65% of Pakistanis have a negative view of the US

Anti-US feelings soar among Muslims
Daily Times MonitorLAHORE: The war on terrorism has radicalised Muslims around the world to unprecedented levels of anti-US feeling, according to the largest survey of Muslims ever to be conducted, The Times reported on Wednesday. According to the survey, seven percent believe that the events of 9/11 were “completely justified”. Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies in New York carried out surveys of 10,000 Muslims in ten predominantly Muslim countries. One finding was that the wealthier and better-educated the Muslim was, the more likely he was to be radicalised. The surveys were carried out in 2005 and 2006. Along with an earlier Gallup survey in nine other countries in 2001, they represent the views of more than 90 percent of the world’s Muslims. A further 1,500 Muslims in London, Paris and Berlin are involved in a separate poll to be published in April. The findings come in a climate of growing mistrust between Islam and the West. Another recent survey in the US found that 39 per cent of Americans felt some prejudice towards Muslims. The Gallup findings indicate that, in terms of spiritual values and the emphasis on the family and the future, Americans have more in common with Muslims than they do with their Western counterparts in Europe. A large number of Muslims supported the Western ideal of democratic government. Fifty percent of radicals supported democracy, compared with 35 percent of moderates. Religion was found to have little to do with radicalisation or antipathy towards Western culture. Muslims were condemnatory of promiscuity and a sense of moral decay. What they admired most was liberty, its democratic system, technology and freedom of speech. While there was widespread support for Sharia, only a minority wanted religious leaders to be making laws. Most women in the predominantly Muslim countries believed that Sharia should be the source of a nation’s laws, but they strongly believed in equal rights for women. This finding indicates the complexity of the struggle ahead for Western understanding. Few Western commentators can see how women could embrace the veil, Sharia and equal rights at the same time. Researchers set out to examine the truth behind the stock response in the West to the question of when it will know it is winning the war on terror. Foreign policy experts tend to believe that victory will come when the Islamic world rejects radicalism. “Every politician has a theory: radicals are religious fundamentalists; they are poor; they are full of hopeless-ness and hate. But those theories are wrong,” the researchers reported. Percentage with unfavourable view of US in 2005 (all increased since 9/11 except where indicated: Saudi Arabia 79 percent, Jordan 65 percent, Morocco 49 percent, Iran 52 percent (down from 63 percent in 2001), and Pakistan 65 percent (down from 69 percent in 2001).

Islamabad airport attacker was Pakistani who had fought in Kashmir

Attacker slain at Pakistani airport identified as member of outlawed militant group
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
An attacker killed in a shootout at the international airport for Pakistan's capital was an Afghan-trained member of an outlawed Pakistani militant group, officials said Wednesday.
Security forces fatally shot the man on Feb. 6 when he opened fire and tried to hurl a grenade at them after they asked him to stop in a parking lot near the airport's busy international terminal.
On Wednesday, a senior security official said investigators were sure they had identified the man.
"He is a Pakistani. His name is Qari Mohammed Younus," the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.
The official said the man was a member of an outlawed Pakistani militant group who had received training in Afghanistan and had fought in Indian-controlled Kashmir. He provided no further details.
A senior government official, who also didn't want to be named because of the sensitive nature of the case, confirmed that the man had been identified. He said he was a resident of Dera Ghazi Khan, a town on the edge of Pakistan's restive tribal belt.
The airport attack heightened fears that Islamic militants operating in the tribal belt along the Afghan border are expanding their violent opposition to Pakistan's support for the U.S.-led war on terror.
The incident followed a string of suicide bombings, including one at a five-star hotel in Islamabad which is popular with foreigners and diplomats.
Officials are investigating whether the attacks were in retaliation for a recent army airstrike on a suspected al-Qaida hideout near the border, part of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's effort to clamp down on militants fueling the fighting in Afghanistan.

U.S. Launches Artillery Into Pakistan

U.S. Launches Artillery Into Pakistan
In Self-Defense, U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Launch Artillery Into Pakistan, Commander Says
By ROBERT BURNS
The Associated Press
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan - Asserting a right to self-defense, American forces in eastern Afghanistan have launched artillery rounds into Pakistan to strike Taliban fighters who attack remote U.S. outposts, the commander of U.S. forces in the region said Sunday.
The skirmishes are politically sensitive because Pakistan's government, regarded by the Bush administration as an important ally against Islamic extremists, has denied that it allows U.S. forces to strike inside its territory.
The use of the largely ungoverned Waziristan area of Pakistan as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters has become a greater irritant between Washington and Islamabad since Pakistan put in place a peace agreement there in September that was intended to stop cross-border incursions.
Army Col. John W. Nicholson, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, said in an Associated Press interview that rather than halt such incursions, the peace deal has led to a substantial increase.
Pakistani border forces, which had been active in stopping Taliban incursions into Afghanistan as recently as last spring, stopped offensive actions against them once the peace deal took effect, he said.
"That did relax some of the pressure on the enemy," Nicholson said.
The Pakistan army's top spokesman said Sunday that coalition forces operating in Afghanistan are not allowed to fire into Pakistani territory, but acknowledged that artillery fire from the coalition had landed inside Pakistan in recent days. Pakistan also plans to seek "clarification" about Nicholson's comments.
Members of Nicholson's brigade, which is based at Fort Drum, N.Y., recently were told that instead of going home this month after a yearlong tour, they will stay for an extra four months, until June.
Nicholson told the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, that this news hit soldiers and their families hard, but that they are now adjusting well. Cody is traveling in Afghanistan.
The brigade of about 3,500 soldiers is being kept in Afghanistan because senior commanders decided they needed more forces to deal with an anticipated Taliban offensive this spring. The offensive is expected to focus not only on eastern Afghanistan but also the south, where the traditional Taliban stronghold of Kandahar is seen as a prized target. NATO forces operate in that area.
Nicholson described the fighting along the border, particularly in Afghanistan's Paktika and Khost provinces, as intense. In some cases, he said, the Taliban have crossed the border at night, using wire cutters to breach the perimeter of small U.S. outposts, "trying to get hand grenades into our bunkers."
"I mean we're talking World War I type of stuff," Nicholson said. "These are some very sharp, intense fights" initiated by an enemy he described as resilient and undeterred by superior U.S. firepower.
"They'll keep coming back," he said.
When Taliban forces on the Pakistan side of the border fire on U.S. outposts on the Afghan side, the Americans are equipped to quickly pinpoint the launch location using radar and then strike back with artillery, he said.
"We do not allow the enemy to fire with impunity on our soldiers, and we have the inherent right of self defense," he said, speaking by video teleconference from his headquarters at Jalalabad air field. "Even if those fires are coming from across the border (in Pakistan), we have the right to defense ourselves, and we exercise that right." He added later, "We do fire missions across the border."
Nicholson responded to questions from an AP reporter after the commander spoke by video teleconference with Cody.
Cody had planned to fly to Jalalabad to meet with Nicholson and other commanders but poor weather forced him to remain at Bagram, the main American air base in Afghanistan.
Nicholson told Cody that U.S. forces have made important strides this winter in persuading local Afghans to side with the U.S.-backed government and to be less accommodating to the Taliban. The Taliban have been resurgent in some parts of the country after being driven from power by U.S. forces in 2001.
Nicholson's area of responsibility includes the border provinces from Nuristan to Paktika. He said his forces are not required to get approval from Pakistan before responding to an attack. But he emphasized that efforts are made to warn Pakistani government forces along the border to clear the intended target area before U.S. artillery is launched.
"We make every effort to communicate with the Pakistan military," he said, Nicholson said the computers used to target U.S. artillery are programmed with the map coordinates of Pakistani border posts.
"If a fire mission is being called that would impact on a Pakistan border post, we typically will not shoot we will not shoot that mission," he said.
The United States has given radios to Pakistan border posts so they can communicate with U.S. forces in Afghanistan, he said. If U.S. troops are unable to contact them directly before launching an artillery assault, an illumination round is fired first as a means of warning the Pakistanis that high explosives will follow.
The Pakistani army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, told the AP by telephone in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, "Pakistan would not allow any coalition forces to violate the international border. This is the understanding between us and the coalition forces."
He added, "In case of any target inside Pakistani territory, the intelligence would be passed on to us and we would take action. This is the policy and we strictly adhere to the policy and we would not allow any violation of Pakistani border."
Associated Press writer Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Britain beheading plot suspects visited Islamic extremists at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan(Plot was contrived there)

Kidnap plot suspect 'had threatened to have soldier's head cut off before' Daniel McGrory

Police are investigating claims that one of the terrorist suspects held over the alleged plot to execute a British soldier recently threatened to kill a Muslim serviceman after a public fight. During the skirmish in a Birmingham snooker hall the suspect is reported to have described the young soldier as a traitor, adding that “he should have his head chopped off”. Material recovered from properties searched by police after raids in the West Midlands is understood to include extremist literature that condemns British Muslims joining the Army to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Detectives are also checking computer files that are said to contain images of western hostages being executed by al-Qaeda sympathisers. Extremist Islamic websites have increasingly condemned British Muslims who enlist in the military as “collaborators” who should be “punished for fighting their Muslim brothers.” Last night police began to question the nine men for the first time since they were arrested in predawn raids on Wednesday. They are all being held at a top security police station in Coventry. Senior officers say that they wanted to check the material recovered from homes and businesses before putting specific allegations to the suspects. Police decided to make the arrests after a month of surveillance in Operation Gamble when one of the suspects bought a camcorder that officers believe was to film their hostage. The man’s family claim he bought the camcorder for a family wedding this weekend. Police revealed that they had been given warrants yesterday to check three more properties in the West Midlands linked to some of the suspects. Assistant Chief Constable David Shaw, of West Midlands Police, said yesterday that “a significant quantity” of material had been seized from 18 properties being searched in the Birmingham area. “Far better that we use a measured, calculated, meticulous response than rush into things,” Mr Shaw said. Police are asking the Pakistan intelligence agencies for help in identifying the al-Qeada linked terrorist who reportedly groomed a number of the suspects. British security sources revealed that they contacted the Pakistani authorities asking for their help four days before the raids and arrests. Four of the detainees are reported to have visited Islamic extremists at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. This is where the plot to kidnap and then film the torture and execution of a Muslim soldier is thought to have been contrived. Two of the men are understood to have young children at their homes in Britain. Another of the accused is said to have been brought up on the same road in Birmingham as Corporal Jabron Hashmi, 24, the first British Muslim soldier to be killed in Afghanistan last year. He was described as a "traitor" on a website run by the UK based al-Ghurabaa sect which is banned in Britain. This is not the first time a British serviceman has been a target for extremists. Last year a London street vendor was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in a plot to kill a decorated British soldier. The Ministry of Defence is trying to agree new arrangements to protect the identities of serving Muslim personnel. Traditionally the MoD encourages local newspapers to report the exploits of troops from their region. Last night MoD officials refused to confirm reports that two of its Muslim soldiers, identified by police as among the prime targets to be kidnapped, are under guard with their families at an army camp. Senior British officials, led by William Nye, the UK Director of Counter Terrorism and Intelligence, have been in Islama-bad discussing new moves to combat terror networks. The US authorities, who have been briefed about the kidnap plot in the West Midlands, have expressed their concerns about the “human pipeline” that arranges for young British militants to travel to Pakistan for training at terrorist camps. Officials in Washington recently claimed to have identified another group of nine young Britons being schooled at one camp on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan whom they dubbed “the English brothers”. Leaders of Britain’s Asian police officers have asked the Government to assess the risk to Muslim officers (Stewart Tendler writes). Sikh and Hindu officers also fear that they could be seized because extremists might not know their religious background. Keith Jarrett, chairman of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), said yesterday that he had written to Tony Mc-Nulty, the Police Minister at the Home Office, asking for a risk assessment. Mr Jarrett said that concerned officers from Warwickshire police had sent a delegation to the NBPA headquarters asking for action. In London Muslim officers have already asked Scotland Yard to carry out a risk assessment and some Muslim officers have reported threats from Islamic extremists. Scotland Yard said that senior officers met leaders of staff associations yesterday and assured them that, so far, there had been no specific threat as a result of the Birmingham operation. Asians represent the largest ethnic group among full-time police. They make up 38 per cent, or about 2,000, of officers from ethnic minorities in England and Wales. 1,600 Number of people under surveillance by M15 in terror investigations