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| India-Pakistan |
| Extremism threat |
| 2016-01-01 |
| [DAWN] THE Mardan suicide kaboom was a grim reminder of the existing terror threat in the country, but the news from elsewhere is equally worrying. The Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard 2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers 3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Counter-Terrorism Department this week revealed that it had broken up an alleged cell of the Death Eater Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group in Sialkot -- the cell apparently consisted of eight individuals who had in their possession propaganda material and were allegedly planning to launch a series of attacks across the country. It is too early to know if a pattern is emerging, but certainly there is no room for complacency. IS is the Death Eater group du jour and would-be Death Eaters are likely to be attracted to the latest that the world of 'jihad' has to offer. But examples from Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... -- where the Safoora Goth gang, with university-educated members, has been busted -- and from Lahore -- where recent allegations that a professor of a well-known private university was consorting with Hizbut Tahrir ...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate... -- suggest that extreme vigilance is needed. The temptation is to believe that this is a new phenomenon. It is not. The murder of Daniel Pearl in 2002 was linked to Omar Sheikh, educated in prominent institutions in Pakistain and in the UK, and suggested an early link between centres of higher education and Death Eater recruitment. Al Qaeda too has over the years tried to appeal to an urban, educated, middle and upper-middle class. The fear, though, is that IS's appeal is building on the earlier iterations of militancy and that the Death Eater group is significantly more sophisticated in its propaganda machine. When Iranian President Hassan Rouhani referred to the need to counter the negative image of Islam online, he surely was referring to the new and sophisticated tactics of Death Eater Islam. Worryingly, states themselves appear least equipped to handle the emerging threat. Pakistain, for example, has banned YouTube for more than three years now, but still has no strategy for dealing with online hate material. The country's regulators appear more determined to squash legitimate dissent than eliminating hate speech that encourages violence. Whatever the attempts of the state, however, they must be aided by society and private-sector organizations. While the boundaries between privacy and security must be respected, it is surely the case that far too many institutions of higher education in the country remain lax when it comes to identifying dangerous elements in their midst. Higher education in the country remains mired in the battles of a generation ago. Today, the challenge is to produce college and university graduates who not only have a set of skills that makes them economically and socially relevant, but who can help put Pakistain on a path to stability and peace. It is not just Fata or other militancy-hit areas that have a terrorism problem. All of Pakistain does. Surely the fight to reclaim Pakistain and re-anchor it in its founding principles must be led by the centres of higher education. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Hate, by the disadvantaged, dresses both left and right. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2016-01-01 11:19 |