[Daily Nation (Kenya)] For the third day running, Kenya's security agencies acting in concert with friendly forces, continued with an assault on the terrorists who still held many civilians hostage at the Westgate Mall.
At one point at mid-day, there was a scare when fire erupted at the mall with some reports suggesting fresh terror attacks. Others indicated it was a manoeuvre by the terrorists to confuse the Kenyan soldiers and possibly find a way to exit.
Whatever the case, our troops soldiered on and continued with their mission to contain and subdue the attackers and rescue those still held captive.
All round, there is a sense of gloom and doom. Tension is palpable and the citizens are worried about the grotesque drama. This is the reason why the government must continue with constant public communication to update the people on the goings-on to calm nerves.
Worrying too is the fact that the stand-off and uncertainty are taking a huge toll on the economy as businesses remain closed and many people kept away from work.
Worse, the tragedy has sent the wrong message that Kenya is an unsafe destination even when it is clear that terrorism knows no borders and that the reasons for the attacks is to avenge for actions of other countries the attackers perceive to have offended elsewhere. Kenya, therefore, finds itself in an awkward situation of paying penance for all the wrong reasons.
But as stated by President Kenyatta, the country's security forces must cut through the designs of the attackers and deal with them decisively.
Critically important is to review our security systems to seal loopholes that allow criminals to enter into our land and visit such mayhem that claims the lives of tens of innocent people.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[Dawn] IS it not extraordinary that the prime minister and the federal government assume they possess legal authority to hold unconditional talks with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and other terrorists?
Our Constitution and related legal principles do not endorse such assumption. The prime minister and parliamentarians have all sworn an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. It is a settled principle that the authority vested in state functionaries is the authority delegated to them by the people and must be exercised as a sacred trust within limits prescribed by the Constitution.
The distinction between acts of an individual and those of state functionaries is as follows: a private citizen is free to do what he is not prohibited by law to do, while a state functionary can only do what he is explicitly authorised by law to do. What this means is that while the TTP, that doesn't recognise our Constitution, can elect to engage in conditional or unconditional talks with the state, the state and its representatives are bound by the framework of the Constitution and do not have the luxury to discuss terms of peace that travel beyond it.
This raises key questions: can the state accept the continuing existence of the TTP as an gang even if it agrees not to attack citizens, officials and state property? Can the state relinquish its obligation to uphold fundamental rights across Pakistain, including within tribal areas, or delegate its responsibility within a specified region to a non-state actor such as the TTP? Can the state release undertrial or condemned prisoners on the TTP's demand as a confidence-building measure? Can the state make a pact with the TTP even if it refuses to recognise the legitimacy of our Constitution?
Article 256 of the Constitution is unambiguous: "No private organization capable of functioning as a military organization shall be formed, and any such organization shall be illegal." The TTP is not just capable but has been functioning rather effectively as an organization fighting and killing our security forces.
It is proscribed under the anti-terror law and cannot be allowed to exist as such in view of Article 256 unless it disarms and relinquishes violence. The TTP giving up arms and violence thus must be a condition for a peace pact.
There is a widely held false belief that our tribal areas fall beyond the writ of the Constitution. While this might be true in practice, it is not so in principle. Article 247 does make special administrative arrangement for Fata by ousting the jurisdiction of the high court and the Supreme Court and delegating the authority to legislate in relation to such areas to the president. But the Constitution neither curtails the application of fundamental rights to tribal areas not relieves the state of its obligation to uphold such rights.
The inalienable right to life, property, liberty, dignity, equality and due process guaranteed to citizens residing across Pakistain applies equally to citizens living in the tribal areas. Even if the courts have not so far exercised judicial review powers to scrutinise regulations promulgated by the president in relation to the tribal areas, they don't lack such jurisdiction. Simply put, the president wields no legal authority to promulgate regulations for administration of tribal areas that contravene enumerated fundamental rights or other provisions of the Constitution.
What this also means is that in the name of peace the state can't cede control of North Wazoo or another tribal area to the TTP or leave the protection of guaranteed fundamental rights to the will and grace of the terrorists. It is important to understand that our form of federalism is inclusive and cooperative. Islamabad or Lahore or 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... cannot decide that no citizens from tribal areas will travel or settle down in these cities. Article 16 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of movement to everyone.
Short of ceding territory and allowing the creation of a Taliban emirate as a new state, the government cannot hand over to the TTP an autonomous area within the tribal belt to administer in accordance with its own whims and wishes, whether in the name of the Sharia, tribal custom, tradition or peace. Given our constitutional structure, it will not be possible to prohibit the movement of men and arms from such an area to the rest of Pakistain, not to mention the ideology of intolerance, hate and violence.
Further, the Constitution doesn't permit any government, whether local, provincial or federal, to adopt or practise any law or custom that contravenes fundamental rights. So, for example, the state cannot allow the TTP to prohibit girls from getting educated as barring them will breach Article 25(a) that mandates the state to educate all children between ages five to 16, and also Article 25, being discrimination on the basis of sex. The TTP's allegiance to the Constitution thus has to be a condition for a peace pact.
Regarding the release of prisoners, our criminal law states that no prosecution against an accused can be withdrawn except with the court's permission. Thus undertrial prisoners cannot be released at the government's discretion. However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... once a court finds someone guilty, the provincial government has the authority to pardon the convict, and so does the president. But to state the obvious, laws provide for imprisonment of those who have established through their conduct that they are a threat to society if let loose.
What rational basis would the state have to pardon hardened snuffies who retain the urgent resolve to revert to their murderous ways if set free, like those who beat feet from Bannu or D.I. Khan jails? Crime is not a private matter between two individuals or an individual and the state. It is an offence against society, and in prosecuting and punishing the criminal the state acts on the society's behalf. Thus, a de-radicalisation programme and continued monitoring of terror suspects will have to be a precondition for an amnesty scheme in the interest of society's safety.
The futility of talks with snuffies and misdiagnosis of our terror problem notwithstanding, the position that the government can engage in talks unconditionally is simply untenable.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Dawn] THERE are moments when the full force of the threat that stalks this land hits with a sickening intensity. Yesterday was one of those moments -- a depressing, shocking, violent attack that made it apparent, as though a reminder was needed, of just how far this country has drifted from the ideals and principles upon which it was created. Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Pakistain is not dead, for Christians still congregated in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. yesterday to celebrate the Sunday mass. But the jacket wallahs who attacked the All Saint's Church and killed innocent, ordinary citizens were trying to kill Jinnah's Pakistain. If this country is to survive and emerge one day as an embodiment of its founding father's ideals, there can be no room for Death Eaters, bully boyz and myrmidons. There is truly an either/or scenario for this country: either the bully boyz are defeated or the Pakistain that the majority of the country wants will be lost forever.
The targeting of Christians may seem to some as a new front being opened by the myrmidons, but in fact it is logical progression of the Death Eater ideology. Be it other sects within Islam or other religions, the violent Death Eater wants to eliminate all others and produce a homogenous society in which only a particular version of Islamic interpretation rules over the people. The hatred and bigotry embedded in the Death Eater ideology is not just about foreigners, but also about the majority of Paks themselves. Be it Shias, Ismailis, Barelvis, non-Musselmens or anyone else deemed to be outside the pale of radical Islam as practised by the bully boyz and terrorists, everyone is a target. Until that reality is absorbed by the country's politicianship -- that what confronts the country is a murderous ideology -- there can be no real understanding of why Pakistain has been so wracked by violence. And without that understanding, there cannot begin to be a solution.
For a week that began with the killing of an army general and ended with the murder of scores of Christians, the inevitable question is where does that leave the nascent dialogue process with the TTP? If dialogue was at the outset very unlikely to succeed, what chances of success are there now? Perhaps the most discouraging aspect about the dialogue process is the national politicianship's abject surrender before the Taliban. Even yesterday voices were heard suggesting that the church bombing was an attempt to undermine the dialogue process. When deferring to the enemy trumps honouring your dead, what hope for peace, dialogue or anything of the like?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi
#1
the editorialists at Dawn cite Mohmmad Ali Jinnah who died in 1948
the country has mostly had thieves in power since then and since about 67 they began blaming all their problems on outsiders and then after about 1979, the saudis began subsidizing Wahabi schools
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/24/2013 0:47 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Be it other sects within Islam or other religions, the violent Death Eater wants to eliminate all others and produce a homogenous society in which only a particular version of Islamic interpretation rules over the people.
I guess I never read much about Jinnah but my impression was that when Moslems left India to found Pakistan that's exactly what they wanted.
[NATIONALREVIEW] ... Yet modern Salafi Jihadism takes this dynamic to an unprecedented level. It has the instinctive reflex toward unrestrained brutality. Gratuitous violence guarantees attention. Think about the Iraq war. The image of masked assailants sawing off the heads of bound and terrified prisoners is seared indelibly into our memory.
Of course, this raises a key question: How do the jihadists excuse their atrocities?
In the blend of theocratic absolutism and perverse consequentialism. From the jihadist perspective, their violence is justified in the service of God's intrinsic will.
Grappling with this notion of ordained will is crucial. It affords us insight into the existential rigidity with which these terrorists regard the world. In short, Salafi Jihadists claim that the price of peace is our non-interference -- they hint that our acquiescence will buy us our safety. They're lying.
I'm glad that the writer uses the term "Salafi Jihadism," even though it's kind of unwieldy. The enemy isn't so much Islam as it is Salafism, not just the murderous bastards on active jihad, but also the "political" Salafists (and their inbred Deobandi country cousins). They're the ones who riot at the drop of a hat, blow up Sufi shrines, and bully their neighbors because they're not devout enough. Then he waters his arguments down with the obligatory
Just as we must guard against those who would use atrocities to spread bigotry, so must Salafi Jihadism meet our unhesitating resolve...
The "bigotry" has already spread. Everybody who pays any attention at all already holds Islam in contempt. It's the sea in which the jihadi krazed killer swims. It's global jihad's cheering section. It's the essence of rationality to despise such an abomination.
Instead, we get all worked up about the brutes caged in Guantanamo. All of them but the ones kept for intel value should be dead. The only way to defeat terrorism is to make its would-be practitioners too afraid for themselves to put on the damned turbans.
Count the number of prisoners the jihadis have taken who've gotten away with their lives.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2013 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
"The enemy isn't so much Islam as it is Salafism,"
Khomeinism aka "Wilayat al Faqih" is what woke up Islam as a political enemy of Western Civilization in the 20th century. We'd ignore this "Shiite Salafism" at our peril.
"Just as we must guard against those who would use atrocities to spread bigotry"
Why is opposition and/or rejection of a political platform 'bigotry' if the adherents of said platform claim some sort of supernatural endorsement for their political goals?
Decades ago the US government not only officially rejected the religious doctrine of the divinity of the Japanese Emperor. It actually used armed force to make the Emperor swear off any claims of divinity. Was that bigotry?
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[Dawn] IS it not extraordinary that the prime minister and the federal government assume they possess legal authority to hold unconditional talks with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and other terrorists?
Wazoo
[Dawn] THERE are moments when the full force of the threat that stalks this land hits with a sickening intensity. Yesterday was one of those moments -- a depressing, shocking, violent attack that made it apparent, as though a reminder was needed, of just how far this country has drifted from the ideals and principles upon which it was created. Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Pakistain is not dead, for Christians still congregated in 
