Some Pakistanis See U.S. As Symbol of Woes

Some Pakistanis See U.S. As Symbol of Woes

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A bomb kills worshippers at a Shiite Muslim shrine, and some mourners shout "Down with America!" Days later, a suicide bomber strikes a Shiite mosque and an angry crowd torches a nearby KFC restaurant.

Sectarian violence is nothing new in Pakistan, where a small minority of Sunni and Shiite militants keep up a torrid pace of atrocities each year. Now, however, anger over the bloodshed is being vented at a seemingly unrelated target -- the United States.

A crowd gathered outside the mosque to protest the bloodletting, setting fire to cars, shops and gas stations and clashing with police. The mob soon turned its rage on a nearby KFC restaurant, knocking out windows and setting it ablaze. Four workers were found burned to death and two others died after hiding in a freezer.

"People went mad, they had no idea what they were doing," said Turabi. "People hate America. For many people in Pakistan, KFC is a symbol of America."

Shiites in particular are feeling targeted, and their frustration is exploding into rage, said Samina Ahmed, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

"We hate America because Americans are responsible for the miseries of all Muslims in the world," said Nisar Haider, a spokesman for the Immamia Student Organization.

Karachi suicide bomber belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed

Arrested accused of suicide blast identified
(Updated at 1120 PST)
KARACHI: Identity of the man arrested after suicide bombing in Karachi was established. He was injured in the incident.

According to police sources the man Mohammed Jameel is an activist of outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit. He is a resident of Orangi Town-6 in Karachi.

Suicide attacks by Iraqis and Palestinians justified: (Minister of State for Religious Affairs)Aamir

Suicide attacks by Iraqis and Palestinians justified: Aamir

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Commenting on the clerics’ decree against suicide attacks on holy places, Minister of State for Religious Affairs Aamir Liaqat Hussain on Tuesday said the decree was only for Pakistan and that suicide attacks in Iraq and Palestine were justified because Muslims were fighting foreign occupation there.

“Iraqi people can resort to suicide attacks against the US forces. Suicide attacks in Iraq and Palestine are legitimate because the Muslims in these countries are being killed by the invading forces,” he said, adding that the decree was issued in the context of Pakistan with a view to stopping terrorism at holy places. He said killing a Muslim without a just reason was forbidden in Islam and killing a Muslim for“God’s blessing was infidelity.

Jury-decreed marriage: Groom lets friends rape his bride

Jury-decreed marriage: Groom lets friends rape his bride

MULTAN: In an act of revenge, a woman was gang-raped with the consent of her in-laws by three people on her wedding night in Dera Ghazi Khan, police said. Ghulam Hussain, the father of the victim Kaneez Kubra, told reporters that his daughter was married to Mujahid Hussain on April 28, as ordered by a panchayat (local jury) under the wani custom since Kaneez’s brother Abdul Majid had sexual relations with Mujahid’s sister Sumera. After the wedding, Kaneez Kubra went to the groom’s home. Her husband stayed with her in their room till 11pm and then left. Afterwards, Mujahid’s grandfather Shahroo Khan and his mother Mukhtar came in and told the bride that the wedding was just an excuse to exact revenge on Majid for outraging Sumera’s modesty. Mujahid Hussain then invited his three friends Muhammad Rafiq, Shabbir Muhammad and Abdul Majid Almani, who gang-raped the bride. The next day, Mujahid Hussain took her to the house of his friend Ghulam Mustafa, who also assaulted her. On April 30, when Ghulam Hussain and other relatives arrived to take Kaneez back as per tradition, she related the story to her father.

Pakistani ex-senator's ties to AQ nuclear quest

FBI will check Paracha’s private lockers

KARACHI: A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team is arriving in Pakistan in the second week of June to collect “evidence” about the alleged role of a Pakistani businessman and a former senator, Saifullah Paracha, in nuclear proliferation, sources in the Ministry of Interior told the Daily Times on Thursday. Mr Paracha - now lodged at a US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay - was charged by the investigators two months ago with providing information to Al Qaeda that could have helped them obtain nuclear weapons. Sources said the FBI team would check some of Mr Paracha and his family’s lockers at a private lockers facility in Old Clifton in Karachi. An Interior Ministry official who asked not to be named, told the Daily Times that the Paracha family maintained lockers at the lockers facility of famous money changer Khanani & Kalia in Clifton. The allegation, contained in documents filed two months ago in a US court, also identifies Paracha as a participant in a conspiracy to smuggle explosives into the US and help Al Qaeda hide money. maqbool ahmed

US citizenship of a Muslim now meaningless(Khalid Hassan whine)

US citizenship of a Muslim now meaningless

By Khalid Hasan

Washington: America has been described as “a place where citizenship by immigration now has no value and can be taken away. Muslims, and specially Pakistani Americans, who represent the highest quality of professionals that came to America as immigrants, are being insulted daily at the US airports. Jobs are being denied and other forms of discrimination are taking place everywhere.”

According to Pervaiz Lodhie, a successful Pakistani-American technology entrepreneur and community activist based in California, the Muslim community and especially Pakistani Americans will be critical in rebuilding broken bridges between the US and the rest of the world. The US administration’s “over-reaction and over-correction” to the tragedy of 9/11 may have given America some temporary military triumphs globally but major economic losses are here to stay for a long time, he warns. He believes that the real reason for America’s economic slide and the continuous weakening of the dollar are a result of post-9/11 “fortress America” mentality.

20 shias killed in Bari Imam bombing(by sunni terrorists)

20 killed in Bari Imam bombing

ISLAMABAD: Twenty people were killed and 82 were injured, some critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid the annual Shia Muslims congregation at the Bari Imam Shrine on Friday.

The intense blast made a crater of almost ten metres in radius littered with human limbs, mutilated bodies, pools of blood, the dead and injured, portraying a horrifying scene. Twelve bodies have been identified.

Wonder if Najam Sethi still thinks a fatwa(that says suicide bombgs in Iraq and Palestine are kosher) was good PR.

The ‘fatwa’ against suicide-bombing

Leaning on unofficial fatwas is tantamount to yielding the state’s internal sovereignty. But as PR it is good and should be welcomed.

Update: More of the same

No choice but suicide bombing

Cyma Riaz

Pakistan pushing terrorists into Afghanistan

With a Little Help From Our Friends

By SARAH CHAYES

Kandahar, Afghanistan

For me, after three years in southern Afghanistan, something felt not quite right about the more virulent demonstrations across the country. The instant tip-off was that they were initially led by university students. Afghans and Westerners living in Kandahar have often wondered at the number of Pakistani students in what passes for a university here. The place is pathetically dilapidated, the library a locked storeroom, the medical faculty bereft of the most elementary skeleton or model of the human body. Why would anyone come here to study from Pakistan? Our unshakable conclusion has been that the adroit Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, is planting operatives in the student body. These students can also provoke agitation at Pakistani officials' behest, while affording the government in Islamabad plausible deniability.

In other words, it's a mistake to focus on the Newsweek article as the cause of the recent demonstrations in Afghanistan. Instead, the reason was President Hamid Karzai's May 8 announcement that Afghanistan would enter a long-term strategic partnership with the United States.

Such an alliance discomfits Afghanistan's neighbors. Pakistan, for one, is used to treating Afghanistan as an all but subject territory. The events of Sept. 11 and the sudden arrival of the United States changed all that, to the muted chagrin of Islamabad. Although Pakistani officials have mastered their role as allies in the "war on terrorism" and play it convincingly, they would like nothing better than to see the United States pull out of Afghanistan. What better, then, than to project Afghanistan as a volatile place, hostile to Americans?

Pentagon report to portray China as emerging rival

Pentagon report to portray China as emerging rival
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Published: May 24 2005 22:22 | Last updated: May 25 2005 00:25

The Pentagon is preparing to release a report on the Chinese military that warns the US that it should take more seriously the possibility that China might emerge as a strategic rival to the US, according to a senior government official.

The report has generated controversy in the Bush administration because of earlier drafts that concerned National Security Council officials by painting what they saw as an overly antagonistic picture of China, according to two people with knowledge of the report.

Two sources said the report would mention “assassin's mace” strategies a term employed during China's warring-states period that referred to secret weapons and strategies used to deceive and defeat enemies quickly which the People's Liberation Army could be developing for use against Taiwan.

The report is expected to emphasise “known unknowns” including the lack of US knowledge about the actual size of theChinese defence budget and its future military strategy.

The language is an attempt to emphasise that the US should not acceptat face value China'sstatements that it intendsto emerge as a peaceful power.

One source defended the original report, saying the Pentagon was simply responding to congressional pressure. He said Duncan Hunter, the chairman of the House armed services committee, and China hawks on the Senate armed services committee were concerned that previous reports had been too soft in assessing China's future strategies.

In recent months, senior US officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, and Porter Goss, the Central Intelligence Agency director, have voiced concerns about the rapidly expanding Chinese military.

Pakistan's nuclear deterrent has FAILED

Nukes' seventh anniversary-III

The successes and failures of Pakistan's nukes

Gitmo detainees were asked about the ISI

Gitmo detainees quizzed about ISI networks

ARACHI: Three Pakistani prisoners who returned from Guantanamo Bay in September last year recently told a joint interrogation team (JIT) of several intelligence agencies that the Americans were curious about the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and wanted information on the agency’s networks in Afghanistan and Iran. They also corroborated reports that US interrogators desecrated the Quran.

According to documents obtained by Daily Times, Military Intelligence (MI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), ISI, Special Investigation Group (SIG) and Sindh Police personnel conducted the joint interrogation of Abid Raza (s/o Mohammad Hussain), Mohammad Anwar (s/o Mohammad Yameen) and Mohammad Ilyas in Karachi, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas prisons from April 18 to May 10 this year.

The three, along with a dozen others, had arrived from Guantanamo Bay in September last year. After detaining them at Adyala Jail in Rawalpindi for about eight months, the authorities took them to prisons in Sindh in early April. The three prisoners, who had been taken to the Guantanamo detention facility from Afghanistan in January 2002, said the Americans interrogated them about Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISI.

“But most of their questions were about the ISI. They wanted to know how many of those detained in Guantanamo had been associated with the ISI. They would to ask things like what were the networks of the ISI in Afghanistan and Iran, how the agency worked in those countries and who were working for the ISI in Afghanistan and Iran,” the Guantanamo returnees told the JIT.

LeT terrorist in gitmo reveals Pakistan's support to terorism

AP: Records Reveal Guantanamo Stories

One prisoner accused of being a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a Pakistani group with alleged links to al-Qaida, points to the disputed territory of Kashmir and says the struggle was backed by Pakistan, an ally of the United States. India and Pakistan claim Kashmir.

''If you consider this organization a terrorist organization, then you should consider the Pakistan government a terrorist country,'' he says.

US jets whack 5 Pakistanis in Pakistani territory

12 insurgents killed in Afghan fighting

The US commander in the area had informed his Pakistani counterpart that since they were engaged in a “skirmish with miscreants” – a byword for militants – very close to the Pakistani border, the possibility of some rocket or artillery fire landing in Pakistani territory could not be ruled out. “Certain shells did land in Pakistani area but there was no collateral damage,” Maj Gen Sultan said. There was no immediate comment from the US military.

However, a Pakistani intelligence official in Miranshah, said on condition of anonymity that five men were killed near Alwara Mandi by US jet and rocket fire. Alwara Mandi residents have picked up the bodies and have asked local people to help identify them, he said.

Update: Report from the News International.

Update: Dawn report.

US copter attack in Waziristan kills 5

MIRAMSHAH (North Waziristan), May 22: Five tribesmen were killed in an attack by US helicopters in the Lawara Mandai area of the North Waziristan agency on Saturday night, officials said. Another 20 shells fired by the coalition forces from Afghanistan’s Paktika province landed near Lawara Mandai, but did not cause any damage, eyewitnesses said.

They said that the US helicopters had intruded into Lawara Mandai up to one kilometre, and two fighter jets flying at a high altitude also violated Pakistan’s airspace.

Pakistan's Minister of State for Religious Affairs says Suicide attacks by Iraqis and Palestinians justified

Suicide attacks by Iraqis and Palestinians justified: Aamir

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Commenting on the clerics’ decree against suicide attacks on holy places, Minister of State for Religious Affairs Aamir Liaqat Hussain on Tuesday said the decree was only for Pakistan and that suicide attacks in Iraq and Palestine were justified because Muslims were fighting foreign occupation there.

“Iraqi people can resort to suicide attacks against the US forces. Suicide attacks in Iraq and Palestine are legitimate because the Muslims in these countries are being killed by the invading forces,” he said, adding that the decree was issued in the context of Pakistan with a view to stopping terrorism at holy places. He said killing a Muslim without a just reason was forbidden in Islam and killing a Muslim for“God’s blessing was infidelity.

Pakistani mullahs issue fatwa: suicide bombing forbidden if carried out in a Muslim country.

Scholars condemn suicide bombings

Leading Islamic scholars in Pakistan have issued a decree against suicide attacks, describing them as forbidden if carried out in a Muslim country.

The decree has been authorised by 58 religious leaders, representing all schools of Islamic thought in Pakistan including the minority Shia community.

The move is an attempt to stop suicide bombers carrying out attacks on places of worship in Pakistan.

But the decree does not apply to bombings in Kashmir or Palestine.

Leading Islamic scholar Mufti Munib-ur-Rehman told the BBC the decree had been issued because attacks on places of worship in Pakistan have been blamed on suicide bombers in recent years.

He said that the proclamation did not apply to "ongoing struggles" in Kashmir and Palestine.

Mr Munib-ur-Rehman said that protecting life and property of non-Muslim citizens and foreigners visiting the country was the prime responsibility of a Muslim state.

Government 'sponsored'

He said that an act of terrorism - whether on an individual or collective level - was deplorable.

But, he said, the line of demarcation between terrorist activity and a freedom struggle has to be clearly defined.

However, the head of a well-known seminary for mainstream Sunni Muslims in Lahore, Sarfraz Naeemi refused to sign the decree.

He says it is a government-sponsored move which could be used by the United States to justify its propaganda against suicide attacks.

"There is a need to issue a decree against the Americans who have been slaughtering Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I have serious reservations about the present move," Mr Naeemi said in an interview with the BBC.

In Pakistan, public opinion on this issue is likely to be divided.

But many people are likely to regard the decree as part of the government's campaign to sell a soft image of the country to the West.

Afghan militants attack from Pakistan: US officer

Afghan militants attack from Pakistan: US officer

KABUL: Afghan guerrillas are still launching attacks from the safety of Pakistan despite the Pakistani military’s battle against Islamic militants, a US army officer said on Monday. Afghan government and US military accusations that Taliban and other Islamic militants are able to operate from Pakistan have angered Pakistan, which has been trying to clear militants from its western border region. “My base, where I live, is in Khost province, and I will say, absolutely, there are insurgents coming across the border from Pakistan attacking into Khost, then returning back into Pakistan,” Colonel Gary Cheek told a news conference. Cheek is commander of about 4,000 US-led troops in 16 eastern Afghan provinces, including Khost. He commended the Pakistani military for operations, launched more than a year ago, to clear militants from the rugged Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan, fighting in which hundreds of Pakistani servicemen have been killed and wounded. reuters

US watching Pakistani-Britons

US watching Pakistani-Britons

WEF says Pakistan ‘worst’ at narrowing gender gap

WEF says Pakistan ‘worst’ at narrowing gender gap

LONDON: Pakistan is one of the countries where women fare the worst in getting paid at par with men and experiencing equal job opportunities, the World Economic Forum (WEF) found in a study of the gender gap in 58 countries released on Monday. Pakistan was placed third from the bottom in the WEF’s Gender Gap Index, with only Turkey and Egypt below it.

CIA scores an AQ kill in Pakistani territory

Mystery of al-Qaeda man killed by CIA

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

PESHAWAR: The claim by the US intelligence officials and sections of the American media that a missile fired by a CIA predator aircraft over Pakistan earlier this week killed senior al-Qaeda operative Haitham al-Yemeni was apparently a reference to an incident near Mir Ali in North Waziristan on the night of May 8.

The government has denied the claim that the man was killed in Pakistani territory. Information Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmad issued the denial and at the same time was quoted as saying that the incident could have taken place in neighbouring Afghanistan.

In the incident at 2am on May 8, a mysterious explosion in a wide-bodied car near Khushali village on Khaisoor Road south of Mir Ali town killed two persons. One of the victims was identified as Imam Din, son of Naeem Khan of Khushali village. The deceased Imam Din was a religious student, or a Talib.

The second victim of the explosion was never fully identified. There were reports at the time that the political administration of North Waziristan grappled with the issue for quote sometime as no family or clan came forward to claim his body. One report said he was eventually buried in the Sain Tangi village in the Frontier Region Bannu because some people felt the deceased belonged to the Janikhel Wazir tribe inhabiting that area. But even now one hears claims that the man was buried in Mir Ali or in Shawal, a remote border valley in North Waziristan.

Tribesmen were saying that a missile fired from the air had hit and destroyed the car. The mystery remained unsolved.

Many tribesmen in North Waziristan are now convinced that the second man killed in that incident was an Arab national. They were not aware of his name and nationality but speculation in the area was strong that the Arab man belonged to al-Qaeda. The ABC News television channel seems to have solved the mystery by identifying this man as Haitham al-Yemeni. Quoting US intelligence officials, the ABC News reported exclusively on May 13 that the senior al-Qaeda operative was killed by a missile fired from a CIA predator aircraft over Pakistan earlier this week.

The joke that is the KSE

KSE share free-float at around 20 per cent

KARACHI, May 14: The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) share free float is estimated to be approximately 22 per cent based on top 27 stocks that are on the futures counter. Based on value of those shares, the free float also comes to around 20 per cent, which means that although the market capitalization of KSE is $35 billion, the free-float capitalization is just about $7 billion.

Old hands among the stock broker fraternity and capital market experts have always held a firm view that free-float of the Pakistan’s bourses is very small, ranging between 10 to 15 per cent. That in turn has fuelled argument on whether the KSE-100 index should be based on market capitalization or free-float of stocks.

A stock broker said that the current KSE-100 index-—though constructed in an extremely transparent and orderly manner—-does not, however, depict the overall market conditions on any particular day. Let all the stocks rise and OGDC and PTCL drop by Rs5 on any particular trading day and the index would end up in the red and vice versa.

TSE has been calculating and publishing TOPIX since July 1969. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex Index was converted into a free-float index from September 2003.

HR Commission of Pakistan march attacked, Asma Jahangir gets her clothes torn off

Enlightened moderation?:

Mixed citizens rally violently dispersed by police

* About 40 arrested, later released
* City government to blame

By Waqar Gillani and Aayan Ali

LAHORE: A police contingent laid into a gathering of women and men organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Joint Action Committee for Peoples Rights which had congregated on the Main Boulevard in Gulberg to stage a “mixed-marathon” to test the enlightened-moderation” claims of the government, and swept about 40 of them to the police station.

Asma Jahangir, the chairperson of the HRCP, and Iqbal Haider, the secretary-general, were among those who were brutally dragged into police vans and held for a couple of hours at local police stations. The police action against the congregation was taken on the orders of the Lahore Nazim, Mian Amir Mahmood, who claimed that he had disallowed the rally after receiving “negative reports” from the police. In turn, the police claimed that it had received information of an impending assault on the mixed rally by activists of the Shabab-e-Milli, the youth wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami. But eyewitness reports confirmed that a handful of such activists arrived on the scene only after the police had dragged away the women and broken up the event.

Ms Jahangir told Daily Times: “I received a threatening call on my cell phone from someone claiming to be the president of the Shabab-i-Milli, Ahmad Salmaan, but when I later returned the call to check its authenticity, the person at the other end told me that the police had come to his tyre shop and called her from there”. Among the others who were briefly detained were Hina Jillani, Shahtaj Qazilbash, Tahseen Ahmad, Farooq Tariq, Joseph Francis, et al. Asma Jahangir was roughed up and her clothes were torn in the melee. One policewoman was heard abusing her: “We have orders to strip you in public and teach you a lesson”. Three other women were slightly injured.

Brit-Pakistani tied to shoe-bomber

Paris tries alleged aides to shoebomber Reid

PARIS (Reuters) - Three men accused of aiding jailed ``shoebomber'' Richard Reid, who narrowly failed to destroy a U.S. airliner over the Atlantic four years ago, went on trial for terrorist conspiracy in a top Paris court on Wednesday.

According to French intelligence, Ghulam Rama, a Pakistani with joint British nationality, used trips to Britain, New York, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia between 2001 and 2002 as cover while he organized terrorist attacks, she said.

Baloch freedom fighters say "peace has collapsed"

Balochistan 'peace has collapsed'

Pakistani tribal leaders say the government's peace initiative in the southern province of Balochistan has collapsed totally.

"The government's lies have surfaced and we expect nothing more from them anymore," tribal leader Nawab Akbar Bugti told the BBC News website.

Mr Bugti's statement comes after an increase in attacks on government installations in the province.

Baloch nationalists want autonomy and more control over natural gas reserves.

Guardian British Muslim poll

Poll here

Telegraph article.
Today's terrorists may well be born, bred and raised in Britain

Much of this has been known for months, if not years. What is most perturbing about yesterday's arrests is that the suspects are British-born Muslims, mainly of Pakistani background, and predominantly young.

The police are anxious that too much should not be made of the background of those they have arrested, fearing a backlash against the Muslim community. But counter-terrorist agencies have been worried for some time about a radicalised new generation of Muslim youth, who have been further politicised both by the preaching of fundamentalist imams and by the prominent position taken by Britain in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But whenever this point is made, the political backlash is immediate and intense. Last week, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, provoked a storm of anger when he denounced moderate Muslims for failing unequivocally to condemn the evil of suicide bombers. According to an opinion poll in the Guardian, many Muslims regarded the war on terrorism to be anti-Islam and thought anti-terrorist laws were being used unfairly against the Muslim community.

Most disturbingly, 13 per cent of British Muslims said they believed further terrorist attacks on America were justified. Iqbal Sacranie, the general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, said of this finding: "The percentage of Muslims who would support attacks when they are taking place would be much, much lower.''

Alleged terrorist a Pakistani army soldier

Alleged terrorist a soldier

ISLAMABAD: The man arrested by police in Rawalpindi on Saturday for carrying explosives is a Pakistani soldier, said a Rawalpindi police official on Sunday.

Imtiaz Hussain was on leave from his army unit based in Muzaffarabad and was on his way home to Sargodha, said the official on condition of anonymity. In initial questioning, Hussain had told police he was planning to set off bombs in congested areas of Rawalpindi. Police also found explosive sticks and some fuses in his luggage. Police had handed the soldier over to army authorities for further investigation, said the official.

2 Shias booked for blasphemy

2 Shias booked for blasphemy

MULTAN: Kabirwala Police have registered a case against two Shia men for making derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and his companions (Sahaba-e-Karam) publicly.

Al-Qaeda witch-hunt in Pakistan's army

Al-Qaeda witch-hunt in Pakistan's army
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - With the capture in Pakistan of Libyan Abu Faraj al-Libbi of al-Qaeda, wanted in connection with two assassination attempts against President General Pervez Musharraf in 2003, Pakistani authorities are stepping up investigations into al-Qaeda's investment in the Pakistan army.

Information gleaned from well-connected military analysts suggests that army officials connected with the Afghan cell during the Taliban period in Afghanistan (1996-2001) are likely to be in the firing line. Action is expected soon against several serving and retired army personnel.

Abu Faraj is expected to be handed over to the US soon and is likely to be kept in a US detention center in Jordan or Morocco. Abu Faraj was deeply connected with al-Qaeda's North African cells before becoming involved in Pakistan a few years ago. The North African cells are al-Qaeda's most preserved, and are believed to be key to any future strikes on the US.

Abu Faraj was a trainer at al-Farooq camp in Afghanistan during Taliban rule. He trained hundreds of Pakistani men to be sent to Kashmir to fight against Indian troops. His training skills in not only explosives but also in urban guerrilla warfare saw him rise in prominence and he became popular among the trainees as well as with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence's (ISI's) Afghan cell, which preferred al-Farooq camp ahead of any other al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

Abu Faraj's interaction with Pakistanis, whether they were private militants or military men, was deep and is characterized by the fact that he was good at Pakistan's national language, Urdu, which is spoken in urban centers, in addition to Pashtu. His choice in marriage was a Pakistani woman.

Abu Faraj had been used as a facilitator between al-Qaeda's cells in North Africa and their support system in the United Kingdom. His first field operation was the assignment to kill Musharraf, which was delegated to him because of his proven abilities and his connections among Pakistani jihadis and members of the armed forces, some of whom participated in the two attempts on Musharraf's life. The duty was assigned by Osama bin Laden's deputy, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Al-Qaeda had invested in Pakistan well before the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, anticipating the consequences of the September 11 attack, that is, that they would be driven out of Afghanistan. It was that goodwill among military men and jihadis that Abu Faraj tapped into to carry out his attacks on Musharraf.

Asia Times Online's story, Detentions: A case against Pakistan on April 30 sheds light on how it took about two years to plot to kill Musharraf. Such a mission obviously involves the selection of the right people and the arrangement of finances, etc. Unconfirmed sources claim that Abu Faraj was not only the mastermind, but that he also planted a bomb in one of the cars involved in the second attempt. [1]

After the attacks, the focus of attention was on two al-Qaeda operatives, Hadi al-Iraqi and Amjad Hussain Farooqi, as the main masterminds. However, Abu Faraj's name came up when people belonging to militant or welfare groups under the patronage of the ISI were arrested and they fingered him in connection with the plot.

The real significance
There is little chance that Abu Faraj will be able to cough up any details on bin Laden leading to his capture: the al-Qaeda leader is lying extremely low while he chooses a new role for himself.

However, the real US interest in Abu Faraj will be in his connections with al-Qaeda's United Kingdom and North African cells, the latter being relatively intact in comparison with others. But it is a matter of debate as to how up to date Abu Faraj is, as he has been based in Pakistan for some years.

Baloch freedom fighters at work

Powerline bombed, two soldiers hurt

QUETTA (AFP) - Two paramilitary soldiers were injured in a blast close to a railway track, while a main powerline was bombed in Balochistan on Friday.
The soldiers were patrolling along a railway track in Bakhtiarabad and found a pair of explosive devices nearby, which exploded when they tried to examine them, paramilitary commander Rizwan Malik said.
Shrapnel from the blast injured the soldiers but there was no damage to the track, Malik said.
Separately, militants blew up a main electricity transmission line pylon in the Machh.
The powerline remained intact, but long power cuts were necessary to replace the tower.

Publish a translation of the koran without the original arabic text, go to jail

Urdu translation of Holy Qur’aan

without Arabic text confiscated

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Religious Affairs Ejazul Haq on Thursday informed the National Assembly that the government has ordered confiscation of the copies of Urdu translation of the Holy Qur’aan published without Arabic text.

Speaking on an adjournment motion moved by various members of the National Assembly, he said under the 1973 Act of Publication of Holy Qur’aan, it is prohibited to publish the Qur’aan without its Arabic text.

He said the copies had been printed by a publishing house in Canada and were being distributed free among the public in Pakistan. "We have contacted the Interior Ministry, Home Departments of all the provinces and Customs to confiscate all copies of the Urdu translation," he said.

Ejazul Haq said an employee of PTCL, Noorul Ameen, had translated the original text with his own additions, which are marked with parenthesis. "We have gone through the translation and the additions that he has made tantamount to misleading the reader," he added. He said the Surahs and Paras have not been indicated in the translation. Ejazul Haq said the ministry had formed a committee to probe the matter.

Earlier, members of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Asadullah Bhutto, Farid Ahmed Paracha and others moved the adjournment motion urging the government to immediately stop distribution of copies of this translation. "Publication of translation without its Arabic text is against Sharia," Farid Paracha said.

Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali said the Constitution of Pakistan also provided that translation of the Holy Qur’aan should be with its Arabic text. The speaker reserved his ruling on the motion.

Pakistani terrorists target shias

Avoiding the highway to death

The Karakoram Highway, once a symbol of friendship and hope, has been turned into a killing field. On Saturday, April 23, terrorists intercepted another public transport bus carrying passengers from Skardu to Islamabad at Bhasha right across the Northern Areas' boundary. They made all passengers show their national identity cards, then separated the two ethnic minorities from Baltistan from the rest and shot them at point blank range.

When the dead bodies, after remaining unattended for a day at the local police station, finally reached Skardu, a spontaneous outpouring of emotions and agitations swept across the region as the traumatized bereaved families and local communities urged the concerned law enforcing agencies to bring the culprits to justice.

Musharraf in list of press predators

Press freedom ‘predators’ in 2004

PARIS: RSF released a 34-strong list of what it calls media freedom “predators” – leaders and organisations around the world it accuses of “direct responsibility for press freedom violations”.

RSF said that because of the individuals or organisations it named, “journalists have been murdered, imprisoned, physically attacked and threatened in 2004”.

New to the list are Bangladeshi Interior Minister Lutfozzaman Babor, Bangladesh’s Maoist party Purbobanglar, Ivory Coast’s Young Patriots militia, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh and Nigeria’s State Security Service. The list also includes the name of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. afp

Pakistan cooking the economic books?

Whither poverty reduction?

That the economy has stepped out of the low 3-4 per cent growth path needs to be acknowledged. That the manufacturing sector – automobiles, cement, etc., — too is beginning to show some buoyancy also needs to be recognized. Yet the scale of this recovery remains uncertain. Questions arise on account of the tendency over the last five years to manipulate data and misrepresent facts. Suspicions are heightened on account of the failure to appoint a Director General of the Federal Bureau of Statistics since June 2003. Not surprisingly, fears exist about the statistical claims collapsing a la the stock market.

The underlying concerns about the data, and the claims based thereon, are heightened by inconsistencies. For example, manufacturing value added in 2003-04 is shown to have increased by 13.4 percent despite a decrease in industrial consumption of electricity, gas and oil by 19.2, 13.8 and 20.7 percent, respectively. This implies an increase of energy use efficiency of between 24 to 29 per cent between 2002-03 and 2003-04. The sharp enhancement in energy use efficiency in the manufacturing sector over the period of just one year raises questions of plausibility. An explanation is called for.

Suspicion that a part of the data is ‘manufactured’ to support claims of success is provided by a number of instances. One such glaring case is growth in tax receipts. The customs duty data for 10 out of 13 commodity groups reported in the Budget documents for the years 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-5 show the same growth rate. For example, the growth in customs duty receipts is a uniform 3.1 percent, 9.7 per cent, and 27.0 per cent for all 10 commodity groups for three years, respectively. That customs duty receipts have been shown to increase at the same rate for different commodity groups demands an explanation. Clearly, the data appears to have been ‘created’ by applying a uniform growth rate for the 10 commodity groups.

Yet again, tax revenue targets for 2002-03 and 2003-04 were set at Rs460.6 billion and 510.0 billion respectively. Interestingly, actual receipts were also shown to be Rs460.6 billion and Rs510.0 billion for the two years. In 2003-04, targeted and actual receipts of direct and indirect taxes were also shown to be almost exactly the same at Rs161 and Rs348 billion, respectively. Such absoluteness exactness in achieving revenue targets – and that too two years in a row – is not feasible. Clearly, the data cannot be relied upon.

It may not be appropriate at the present moment of euphoria in official circles to sound anything but positive about the economy. General Musharraf’s economic managers may be supremely optimistic; however, the collapse of the stock market is a warning against building hopes based on contrived statistics.