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| India-Pakistan | |||||
| Pakistan Jihadi arrests are an Illusion | |||||
| 2003-09-23 | |||||
| By Syed Saleem Shahzad Just like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf’s intelligence forces have contrived a feat of equal illusion with the arrest of a number of foreign students alleged to have terror links.
"Gun Gun" - don’t know why they focussed on him? As a partner in the US’s global "war on terrorism", Musharraf is under constant pressure to crack down firstly on support of cross-border militancy into Indian-occupied Kashmir, and secondly to round up people with terrorist links seeking refuge within Pakistan. and thirdly to restrain the nutcases endemic to Pakland In both cases, his record is open to criticism, although, with some regularity, whenever the general travels abroad, and especially to the US, there is a spurt of activity on the home front. Musharraf is currently in New York for the annual session of the UN General Assembly, which he is due to address, and he has had a number of high-profile interviews and meetings in which he has touted his government’s record in the fight against terrorism. nice timing? He should travel here more often then... The weekend’s announcement, therefore, by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Islamabad of the arrest in Karachi of 13 Malaysian, two Indonesian and two Myanmese students on suspicion of links with the JI could not have come at a better time for Musharraf. The students were mostly from two large institutions of Salafi origins in Karachi - Jamia Abu Bakar Islamic University situated in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area, and Jamia tut Darasatul Islamyia, in University Road. The arrests were made on Saturday, and unlike in the past, news was soon leaked to the national and international press.
Truncheons and Moustachios? Hambali would be so proud In all cases the method was the same, with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) using the cover of the FIA, claiming that the students were wanted by their governments. As far as can be ascertained, the students’ immigration and study clearance papers (from both Pakistani and home country officials) were in order. The Indonesian government, despite the Pakistani claims, quickly lodged an official protest with Islamabad over the arrests, and denied that it had requested that the students be apprehended. Wudn’t us! Speaking to this correspondent, the director of Jamia tut Darasatul Islamyia, Abdul Rehman Abid, gave his Oh, the humanity!
go figure! The Salafi schools are ideologically close to Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabism, and therefore there is cuz they know we’re getting Soddy bucks to produce Islamorobots It is worth noting that such Salafi schools have no connections with the Taliban, who are followers of the Hanafi school of thought, which is at odds with the Salafis. Oh? Of course not....Bwahahahaha Islamic schools such as Darululoom Haqqania of Akora Khattak, Binori Town Karachi, Jamia Farooqia and dozens others all over Quetta and North-West Frontier Province on the border with Afghanistan nurture the Taliban. Yet there has not been one single operation against these seminaries. "what about them guys? you gonna do something to them too? It ain’t fair!" And despite harassment, the weekend’s arrests were also the first to be made at a Salafi school. first? and that gets all this fuss? Like the rabbits conjured out of a hat, there is a sense of wonderment at these latest arrests. But one can only speculate as to the overall effectiveness of the whole exercise in the broader context of the "war on terror". | |||||
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #3 pardon me, salafism accepts the hanabali school. I think its the taliban theyve got pegged wrong. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-9-23 10:39:57 AM |
| #2 "It is worth noting that such Salafi schools have no connections with the Taliban, who are followers of the Hanafi school of thought, which is at odds with the Salafis " i thought salafism accepts the hanafi school. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-9-23 10:35:30 AM |
| #1 Update from Rooters: Pakistan arrests four more Indonesian students KARACHI, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Four more Indonesian students suspected of having links to a regional terror network have been arrested by Pakistani security agencies in the port city of Karachi, senior officials said on Tuesday. "We have arrested four more Indonesian students in raids at religious schools," Tasneem Noorani, secretary of the interior ministry, told Reuters by telephone from Islamabad. The arrests were made overnight and early on Tuesday, officials said, but refused to give any other details. Over the weekend, authorities detained 15 Southeast Asian students -- two Indonesians and 13 Malaysians -- in raids on Islamic seminaries, for suspected links with Islamic extremists. They included Gun Gun Gunawan -- a brother of Riduan Isamuddin alias Hambali, an Islamic militant accused of masterminding bombings in Southeast Asia and of being al Qaeda's key regional contact, Noorani said. "It is confirmed that he is Hambali's brother." Hambali, who is in the custody of the United States, is accused of masterminding attacks in the region including bombings in Bali last October that killed more than 200 people and a car bombing at a luxury Jakarta Hotel in August that killed 12. He was arrested on August 11 in Thailand by Thai police and U.S. agents before being flown to an undisclosed location. IMPORTANT LINK Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, chief of the Interior Ministry's Crisis Management Cell, said Hambali's brother was an important link in the suspected terror network. "They are being interrogated by our security officials," he said. "They will be deported to their countries in a week to 10 days." Intelligence officials said the fresh arrests were made on the basis of information obtained from the 15 suspects during |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-9-23 10:32:08 AM |