable
television connections.
Religious parties termed the government's decision to ban the radio
station as a conspiracy to prevent religious teachings, and accuse the
Musharraf government of acting on the orders of the United States
(Mashraq, April 13). On April 20, the English-language daily The Post
reported that so far 10,000 people have set their electronic goods on
fire as a result of motivation given by the FM radio station of
Fazalullah, who declared that watching television is un-Islamic.
The October 8 earthquake hit a vast area of northern NWFP and Azad
Kashmir (the part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan). Devastation in
the rest of the areas, which were just as damaged as Malakand and
Swat, did not lead to the same developments. The reason is that
outside of Malakand and Swat, no leader is persuading people to
destroy their electronic appliances on a powerful tool of
communication like FM radio run by a cleric pushing extreme religious
views does not exist.
The provincial government that banned this FM radio station must be
concerned about the increasing influence of TNSM, an organization that
once caused a major threat to the writ of the government in these
areas during the mid-1990s when the government had to use force to
control the volunteers of this movement who were demanding the
enforcement of Sharia. The provincial government, due to political
reasons, cannot afford the revival of TNSM. The ruling religious
alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, and particularly JI consider
Malakand and Swat their strongholds and will not allow TNSM to damage
their positions in the region. It is worth mentioning that Sufi
Muhammad is a JI dissident.
TNSM is now increasing its activities. Nawa-i-Waqt reported on May 1
that TNSM has decided to launch a movementâconsisting of protests
after Friday prayers and additional ralliesâagainst the government.
Five leaders of TNSM held a press conference on April 30 at Chakdara
in Dir district and alleged that their workers are being harassed.
They said that the government has failed to enforce Sharia in Malakand
district against which TNSM will launch a movement; however, they did
not specify when the movement would begin. While the leaders attempted
to make clear that they are against terrorism and do not have any link
with al-Qaeda terrorists, the revitalization of the TNSM movement
could create further instability in Pakistan's NWFP, adding to
Islamabad's existing difficulties of maintaining stability over the
entire country.
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/ar...ticleid=2369997<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Friday, May 19, 2006
US âhas optionsâ if radicals get hold of Pakistani nukes
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The United States has contingency plans in case any of Pakistanâs nuclear assets are taken over by Islamist radicals.
Prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime, former CIA director George Tenet and former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage were sent to Islamabad to discuss the safety of Pakistanâs nuclear programme.
According to an analysis published by Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in the Instituteâs National Security Outlook, any US military action in Pakistan must have at least the tacit agreement of the Pakistan Army, if not the government in Islamabad. Any operation which requires fighting to gain access to Pakistan makes speculation so complicated as to make it an exercise in futility or, at minimum, an operation that takes so long to unfold that it would not be responsive to the situation.
Also, it must be assumed that the situation that results in loss of control is not a broad-based rebellion or insurgency against the Pakistan Army or against the Musharraf government. Fighting for access in the face of a popular uprising across Pakistan, or even across the Punjab, is too large an operation to contemplate.
Another correlated but necessary assumption is that the Pakistan Army allows US forces to deploy through some airfields. Attempting to gain a UN resolution could well slow any useful military action. It is hard to imagine the Chinese being very âforward leaningâ- although if the Pakistanis make an appeal to the âinternational communityâ in the moment of such a crisis, it might be hard to keep the Chinese out, and even harder the longer the operation continued. Any Indian role is to ruled out as it would not be acceptable to Pakistan or Pakistanis.
The analysis maintains that the Pentagon is quite right to think about options for dealing with âloose nukesâ other than the kind of recycled arms control.
Enjoy gem from Urdu press from Pakistan
FT<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Pir Zakori Sharif in China</b>
Writing an account of his visit to China in Jang, columnist Javed Chaudhry stated that in China women were running the markets while no children could be seen on account of Chinaâs one-child policy. In Sinkiang he was entertained by Pir Sahib Zakori Sharif in the Pakistani delegation who sang songs like chitta kukar baneray tay to give evidence of his great talent. In Sinkiang the Chinese were found to be aggressive businessmen who werenât always too honest but the Chinese slept at nine at night and woke up early morning. They ate moderately and were all slim around the waist. In contrast Pir Zakori Sharif did Pakistan proud by eating more than ten Chinese. His waistline could fill the room and you could make ten Chinese out of him.
<!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Indiaâs strategic blunder</b>
Writing in Jang Ikram Sehgal stated that Pak-Bangladesh relations had improved tremendously, with trade keeping pace with the emotion of friendship. It was no longer like 1971 which was now a part of the forgotten past. It would have suited India to have an East Pakistan hating West Pakistan but it made a strategic blunder by breaking Pakistan up.
<b>Who did Nishtar Park bombing?</b>
Columnist Hamid Mir wrote in Jang that Pakistanâs government was calling the April 11 Nishtar Park Karachi bombing the work of a suicide bomber so that a sectarian colour could be given to it. But the enemy could use a Muslim to do suicide bombing by paying him a lot of money. The enemy was India. When India did terrorism in Pakistan, we think it is sectarian, but when something happens in India everyone thinks it is jihadis or Pakistanâs ISI. It was time we thought of naming India. Yet the March 2005 suicide bombing of the Karachi American Consulate was the work of Al Qaeda. But in India there was suicide bombing of Ram Mandir in 2005, followed by cycle-bombings in Lahore, followed by explosions in New Delhi. In 2006 there was bombing in Benaras which was followed by the suicide bombing of Nishtar Park. But the bombing of Jama Masjid in New Delhi after that could not have been the work of Pakistan; that was India warning the Muslims of India.
<b>Musharraf was to be killed like Sadat</b>
According to the daily Pakistan Sunday magazine Umar Sheikh had conspired in 2001 to kill President Musharraf while the latter was taking a 23 March Pakistan Day salute in Islamabad like the Egyptian president Sadat. Umar Sheikh had collected the money by looting a bank in Bahawalpur and bought ammunition and explosives from an agent in Mansehra, the centre of ISI-supported jihad. But the plan backfired and Umar Sheikh was arrested in 2002. The same material was used in 2003 when Musharraf narrowly escaped an attempt on his life.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>An eyewitness to the Taliban </b>
FT
Khaled Ahmedâs A n a l y s i sÂ
There are definitely many ways of looking at the Taliban interregnum in Afghanistan. There is a clear government-opposition divide on the post-2001 chain of events, which is absurd simply because it is political rather than real. In addition, among liberals and conservatives, there are divisions of all kinds. For those who hate America, it doesnât really matter what the Taliban stood for and what they did. There is a general dissatisfaction with the new dispensation in Afghanistan which is dominated by the warlords allied to the Northern Alliance. Everyone ends up drawing a black and white picture of the situation, which merely indicates Pakistanâs own extremist mood. Any policy âcorrectionâ in the future therefore runs the risk of a pendulum swing to the other extreme.
If you donât want to think in Manichaean terms, you run the risk of being ambivalent and self-contradictory. If the Taliban were bad medicine for Afghanistan after 1994, how come they have become good after Karzai and the Northern Alliance took over in 2001? Islamabad is seen practising an ambiguous policy towards the post-Taliban Afghanistan. It seems to verbalise in one direction and act in another. It has helped the United States catch some of the major Al Qaeda activists in Pakistan, but it is seen to be sheltering the Taliban and those who work for Al Qaeda. Is it ambivalence or internal division? This lack of clarity is the opposite end of the certitude of the black-and-white vision.
<b>Mullah Umarâs hubris:</b> Kathy Gannon was the Associated Press correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1986 to 2005 and was witness to what happened in these troubled years when Pakistan was managing two Afghan wars and their two blowbacks and allowing the Pakistani mind to be formed in the light of its policy meanders. She saw the Taliban rule and didnât like what they were doing, but her persistence and her presence made it possible for her to become the only western journalist allowed back into Afghanistan by the Taliban before their eventual retreat from Kabul in November 2001. Her book â Iâ is for Infidel: from Holy War to Holy Terror, 18 Years inside Afghanistan (Public Affairs New York 2005) tells a nuanced eyewitness story of what happened in Afghanistan. If you want to get away from a black-and-white portrayal of events this is the book to read.
No one comes out shining from this book, least of all the two major actors of the war, the United States and Pakistan. If you leave the common Afghan citizen out, who suffered over two decades of the nightmare, most of the dramatis personae are people you can only describe as evil, the cruelty of the label being intensified by the fact that all of them professed a level of piety said to be reminiscent of the exemplary Caliphate of the Companions. Ms Gannon met Mullah Muhammad Khaksar when he had been demoted from the job of intelligence chief - and Mullah Umarâs constant companion - in the Taliban government in 1999. He saw Mullah Umar being flattered by Pakistani clerics as the True Caliph in 1994 and was put off to see that Mullah Umar was being seduced out of his normal humble character by it.
<b>Isolation equals defeat:</b> Khaksar probably didnât say who these clerics from Pakistan were â or maybe she couldnât recall â but he saw quite early that this flattery would isolate Afghanistan internationally and finally destroy it. He thought Pakistan had planned it, but even if Pakistan didnât plan Afghanistanâs downfall by making Mullah Umar take out the cloak of Prophet Muhammad PBUH and put it on, its policy achieved the same end. For the Taliban, like most small nations, international isolation was another name for defeat and death. Mullah Umar was too witless to understand that he was making a dishonest use of the Holy Cloak just like King Amanullah in history. If Amanullah disclaimed something (modernism) through the cloak, Mullah Umar claimed it (tradition); but both did the insincere thing for which they were punished. Isolation came because of Mullah Umarâs hubris and unfortunately the Holy Cloak caused it.
The clerics who were sent by the ISI to greet Mullah Umar are well known and their remarks about the man can still be collected from the Urdu press of those days. They compared him to the Prophet and Caliph Umar to his face and came home saying the Caliphate of the Companions had been revived. A retired chief justice went to see him after growing a flowing beard on his face. A very popular TV cleric predicted that under Mullah Umar the army of Imam Mehdi was taking shape, who will soon conquer the world with it and Islamise it. Ms Gannon mentioned only one big cleric (later assassinated), but the one she didnât mention was putatively the teacher and mentor of Mullah Umar in his seminary near Peshawar. As a senator in early 1990s, the man hired prostitutes in Islamabad and fornicated with them while being sodomised by his driver, thus earning the sobriquet of Maulvi Sandwich. (In this connection, the writer listened to the famous Madam Tahira Tape sent him by Nawaz Sharifâs IB chief, Imtiaz âBillaâ.) No one from Pakistan could go to Afghanistan to meet Mullah Umar without being âvettedâ by him.
<b>Bamiyan Buddhas and Pakistanâs âhardâ Islam:</b> Such were Mullah Umarâs antecedents. Like most intelligence men - barring those of Pakistan, for which there is a reason â Mullah Khaksar was a connoisseur of realpolitik. He also liked sifting falsehood from the truth. He told her that Mullah Umar didnât know Osama bin Laden before he arrived from Sudan in 1996 and was given in Jalalabad in the safe hands of Maulvi Yunus Khalis by the ISI. Osama himself courted Umar with a wheedling letter which worked - and by now we know Umarâs weak point - he loved being flattered. They met finally after the Taliban had captured Kabul. Ms Gannon tells us how the Taliban began by securing the Bamiyan Buddhas against vandalism by issuing edicts from Mullah Umar describing them as Afghanistanâs cultural heritage in 1999 (p.78). In 2001 Osama had bribed Umarâs deputy prime minister and defence minister into convincing him to issue another edict for their destruction!
The Taliban, contrary to what most Pakistanis think, seemed to be religiously tentative. The hard Islam they adopted came from two sources: the Pakistan army and its active arm the ISI and the Wahhabi warriors of Osama bin Laden. And the most persuasive factor here was not religious conviction but money. After the Buddhas were destroyed the Islamabad ministry for religious affairs issued a statement saying the destruction was according to Islamic principles. Pakistan was harder in faith than the Afghan medieval marauder Mehmood Ghaznavi who spared the Bamiyan Buddhas but destroyed some of the most prominent temples of India. Later, President Karzai â whom Ms Gannon assesses favourably unlike most Pakistanis â said that âhard Islamâ came from Pakistan and proceeded to appoint Maulvi Shinwari, a fanatic from a seminary in Peshawar, as chief justice of Afghanistan!
Taliban and General Mahmood: Pakistanâs ISI chief General Mahmood Ahmad was in Washington when Osama struck his US targets on 11 September 2001. He is supposed to have accepted President Bushâs âtermsâ in consultation with General Musharraf back home. Washington told Musharraf to tell Mullah Umar to hand Osama over to the US or be prepared to be invaded. General Mahmood Ahmad was asked to go to Kandahar together with a group of âhardcoreâ clerics from Pakistan and do the persuasion. Kathy Gannon writes: âThe general was a religious zealot very much like Mullah Umar. He had been central to the military takeover of Pakistan in 1999 by General Pervez Musharraf. A hawk with pan-Islamic visions, he had been a staunch supporter of jihadis both from Pakistan and elsewhere. This was the man Musharraf sent to negotiate with Mullah Umar.
âPeople present at the meeting and within the ISI revealed that General Ahmad had a message for Mullah Umar quite different from the one that Washington had pressed his government to convey. He took the slow-talking leader aside and urged him to resist the United States. He told Mullah Umar not to give up bin Laden. General Ahmad travelled several times to Kandahar, and on each visit he gave Mullah Umar information about the likely next move by the United States. By then General Ahmad knew there werenât going to be a lot of US soldiers on the ground. He warned Mullah Umar that the United States would be relying heavily on aerial bombardment and on the Northern Allianceâ¦Neither Osama bin Laden nor Pakistanâs ISI chief explained to him the extent of the devastation that would be linked to his name and his movement (p.93)â.
<b>Is Pakistan playing a double game?</b> General Mahmood Ahmad went and met Jalaluddin Haqqani too, the warlord of Khost where Osama bin Laden had his Al Qaeda training camps. The entire Al Qaeda network was in his territory and had he wanted it, he could have handed it over to the United States, but General Ahmad warned him against it. Haqqani was called to Rawalpindi where the ISI chief told him to hold out against the Americans and that âhe had friends across the borderâ (p.94). The ISI was two-faced about cooperating with the US right from the start. The man who seemed not to hesitate in Washington when the terms were read out to him had determined to resist in Afghanistan. (One State Department official told this writer that Mahmood tended to lose his cool. This was confirmed by Pakistani diplomats who had to listen to his Islamic harangues in Islamabad. Finally when Musharraf fired him, his tendency to throw tantrums was mentioned in the press â KA.)
<b>Todayâs big question is:</b> is the ISI now sincere in what it says it is doing against terrorism? Ms Gannon doubts it and has only her experiences to relate. She tells us about a Moroccan Muhammad Hakim and his Jaish-e-Muslimeen that had broken away from the Taliban and had kidnapped three UN workers in 2004 to put themselves on the terrorist map. Hakim first demanded release of Taliban prisoners then focused on the money. The hostages were later freed but she met him in Peshawar much before that. The man was holding UN personnel but was allowed to walk in Peshawar by the ISI. What is more, he was driving around in a car whose number plate began with the digits 83, a sign that the vehicle belonged to the agency, a kind of âdiplomatic plateâ ensuring immunity from capture. She writes: âOn the one hand, Musharraf had sent his soldiers into the violent South Waziristan tribal areas, where nearly 200 were killed trying to flush out suspected terrorists, and on the other hand, his intelligence agency protected men who had kidnapped international UN workersâ (p184).
<b>A black-hole of evil:</b> Can the US complain? Ms Gannon thinks not. Not after it decided to take on board people who had done murderous things as part of the Mujahideen government 1992 onwards, then as part of the savage Taliban movement 1996 onwards, and now as part of the Northern Alliance since 2001. If Kathy Gannon knows what the Americans are up to in Afghanistan, why canât Musharraf see it and hedge his bets? But this moral black-hole most Pakistanis associate with Islam sucks in good people and makes them evil. We are told the ISI created all the seminarian devils that the Pakistanis have now grown to love, but when in 2004 Musharraf was nearly killed by Harkat Jihad Islami, he recalled its chief Qari Saifullah Akhtar from Dubai and locked him up. Akhtar was the man army let off from the 1995 unsuccessful military coup case, and then helped him escape the daisy-cutters in 2001 and packed him off to its Gulf friends for safe-keeping.
Afghanistan is an evil place where men slit the throats of mothers and kill their children. Most of this evil comes from religion which radiates from Pakistan. Pakistan simply canât understand why it canât stop being overwhelmed by it in the shape of pious massacres. Yet, I is for Infidel gives us glimpses of ordinary Afghans whose innocence and beauty move one to tears and whom Pakistan and America and even the UN have, by turns, made to suffer for no fault of theirs
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Mudy :</b>
<b>Tauba! Tauba!! Tauba!!! - This is Hilarious</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+May 19 2006, 08:00 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ May 19 2006, 08:00 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
<b>An eyewitness to the Taliban </b>
FT
Khaled Ahmedâs A n a l y s i sÂ
The clerics who were sent by the ISI to greet Mullah Umar are well known and their remarks about the man can still be collected from the Urdu press of those days. They compared him to the Prophet and Caliph Umar to his face and came home saying the Caliphate of the Companions had been revived. A retired chief justice went to see him after growing a flowing beard on his face. A very popular TV cleric predicted that under Mullah Umar the army of Imam Mehdi was taking shape, who will soon conquer the world with it and Islamise it. Ms Gannon mentioned only one big cleric (later assassinated), but the one she didnât mention was putatively the teacher and mentor of Mullah Umar in his seminary near Peshawar. <b>As a senator in early 1990s, the man hired prostitutes in Islamabad and fornicated with them <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>while being sodomised by his driver, thus earning the sobriquet of Maulvi Sandwich. (In this connection, the writer listened to the famous Madam Tahira Tape sent him by Nawaz Sharifâs IB chief, Imtiaz âBillaâ.) No one from Pakistan could go to Afghanistan to meet Mullah Umar without being âvettedâ* by him.</span></b>
[right][snapback]51409[/snapback][/right]
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Methinks it should read <b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>* "without wetting him", also the name is Maullana Sandwich</span></b>
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Pakistanâs Newest Underwear Friend â supplying Four âElliâ Type Frigates - comments on Pakistanâs âGovernanceâ Incapabilityâ :
<b>Greek minister defends âPakistanisâ kidnappersâ</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>âNo Greek government would resort to the use of masks or hoods or any other James Bond-style methods,â he said. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>âOur political system enables us to achieve our aims legally.â</span></b> Agencies<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Not sure what Greek will do with Paki ?? Paki H&D is still intact.
<b>Rescued â the Pakistan children seized by Islamist slave traders</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> <b>UK troops under threat as Pakistan forces Taliban out</b>
âThe Pakistanis are forcing them to move inside Afghanistan to fool the British and the international community that the problem is here and not their side.â <!--emo& --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
His claims came as Helmand, where 2,000 British soldiers are already based, yesterday saw a further outbreak of violence at the end of a week of bloodshed that has left more than 200 people dead.
The heaviest fighting in Afghanistan since the Taliban fell more than four years ago has prompted fears of a turbulent summer ahead for the British troops. The full deployment of 3,300 will be in place by the end of next month.
In yesterdayâs attack a 20-vehicle Afghan military convoy was ambushed in Sangeen by heavily armed Taliban, setting off a gun battle in which at least 15 Taliban and four soldiers were reported to have been killed.
It followed a Taliban attack on the town of Musa Qala earlier in the week in which 200 militants were said to have died along with 25 police and soldiers.
<b>âWeâre seeing a big upsurge in Taliban activity,â</b> Daoud told The Sunday Times. <b>âWe know they have a major plan to re-establish the old mujaheddin bases in northern Helmand used during the Soviet occupation from which to launch attacks on the British</b>
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<b>Violence rages in Afghanistan</b>
<i> 31 killed in clashes, Taliban trap 50 Afghan troops
* US soldier, two French men killed
* âDadullahâ says he has not been captured</i>
KANDAHAR: Taliban militants ambushed two Afghan army convoys in the countryâs south, sparking gunfights that killed 25 militants, five Afghan soldiers and a civilian, the Afghan military said on Saturday
Sunday, May 21, 2006 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version
Lahore Lahore Eye:Lahoreâs abandoned homes: 1947
By A Hamid
The abandoned non-Muslim homes in Beadon Road, Nicholson Road and Krishan Nagar were in fairly good condition, but those in the inner city areas, such as Shah Alami were in a very poor state. Many had their roofs and walls gutted, or had simply caved in. We lived for a few months in one such abandoned home in Shahdara, which before Pakistan was a quiet, green area, with just one bus stop on the other side of the Ravi bridge, from where you could get on a bus leaving for Sheikhupura or Rawalpindi.
The great refugee invasion of Lahore from East Punjab took place in the months of August, September and October 1947. Refugee families would get into any house they found empty. Sant Nagar, an old Hindu neighbourhood, was now almost fully a refugee colony. I recall Hamid Akhtarâs elder brother (who had come from Ludhiana) getting himself a house facing the ground that stood in the middle of the mohalla. It was a two-storey house, whose large street-level room that was perhaps a store once, now served as the baithak or the living room frequented by Ibne Insha, Ibrahim Jalees and Saeed Kirmani, Imrozeâs deputy editor. Off and on, Syed Sibte Hasan would also drop in, a pipe filled with aromatic tobacco stuck in his mouth. I think Lahore was hit by the biggest flood of its history in 1947. So extensive was the inundation, that the General Post Office on The Mall had water on its floors. Faiz Bagh, Sant Nagar and Krishan Nagar were entirely flooded.
I have never forgotten this abandoned house on Chamberlain Road which stood at the other end of a narrow street. I came upon it because I was looking for a good place for our family to move into. There were boarded-up shops on the ground floor, while the residential area lay on the first floor. I recall that when I entered the kitchen, I found in it neatly stacked sacks of flour, sugar and rice, plus big tins of ghee. There was a locked cupboard that my friend and I forced open. We found Hindi and English books and a tiny basket that contained crochet needles and coloured thread, plus a ladyâs wristwatch and a five-rupee bill. My friend kept the watch and gave me the money. We were unable to get into this house as my friend let his brother take it over, while I was gone to inform the family of my find.
Then there was this house in Sant Nagar that probably belonged to a Sikh professor. There were English books everywhere and a couple of paintings by Amrita Sher-Gill. I think they were hers because the man who had come with me to look at the house told me that these were works by the famous painter Amrita Sher-Gill. They were all signed with her name. The man took them away and I never saw him or those paintings again. I have tried to look for that house many times but without success.
I think of Krishan Nagar, another Hindu locality. A broad road led you out of the Krishan Nagar chowk to the outer extremity of the mohalla fringed by green fields. It was also the last stop for bus No 1. This was where Habib Jalib and Nasir Kazmi found shelter in abandoned homes. Nasir lived in his house for many years and that was where his children grew up. Once he said to me, âWhat makes me happy is this grape vine that hangs over the entrance. My children pass under it every time they go in or leave. I will be very sad to be parted with this house, but more than that, I will be sad for that grape vine.â
I also used to like the areas around Ravi Road. There were only two bridges on the river and most of the shops on Ravi Road sold timber. Asifud Daulaâs baradari still stood on dry land. The old Ravi flowed quietly by. There was a single wrestling pit in Minto Park where matches would take place every Friday. Kite flying contests also used to be mounted from here. My friend Hasan Tariq â who was to become a great movie director â was my reason for visiting this neighbourhood. He used to assist one of his relatives who ran a textile sweatshop there. I recall a scattering of houses on the other side of the Ravi, but I think those memories date back to my childhood visits to the city from Amritsar. As in a dream, I can see Hindu women walking to the riverbank at sunrise to bathe and offer prayers as a new day began. Where has that world gone, I sometimes ask myself and it makes me sad. Despite the upheaval that marked Pakistanâs early days, life was simple and uncomplicated, as were the people. How I wish we had stayed like that! How I wish Lahore as it was before 1947 could be reclaimed from the flowing river of time!
A Hamid, distinguished Urdu novelist and short story writer, writes a column every week based on his memories of old Lahore. Translated from Urdu by Khalid Hasan
<b>Pakistan, Iran differ on pricing formula</b>
ISLAMABAD, May 21: Pakistan and Iran on Sunday proposed divergent price formulae for their gas pipeline project, indicating a wide difference of opinion on gas pricing.
Sources said that Iran had come up with a new formula, linking the price of its gas with South East Asia-Qatar market. Under the formula, Iran reduced its demand about gas delivery at the Pak-Iran border but it still exceeded Pakistanâs purchasing capacity.
The sources said Pakistanâs counter-proposal set the price at 30 per cent of the price of oil it imported from the UAE. They said that the Pakistani side had presented its formula and had asked the visitors to respond by Monday.
The two formulae have a difference of more than $3 per MMBTU (million British thermal unit), the sources said. The two sides, they said, had agreed to keep the discussions on prices strictly confidential.
<b>But they said that Iran was quoting a gas sale price in the range of $6-8 per MMBTU while Pakistanâs offer ranged between $3.5 and $4 per MMBTU.</b>
The two-sides would continue their talks on gas pricing and project structure on Monday.
An official statement said the eighth meeting of Iran-Pakistan bilateral working group held discussions here on Sunday on the proposed gas pipeline project. Iranian deputy oil minister M. H. Hosseinian and secretary petroleum Ahmad Waqar led their delegations at the talks.
A two-day trilateral working group meeting of the project will be held on Monday.
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Pakistani Literacy rate falls by 0.4pc</b> <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pakistani Literacy rate falls by 0.4pc<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is big. I don't understand how they managed to reduce number of school enrolment or data manipulation as usual. <!--emo& --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->May 25, 12:38 AM EDT
Jury convicts Pakistani loner in Manhattan bomb plot
By TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- It was June 2004 when Shahawar Matin Siraj reached the end of his rope.
Inside the Islamic bookstore where he worked, Siraj unwittingly recounted for a paid police informant rumors among radicals that U.S. soldiers were sexually abusing Iraqi girls.
"That was enough for me," the Pakistani immigrant said in one of a series of secretly recorded conversations played at a trial in federal court. "I'm ready to do anything."
What Siraj settled on doing was bombing one of Manhattan's busiest subway stations - a scheme that resulted in his conviction Wednesday on federal conspiracy charges.
A jury in Brooklyn deliberated two days before reaching the guilty verdict in a case that cast a spotlight on how the New York Police Department has sought to monitor radical Muslims in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Siraj faces up to life in prison at sentencing Oct. 5, though the term could be much shorter under sentencing guidelines.
The 23-year-old high school dropout - who had rejected a plea deal that would have put him behind bars for 10 years - listened to the verdict with downcast eyes.
Afterward, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly issued a statement hailing the outcome as "an important milestone in safeguarding New York against terrorist plotters whether homegrown or foreign."
Siraj's attorney, Martin Stolar, called such claims misleading.
"This is not somebody who is a terrorist," he told reporters outside court. "What they should worry about are sleeper cells, not Matin Siraj."
The defense had sought to portray Siraj as an impressionable simpleton - his own lawyer referred to him as "not the brightest bulb in the chandelier" - who was lured into a phony plot. Prosecutors argued that the defendant was both the initiator and mastermind of a serious threat.
Siraj and another man suspected in the plot, James Elshafay, were arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention carrying crude diagrams of their target - the subway station in Herald Square, a dense shopping district that includes Macy's flagship department store. Elshafay immediately agreed to cooperate with the government.
Authorities said Siraj had no affiliation with known terrorist organizations. Instead, he was a relative loner whose anti-American rants caught the attention of the informant, Osama Eldawoody, and an undercover police officer.
Eldawoody, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Egypt, and the Bangladesh-born undercover officer - who both testified for the government - had been assigned by the NYPD to identify and track Islamic extremists in the city's Muslim neighborhoods following the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center.
The undercover officer, who testified using an alias, described being plucked straight out of the police academy in 2003 and given orders to become a "walking camera" among Muslims. He recalled a conversation on the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in which Siraj "complimented" Osama bin Laden.
"He said he was a talented brother and a great planner and that he hoped bin Laden planned something big for America," the officer said.
Eldawoody, meanwhile, wore a wire and assumed the role of an accomplice, assuring Siraj that any plan he concocted would have the backing of a fictitious faction called The Brotherhood. On tape, Siraj was heard musing about possibly destroying the Verrazano-Narrows and three other bridges serving Staten Island or killing Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Testifying in his own defense last week, Siraj said he never had a violent thought before he fell under the spell of the 50-year-old Eldawoody. He said the older man became a mentor and instructed him that there was a fatwa, or religious edict, permitting the killing of U.S. soldiers and law enforcement agents.
Eldawoody had himself talked about "blowing up the buildings and blowing up the Wall Street places," the defendant said. He admitted taking steps to attack the subway station, but only after the informant inflamed him by showing him photos of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"I used to just listen to him, but I never said 'yes, I was going to do it,' or 'no' until the Abu Ghraib thing came up," he said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NY_...EMPLATE=DEFAULT<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
gem from Urdu press - FT
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->MMA white paper on Karachi deaths
Columnist Dr Hussain Paracha stated in Nawa-e-Waqt that a white paper issued by the MMA had alleged that i<b>n 2005 around 676 people were killed, including 37 important political personalities, in Karachi</b>. The MMA also alleged that the MQM not only killed its enemies, it also killed its own unwanted people. MQM had replied that if the party was known to kill why were all the political parties seeking alliance with it and going to London for meetings with Altaf Hussain.
<b>Muslim blood is flowing everywhere!</b>
Renowned historian Dr Safdar Mehmood stated in Jang that during colonialism the Muslims lived under slavery but they were never killed like flies. That was because they did not feel like slaves and there were liberation movements everywhere. But after they were made independent their blood became cheap. When a few Europeans are killed they make a hue and cry (sar par utha laytay hain) but when the Muslims are killed no one takes notice.
<b>AQ Khan dismissed when going to Iran</b>
Quoted by Nawa-e-Waqt President Musharraf told a US TV channel that in 2001, AQ Khan was going to Iran when he asked him about the trip, but AQ Khan refused to divulge the reason for the trip. On this Musharraf became suspicious about the work AQ Khan was doing in Iran. He said AQ Khan might still have secrets to hide.
<b>Naanga Pir grabs women</b>
According to Khabrain a naked pir of Kot Abdul Malik near Lahore had become influential, causing the local women to flock to him to get their problems solved. Amanullah alias Naanga Pir became sexually aroused and started flirting with them because of his intense spirituality. He finally assaulted one Najma Bibi who informed the police. On this Naanga Pir got an imam masjid to issue a nikah nama for the two to save the life of Naanga Pir, but he too was arrested. <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Textbook contains obscene words</b>
Reported front page in Khabrain Lahoreâs chain of schools called Garrison Academy had included a book in its O-Level course called Pakistan ki Kahaniyan which was full of swear words. The report appealed to the authorities that it be banned and those who set the book should be punished. The stories in the book were supposed to contain words like kuttay (dogs), haramzaday (b@st@rd), haramzadi (b@st@rd), ullu kay pathay (son of an owl) and kanjar (pimp). The book also contained stories luring readers to unnatural acts. There was also a story about the bridal night. Nawa-e-Waqt reported that Jamiat Tulaba Islam had demonstrated in public against the course set in private sector schools. <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Musharrafâs children divided over uniform</b>
Sarerahe wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt that President Musharrafâs children were divided over whether he should remain in uniform after 2007. His son was in favour him remaining in uniform as president while his daughter wanted him to doff his uniform. It meant that the daughter had taken after the Pakistani nation while the son had taken after Muslim League (Q) <!--emo& --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>After Musharraf is goneâ¦</b>
 Fridaytimes
Khaled Ahmedâs : A n a l y s i sÂ
No one really knows if President Musharraf will put aside his military post of the chief of the army staff in 2007; and if he does, will he contest the post of the president in accordance with the Constitution? <b>The ruling PML leadership seems to be saying that he will stay on as COAS-cum-President well into the next decade. (The year 2016 is at times given, coextensive with the completion of the dams, including the Kalabagh Dam.)</b> But all of the PML doesnât say it. In a recent TV debate, federal minister Dr Sher Afgan thought there was no constitutional bar on him if he wanted to go on holding the two posts beyond 2007.
PML senator Mr SM Zafar seemed certain that he couldnât do that after 2007. In his view, after the next election, Musharraf will have to seek the presidency as a civilian in the normal constitutional course. Then in May 2006, the view earlier expressed by PML president Chaudhry Shujaat seemed to prevail: President Musharraf will be re-elected by the 2002 parliament for another five years before it is dissolved for the 2007 general election.
<b>The hate-Musharraf community:</b> The secular-clerical âcombinedâ opposition in parliament loathes Musharraf, so do also the chattering classes, liberals and conservatives all put together. Those engaged in the economic function â and those subscribing to the pragmatic school of thought â should like him but they donât speak out in his favour, except perhaps when they meet him in person, which could only mislead him. He himself began by saying he will go. Many âdemocratsâ have sat on the fence, taking his word on trust. Then he began to say he might not go. In the eyes of some, he should have gone at the end of 2004. Then he refused, after a nitpicking interpretation of the 17th Amendment, with the Supreme Court seeming to nod its head in assent. Meanwhile his graph with the chattering classes kept going down. Now we are in 2006 and he has still not announced that he would go. The cabinet in Islamabad has been asked not to comment.
Opposing him, the politicians have eaten into the narrow patch of âself-correctionâ they would need after they replace him. They have taken firm positions on issues that are actually not merely the causes of opportunism espoused personally by Musharraf but are also related to some permanent flaws of the state. They have become flaws of the state through a steady postponement of their resolution because the governments were not empowered enough politically to tackle them. These problems have become flaws also because their permanent irresolution is being described by some outsiders as the cracks in the state structure on which it might finally end its life.
<b>Rhetoric that may not die: </b>No matter who comes to power he will have to face the following issues: the relationship with the United States which the opposition has dubbed slavery, thus tending to scare off the international opinion willing to accept Pakistanâs return to full-dress democracy; the process of ânormalisationâ with India which the opposition has dubbed âcapitulation without a quid pro quoâ; the winding up of the Kashmir jihad which the mainstream parties have joined the clergy in condemning as harmful to the Kashmir Cause (The Charter of Democracy has significantly gone back to UN Resolutions on Kashmir.); the âde-bufferingâ of Balochistan and the Tribal Areas where the writ of the state doesnât run; the resolution of the crisis of water reservoirs for irrigation and power generation; and the problem of the de-Islamisation of society to root out seminarian rejectionism and violence, etc.
After a two-hour long meeting in London on 25 April 2006, (repeated on 14 May after signing the Charter) Pakistanâs two exiled prime ministers Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif issued a statement calling for the removal of President Pervez Musharraf - before the next general election in Pakistan is held under a ânational governmentâ under a revamped Election Commission. They demanded that the government release the PMLN and PPP leaders incarcerated at present while at the same time vowing not to enter into any deal with the government. They have since prepared and signed an agreed âcharter for democracyâ together with a âcode of conductâ which they will place before the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) summit on 2 July 2006.
<b>Rejectionism without street power:</b> There is an assumption in the above policy statement that the government is under pressure and would be relieved to let the PMLN and the PPP be a part of the ânational governmentâ to hold the 2007 election. How have the two achieved this âdeterrenceâ? Do the mainstream parties have âstreet powerâ? Judging from the ease with which the government was able to brush off party-cadre agitation in the occasion of the arrival in Lahore of Mr Asif Zardari and Mr Shehbaz Sharif, the two have vote-banks but no street power, which, on the other hand, is possessed by Jamaat Islami and which empowers its leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad above the other clerical components of the MMA. Knowing this fact, Qazi Sahib is already threatening a till-Musharraf-is-ousted dharna in Islamabad, daring the combined opposition to do what he can do.
Ms Benazir Bhutto has been carefully prefiguring the course the PPP will follow if the party performs well in the 2007 election and gets a chance to run the country. She has already ruled out any electoral arrangement with Jamaat Islami and the MMA, thus rescuing her party from the pro-clerical slant given by her second echelon leaders in Pakistan who thought it good policy to align the party with the radical policy of the MMA, condemning brahminism (sic!) in the neighbourhood and hegemonism (sic!) at the global level. (The media manager of the party who coined the terms has since been changed.) But the âpolitics of returnâ will be tough to negotiate by both Ms Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif. This means that the parties will have to fight the 2007 election under the 17th Amendment which the ARD and the MMA have vowed to throw out.
<b>A hypothetical post-Musharraf coalition:</b> Let us imagine that Musharraf has left the scene in 2007 and the mainstream parties have won the next election against PMLQ. In 2002, the PPP was supposed to have got the highest number of votes. The PMLN and PPP politicians in Pakistan have announced that the two parties will go into the 2007 election after making âseat-adjustmentsâ. This aims at mobilising the vote-bank with the purpose of gaining more seats. This time the PPP might not get the highest number of votes but it may win more seats in the assemblies. The PMLN might face a much bigger challenge because of the much larger split that happened in its ranks in 2002. Also it will be faced not so much with âriggingâ as with defeating well-entrenched feudal vote-getters that joined the PMLQ. It is almost certain that if the PPP wins, it will not be able to form a government on its own.
Let us assume that the PPP-PMLN form a coalition. Ideological differences will hound the coalition - despite the âcode of conductâ - given the nature of politics in Pakistan. Vote-getting politicians in parliament will demand to be made ministers, which will swell the federal and provincial cabinets and make formulation of policy difficult. On a daily basis, the ruling coalition will be hounded by politicians threatening to resign on national issues they would know to be intensely disputed at the public level. The PPP, for instance, will feel pressure from Sindh on its position on the dams, in particular, the Kalabagh and Diamer-Basha dams. Chances are that the two dams may never get started.
<b>The Balochistan quagmire:</b> The issue of Balochistan will become more complicated after the PPP-PMLN coalition decides to go back to âpolitical negotiationsâ, which mostly means letting the troika of sardars rule as before with âpersuasionâ added in the shape of massive bribes. This time however the situation on the ground will be more difficult than the mainstream parties realise: the two have already agreed in the Parliamentary Committeeâs Report of 2005 that there would be no Frontier Constabulary guarding the borders against smuggling, no police force facilitating the registration and investigation of crime in the province, and no new military cantonments guarding the international gas pipelines crossing Balochistan. Even under these agreed conditions, the negotiation of peace with the sardars in Balochistan may have some added dimensions, as follows:
The sardars have already made it known that their ownership of natural gas in Balochistan was no longer open to discussion. Gas in Balochistan would be extracted by Balochistan which will then decide at what price to sell it to the international market, including Pakistan. Needless to say, the prevalent international price â with gas approaching the price levels of oil â would be preferred by Quetta. Islamabad will have to accept the new conditions or suffer the consequences of not pacifying the province after the exit of Musharraf from the scene. The coalition will also have to surrender the port of Gwadar to Balochistan even if that means amending the Constitution and thus opening the door to the âprovincialisationâ of the Karachi port as well, as demanded by many ruling politicians in Sindh. The breakout of an inter-ethnic conflict in Balochistan might not be easily controlled by Islamabad after the countryâs return to âfull democracyâ.
<b>The Waziristan quagmire:</b> On the question of âforeignersâ in Waziristan, the two mainstream parties have already given their verdict and it has been pretty close to the stance of the MMA without being overtly pro-Taliban and pro-Al Qaeda. (âMusharraf is doing it on orders from Americaâ, has been the line.) The top leaders of both parties have courted public support by de-linking the trouble in the Tribal Areas from the trespass of foreign terrorist elements. When they come to power, the real problem there will confront them. Their predictable inaction will not lead to pacification in FATA but a further surge in extra-territorial control, which might lead to further empowerment of the rejectionist clergy. The PMLN side of the coalition will lean to the MMA clergy and weaken the government in its resolve to come to grips with the problem.
The next government in Islamabad sans Musharraf will have to accept the validity of his anti-isolationist foreign policy and will need to be very careful about reversing his domestic policies related to the âflaws of the stateâ. The top military leadership may provide a smooth transition after Musharraf but it will be averse to coming to the help of the civilian government after it worsens the crises now seen as âmisdeedsâ of Musharraf. The army will also resist the âinsertionâ of Islamist officers in the top echelons through promotions recommended by the civilian government. A rapid erosion of the credibility of the mainstream parties may happen while enhancing the public profile of the clerical parties.
Musharraf has to go and he knows it. But his policies were actually aimed at the self-correction of a state gone wrong. This going wrong was on many counts, but most dangerously, it had lost sight of the distinctions that most states are compelled to make between public passion and foreign policy pragmatism. Musharrafâs going will increase pressure on the politicians in power in Pakistan to âcorrectâ this âself-correctionâ by plunging into another period of isolationism. The PPP and the PMLN both know this despite their rhetoric to the contrary, but <b>they will never be empowered enough by democracy to save the country from going down the road of isolationism, which is another name for defeat and dispersal.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Pakistani immigrant gulty in Herald Square subway bomb plot
By Tom Hays
Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
New York (AP) - A high school dropout who first drew the attention of undercover police with his anti-American rants after the Sept. 11 terror attacks was convicted Wednesday on charges he plotted to blow up one of Manhattan's busiest subway stations.
A federal jury in Brooklyn deliberated two days before finding the <b>Pakistani immigrant, Shahawar Matin Siraj,</b> guilty of conspiracy and other charges in a case that cast a spotlight on how the NYPD has sought to monitor radical Muslims in the post-Sept. 11 world.
Siraj faces up to life in prison at sentencing Oct. 5, though the term could be much shorter under sentencing guidelines.
The 23-year-old defendant - who had rejected a plea deal that would have put behind bars for 10 years -listened to the verdict with downcast eyes.
Afterward, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly issued a statement hailing the outcome as "an important milestone in safeguarding New York against terrorist
plotters whether homegrown or foreign."
Siraj's attorney, Martin Stolar, called such claims misleading.
"This is not somebody who is a terrorist," he told reporters outside court. "What they should worry about are sleeper cells, not Matin Siraj."
The defense had sought to portray Siraj as an impressionable simpleton - his own lawyer referred to him as "not the brightest bulb in the chandelier" -
who was lured into a phony plot by a paid informant eager to earn his keep.
Prosecutors argued that even if it wasn't the defendant's idea to bomb a subway
station in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, no law-abiding citizen would have gone along with it.
U.S. Attorney Todd Harrison suggested to jurors that "normal people" like them would have responded, "Excuse me, are you crazy? Thanks, but no thanks."
Siraj and another man suspected in the plot, James Elshafay, were arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention carrying crude diagrams
of their target - the subway station in Herald Square, a dense shopping district that includes Macy's flagship department store. Elshafay immediately agreed
to cooperate with the government.
Authorities said Siraj had no affiliation with known terrorist organizations. Instead, he was a relative loner who befriended the informant, Osama Eldawoody,
and an undercover police officer at an Islamic bookstore where he was a clerk.
Eldawoody, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Egypt, and the Bangladesh-born undercover officer - who both testified for the government - had been assigned by
the New York Police Department to identify and monitor Islamic extremists in the city's Muslim neighborhoods following the 2001 destruction of the World Trade
Center.
The undercover officer, who testified using an alias, described being plucked straight out of the police academy in 2003 and given orders to become a "walking
camera" among Muslims. He recalled a conversation on the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in which Siraj "complimented" Osama bin Laden.
"He said he was a talented brother and a great planner and that he hoped bin Laden planned something big for America," the officer said.
Inside the bookstore, Eldawoody wore a wire and chatted up Siraj. When the topic turned to the war in Iraq, the defendant recounted rumors among radicals
that U.S. soldiers were sexually abusing Iraqi girls.
"That was enough for me," he said in one of series of secretly recorded conversations played for the jury. "I'm ready to do anything. I don't care about my
life."
Eldawoody, assuming the role of an accomplice, assured Siraj that any plan he concocted would have the backing of a fictitious faction called The
Brotherhood. On tape, Siraj was heard musing about possibly destroying the Verrazano-Narrows and three other bridges serving Staten Island or killing
Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Testifying in his own defense last week, Siraj said he never had a violent thought before he fell under the spell of the 50-year-old Eldawoody. He said the older
man became a mentor and instructed him that there was a fatwa, or religious edict, permitting the killing of U.S. soldiers and law enforcement agents.
Eldawoody had himself talked about "blowing up the buildings and blowing up the Wall Street places," the defendant said. He admitted taking steps to attack the
subway station, but only after the informant inflamed him by showing him photos of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"I used to just listen to him, but I never said 'yes, I was going to do it,' or 'no' until the Abu Ghraib thing came up," he said.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Pakistanâs Economy in the doldrums</b> <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
05-26-2006, 04:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-26-2006, 09:57 PM by Naresh.)
[center]<b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>PAKISTANI RIZ MIXT MIT DOR MICE SCHIDT :
DÃJÃ VU GANZ VON ANFANG AN</span></b>[/center]
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> <b> That has put off customers and even led to the recall of some Pakistani basmati rice in the UK last week.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
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