Pakistan

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I'm sure if I thought about it more than I do, the situation there would really freak me out. A nuclear power, a secularist president increasingly cornered by radical Islamists, including those in his own security force, and now this kind of stuff going on with greater frequency....

Taliban Vice Squads Spread Fear

by Nasir Jaffry Tue Apr 3, 2:09 AM ET

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Brandishing bamboo staves and driven by radical Islam, dozens of bearded madrassa students storm into DVD shops in Pakistan's leafy capital and order them to close -- or else.

The scenes look more like Taliban-era

Afghanistan where the harsh movement's "Vice and Virtue" squads once spread terror, but they are happening a few minutes' walk from the seat of the Pakistani government.

Store owner Owais Dar said the morality patrols began about a week ago and the latest was on Sunday, days after the government capitulated to the students in a standoff over the kidnap of an alleged brothel owner.

"A group of students came and warned me to shut my business and not to play songs from Indian and Pakistani films because it is against Sharia (Islamic law)," Dar said at his shop selling DVDs and video games in bustling Melody Market.

"How can these students stop us from running a business which our own government has not even declared illegal?" he added.

Yunus Sheikh, whose movie shop in nearby Aabpara market was also targeted on Sunday, said: "We are really scared -- it is nothing but hooliganism. When we see these boys coming with their batons we just close our shop."

"We are really fed up of such activities and our business is suffering, even when we are not involved" added Mushtaq Shah, a tailor in Melody Market.

Officials blame the morality patrols on the pro-Taliban Jamia Hafsa school -- a thorn in the side of the government since January when female students seized a state-run children's library in protest at plans to demolish some mosques.

The madrassa's burqa-clad girls hit headlines last week when they abducted a local woman accused of running a brothel along with her two female relatives, while their male counterparts captured two passing policemen.

The policemen were freed after several hours in return for the release by the authorities of two of the school's arrested teachers.

Then the students paraded the humiliated woman -- also in a burqa -- in front of the media to deliver a forced confession of her sins. She later fled the city in fear of her life.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the school's vice principal, insisted that the raids on shops on Sunday were not carried out by his students and demanded a government inquiry into who carried them out.

However he admitted they had in the past "politely" asked traders not to sell pornographic films and choose other jobs "which are not repugnant to Sharia or teachings of the Prophet Mohammed."

Deputy information minister Tariq Azeem told AFP the government would get tough on the school and on any Islamic vigilantes.

"The government will not tolerate such activities and the police have been asked to arrest anyone who tries to harass shopkeepers," Azeem said.

"There will be zero tolerance from now on for such actions as Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has already taken a very serious view of the situation."

Shopkeepers however said that policemen who were present in the capital's markets during Sunday's Taliban-style morality patrols did not lift a finger to help.

Local newspapers have savaged the authorities for bowing to the hardliners in the hostage crisis, saying that this would increase the "Talibanisation" of this terrorism-hit South Asian nation.

A tide of extremism has buffeted Pakistan in recent weeks, not helped by the fact that military ruler President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally, has been distracted by a political crisis over his sacking of the country's top judge.

More than 200 people have died in recent battles between pro-government tribesmen and foreign militants who took shelter in Pakistan's tribal belt after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Last week authorities slapped a curfew on a northwestern town after clashes between security forces and Taliban militants who were trying to recruit children to fight

NATO and US forces in Afghanistan.

Separately militants have blown up several DVD shops in northwestern Pakistan and ordered barbers not to shave beards.

Shopkeeper Dar blamed the situation on peace deals signed by the government with pro-Taliban tribes after bloody military operations between 2003 and 2006.

Western officials have made similar criticisms in the past year, saying that they pacts have allowed Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants to regroup.

"The peace deals did not yield any results but encouraged Islamists all over Pakistan," Dar said. "I wanted to expand my business but after these threats I cannot even think of it."

[phishtaper]

there was a headline in the paper the other day, something like "Taliban strength grows" and i thought, wow, how is it that the Taliban even still exists today?

great job, dubya. mission accomplished. keep up the good work.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

[phishtaper]

my first graphic memory of the taliban was when they destroyed those gigantic sandstone carvings in afghanistan, long before 9/11. note the two little dots on the feet ... they are people.

even then they were labelled barbarians.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Well, this wasn't going to end well (not like it's over or anything).

Pakistani Rebel Cleric Killed

A Pakistani cleric leading resistance at a mosque stormed by troops in the capital, Islamabad, has been killed, Interior Ministry officials say.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi's body was found in the basement of the Red Mosque where he had barricaded himself, officials said.

The army says up to 50 militants and eight soldiers have been killed, and about 50 women and children rescued.

Students at the mosque and its attached religious schools have waged a campaign for months pressing for Sharia law.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said Mr Ghazi was killed as troops were flushing out militants still inside a madrassa (religious school) for women and girls inside the mosque compound.

"Yes, he has died," Mr Cheema told the Associated Press news agency.

Troops attacked the mosque overnight and took control of most of the complex during heavy fighting which raged throughout Tuesday.

Officials said Mr Ghazi was killed after he tried to surrender. It is not clear if troops or militants fired the shots which killed him.

He was deputy leader of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque). His brother, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who was head, was arrested trying to escape last week dressed in a burka.

Hours before his reported death, Mr Ghazi accused the authorities of "naked aggression".

"My martyrdom is certain now," he told Pakistan's Geo television station.

Gamble

Security forces began a full-scale siege of the Lal Masjid last Tuesday, not long after mosque students abducted seven Chinese workers they accused of running a brothel.

Public anger in the capital had been mounting for months after they kidnapped policemen as well as people they considered to be involved in immoral, un-Islamic activities.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says the military operation is a gamble for President Pervez Musharraf who risks a backlash from supporters of those inside the mosque.

In recent days the army has redeployed thousands of troops in north-western Pakistan where pro-Taleban militants opposed to President Musharraf have been carrying out a string of attacks said to be linked to the mosque siege.

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...long before 9/11.

even then they were labelled barbarians.

they were demolished on march 21 2001. six months before 9/11

the smaller statue (37 metres tall) was built in 507 AD, and the larger one (55 metres tall) was built in 534 AD.

some interesting background from wikipedia

In July 1999, Mullah Mohammed Omar issued a decree in favor of the preservation of the Bamyan Buddhas. Because Afghanistan's Buddhist population no longer existed, which removed the possibility of the statues being worshiped, he added: "The government considers the Bamyan statues as an example of a potential major source of income for Afghanistan from international visitors. The Taliban states that Bamyan shall not be destroyed but protected." [5]

Afghanistan's Islamist clerics began a campaign to crack down on "un-Islamic" segments of Afghan society. The Taliban soon banned all forms of imagery, music and sports, including television, in accordance with what they considered a strict interpretation of Islamic law [6].

In March 2001, according to Agence France Presse in Kabul, the decree declared, "Based on the verdict of the clergymen and the decision of the Supreme Court of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) all the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed. All the statues in the country should be destroyed because these statues have been used as idols and deities by the non-believers before. They are respected now and may be turned into idols in the future too. Only Allah, the Almighty, deserves to be worshiped, not anyone or anything else."

Information and Culture Minister Qadratullah Jamal told Associated Press of a decision by 400 religious clerics from across Afghanistan declaring the Buddhist statues against the tenets of Islam. "They came out with a consensus that the statues were un-Islamic," said Jamal.

On March 6, the London Times quoted Mullah Mohammed Omar as stating, "Muslims should be proud of smashing idols. It has given praise to God that we have destroyed them." He had clearly changed his position from being in favor of the statues to being against them. During a March 13 interview for Japan's Mainichi Shimbun, Afghan Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel stated that the destruction was anything but a retaliation against the international community for economic sanctions: "We are destroying the Buddha statues in accordance with Islamic law and it is purely a religious issue".

On March 18, The New York Times reports that a Taliban envoy said the Islamic government made its decision in a rage after a foreign delegation offered money to preserve the ancient works. The New York Times also added, however, that other reports "have said the religious leaders were debating the move for months, and ultimately decided that the statues were idolatrous and should be obliterated."

Then Taliban Ambassador-at-large, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, said that the destruction of the statues was carried out by the Head Council of Scholars after a single Swedish monuments expert proposed to restore the statues' heads. Hashimi is reported as saying: "When the Afghani head council asked them to provide the money to feed the children instead of fixing the statues, they refused and said, 'No, the money is just for the statues, not for the children'. Herein, they made the decision to destroy the statues" [7].

On April 19, 2004, in an interview to a Pakistani journalist Mohammad Shehzad, Mullah Mohammad Omar said the following, "I did not want to destroy the Bamyan Buddha. In fact, some foreigners came to me and said they would like to conduct the repair work of the Bamyan Buddha that had been slightly damaged due to rains. This shocked me. I thought, these callous people have no regard for thousands of living human beings — the Afghans who are dying of hunger, but they are so concerned about non-living objects like the Buddha. This was extremely deplorable. That is why I ordered its destruction. Had they come for humanitarian work, I would have never ordered the Buddhas' destruction."

[Kanada Kev]

On April 19, 2004, in an interview to a Pakistani journalist Mohammad Shehzad, Mullah Mohammad Omar said the following, "I did not want to destroy the Bamyan Buddha. In fact, some foreigners came to me and said they would like to conduct the repair work of the Bamyan Buddha that had been slightly damaged due to rains. This shocked me. I thought, these callous people have no regard for thousands of living human beings — the Afghans who are dying of hunger, but they are so concerned about non-living objects like the Buddha. This was extremely deplorable. That is why I ordered its destruction. Had they come for humanitarian work, I would have never ordered the Buddhas' destruction."

Much like the fact that so many westerners are all for the preservation and saving of the Mountain Gorillas. Many of them (gorillas) live within the borders of Rwanda. While there was ethnic cleansing happening at an alarming rate there, there was more interest by people on the other side of the ocean about a handful of gorillas.

Now, I'm not saying that the preservation of animal species is wrong at all. I'm all for it. However, by trying to see these examples through the eyes of a local in those areas who is destitute, poor, running for their lives every day, etc. the spending of money by foreigners on non human-aid projects would seem like a huge slap in the face.

Edited July 10, 2007 by Guest

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i totally agree.