varnam

The June 2003 issue of Atlantic Monthly has an article by James Fellows titled "Who shot Mohammed Al-Dura". Al-Dura is the little boy who was shot dead in the arms of his helpless father's arms during an Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. Television cameras caught the final moments of his life, when the father and son were crouched behind a concrete barrel, and few moments later, Al-Dura, 12 years old was shot dead. This scene has been repeatedly played in the Arab media to rouse up passion. Many countries have issues stamps in his name and even Osama bin Laden has mentioned him in one his messages.

In this article, analyzing television footage, it establishes that the boy was not killed by Israeli bullets

The fundamental point of the Israeli investigation---that the concrete barrel lay between the outpost and the boy, and no bullets had gone through the barrel---could be confirmed independently from news footage.

From the analysis, the article says that possibility that the boy was killed by Palestinians seems more plausible, as the boy was in their direct line of fire with nothing to obstruct the bullets. But since this article is the result of an Israeli investigation, no one will believe it, even though that appears to be the truth. According to the investigator in the case "The entire goal of the exercise, was to manufacture a child martyr"

Whatever may be the truth, the image has been successfully conveyed that Israelis are killers of innocent children.

Sameer writes from Mumbai

The people of Mumbai have, as always, bounced right back, refusing to be cowed down. Whether this is resilience or apathy... one thing is certain. The spirit that keeps Mumbai ticking has not died down. An example of that resilience is the fact that the Sensex, which plumetted 120 points during the day yesterday, after the news of the blasts broke... has bounced back by regaining most of the lost ground. The sensex was 108 points up from yesterday's close at the time I posted this entry.

And MadMan is furious at the intelligence agencies

And why is it that the only intelligence information that you can come up with is something that any one of us could have figured out? Have you been taking lessons from Bejan Daruwalla?

And India has pointed the finger at Pakistan

"India's growth, its success both as a democracy and as a secular country with a large Muslim population, its economic progress are the factors at the root of the neighbour's hostility. It is wrong to attribute it only to differences over Jammu and Kashmir," he said during a visit to the metropolis.

Yet when Zubaydah was confronted by the false Saudis, writes Posner, "his reaction was not fear, but utter relief." Happy to see them, he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner. His horse War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby in 2002. To the amazement of the U.S., the numbers proved valid. When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle.

Time Magazine has an article on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan and the information he revealed.

And still Saudis and Pakistanis are our close allies.

[link via InstaPundit]

A day after India's new government took office, a landmine planted by Islamic separatist guerrillas killed at least 28 paramilitary soldiers and their relatives in Kashmir, underscoring the urgency of planned negotiations with Pakistan on the future of the disputed Himalayan province.

Police officials said the blast killed 19 Border Security Force soldiers, six women and three children. Body parts, bloodstained clothes and lunch boxes were scattered along the pavement, Reuters news service reported from the scene. The families had been traveling with the soldiers on leave from Srinagar to Jammu, the state's winter capital, according to the Press Trust of India news service. [via Washington Post]

The nation's top law enforcement officials, saying they are convinced al Qaeda is planning an attack on the United States in the coming months, issued an urgent plea yesterday for information about seven people who they said could be involved in such an effort. Washington Post

This looks serious enough that so many Administration officials came out with this information today. With so much enquiry going on about 9/11, the Administration officials want to be seen as warning public beforehand, rather than wait for something to strike and then face accusations. But then there was another piece of information from our ally in the war on terror.

Privately, Pakistanis grumble that the U.S. and its coalition partners are pushing too hard and as a result the Pakistani army rushed headlong into Waziristan unprepared for the resistance it faced. "Yes, we're impatient," conceded one Western diplomat in Islamabad. "But we're operating against the unknown deadline of a major terrorist attack in the U.S. That's what drives us." Another Islamabad-based diplomat claimed that lately Western intelligence was picking up "lots of chatter" from its electronic eavesdropping and informants that "something very nasty was being planned out of Pakistan." Time

Abu Hamza, the Muslim cleric who gave us the Shoe Bomber has now been arrested for deportation to United States. As per a report in The Times of India, Abu Hamza was the main conspirator in the terrorist attach in Akshardham in India in September 24, 2002.

The investigating agency in its chargesheet in the case named Abu Hamza of Riyadh as one of the main conspirators. The Crime Branch had alleged that the plot to attack Akshardham was hatched to avenge the communal riots in Gujarat. The chargesheet said that the plot was hatched in Saudi Arabia and that the terrorist attack in Gujarat had been planned by Abu Hamza and Abu Sifiyan of Riyadh along with Abu Talah, a resident of Jeddah. They allegedly took the help of one Salim Shaikh who worked in Riyadh but hailed from Dariapur in Ahmedabad. Salim was among the first to be arrested while the other three are named as absconders in the case.

The Indian Govt. reacts to the terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia

"We condemn this wanton act of terrorism which has led to the loss of innocent lives and damage to property," the external affairs ministry said in a statement. "The Indian casualties were victims of the circumstances rather than pre-meditated targets of attack."

It was a pre-meditated attack and it is part of their plan to cleanse the Arabian peninsula of infidels. It was explicitly stated by the terrorists:

Accompanying the eight-minute recording was a 700-word written statement which claimed that "infidels and crusaders" among the hostages had been killed, including 10 Indians, "those cow worshippers who killed our Muslim brothers in Kashmir". Guardian

As per the new Common Minimum Program adopted by the Congress Govt, there are plans to push India's decades-old commitment to the cause of the Palestinian people for a homeland of their own and improve ties with the Arabs. You can do all that, but still that will not change the fact that you are an infidel.

Many people here believe that after years of threats, a struggle aimed at wrecking Saudi Arabia's storied oil industry has begun. The nature of the violence has morphed; suicide bombings at housing compounds in Riyadh gave way to two major shooting rampages at oil companies last month. Workers are no longer rattled or nervous ? they are scared. Saudi stability once seemed a relatively safe bet; now analysts are questioning the security of the kingdom's oil facilities and the tight grip of its ruling family. LA Times

This is what the terrorists wanted in the first place. People who keep the Saudi economy moving are the immigrants, about 6 million of them. Recently there was a move to prevent immigrants from taking up certain jobs. But the terrorist activity has accelerated the fleeing of immigrants.

Now foreigners are barricaded in gated communities, terrified to venture outside. Some are abandoning Saudi Arabia altogether. Workers at Aramco estimate that dozens of employees have resigned since last weekend. Nervous workers are urging their spouses and children to leave the country for the summer, or longer. Many are quietly looking for new jobs, hoping to line up a financial escape route. LA Times

The British have warned of more spectacular attacks

"We continue to believe that terrorists remain determined to carry out further attacks in Saudi Arabia, and that these may be in the final stages of preparation," the Foreign Office said Sunday, advising against all but essential travel to the oil-rich kingdom. "The threat includes, but is not limited to, residential compounds and diplomatic and other official premises," it said. Middle East Online

You may not like this place for all the hatred they export, but whatever happens here will affect your daily life.

When an act of terrorism happens in your country, you can use that to your advantage to make a social reform. When 9/11 happened, the US Govt could have used that to formulate a national energy plan to get us out of the dependence from foregin oil. But now, out of all the places, Saudi Arabia is now allowing women to work as a way fighting homegrown terrorism

The Saudi cabinet, chaired by King Fahd, last week took a landmark decision allowing women to obtain commercial licenses. "This decision will certainly reduce social and economic pressures on men, who are no longer capable of meeting family needs due to a drop in personal income," said Nahid Tahir, a senior economist at National Commercial Bank. She told AFP that creating employment had become a way of fighting "homegrown terrorism". "It also has an important security aspect in fighting terrorists in the kingdom, as the solution to this problem is no longer of a purely security nature."

The head of the Jeddah-based Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, Anwar Eshki, said the steps highlight the role the economy can play in "fighting extremism". "The cost of living has gone up and women must share the burden with their husbands. If this is not done, it will negatively affect the security situation. It will only breed further complications," Eshki said. Unemployment in Saudi Arabia is estimated at more than 20% "We cannot separate terrorism from the economy ... The security solution is essential, but it is not the decisive one. The cabinet's decision is a response to this understanding," he told AFP. Al Jazeera

Abdelwahed Belkeziz - Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) - made the stinging attack at meeting in Turkey. He blamed the rise of Muslim extremism on the feeling of "powerlessness" felt by members of the Islamic world.

Mr Belkeziz told the foreign ministers from the 57-member states that their countries had a poor record on issues ranging from education and health to economic development. "The aggregate gross domestic product of all our member states remains lower than that of one single advanced country such as France or Britain," he said. Mr Belkeziz concentrated on the failures of the Islamic umma or community. There was, he said, a sharp contrast between its present and past. Today, he said, the community was dispersed, divided, diminished and debased, overwhelmed by a debilitating feeling of impotence. "The powerlessness that the Muslim world is experiencing today and the difficulty of finding solutions to our just causes have been the reason behind the rise of extremism," he said BBC

Finally, an analysis without blaming America.

The main story in today's Los Angeles Times is that both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan aided terrorists in return for not attacking their country.

Saudi Arabia provided funds and equipment to the Taliban and probably directly to Bin Laden, and didn't interfere with Al Qaeda's efforts to raise money, recruit and train operatives, and establish cells throughout the kingdom, commission and U.S. officials said. Pakistan provided even more direct assistance, its military and intelligence agencies often coordinating efforts with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they said.

"There's no question the Taliban was getting money from the Saudis ? and there's no question they got much more than that from the Pakistani government," said former Sen. Bob Kerrey, one of the congressionally appointed commission's 10 members. "Their motive is a secondary issue for us." "Whether there was quid pro quo with the Saudis, we don't know. But certainly the Pakistanis believed that there was. They benefited enormously from their relationship with the Taliban and Al Qaeda."

Pakistanis, meanwhile, were in with the Taliban and Al Qaeda "up to their eyeballs," said the senior commission staff member. He said Bin Laden, for instance, negotiated his 1996 move to Afghanistan with Pakistan's powerful military-intelligence leadership, which held considerable influence over the various warlords struggling for control of Afghanistan at the time. "He wouldn't go back there without Pakistan's approval and support, and had to comply with their rules and regulations," the official said. He said Pakistan opened its airspace to Bin Laden and his flying flotilla of operatives.

Pakistani intelligence officers also allegedly brought Bin Laden to meet Mullah Omar soon after his arrival in Afghanistan, and then helped forge an alliance between the men that enabled the Taliban to trample competing factions and take over much of Afghanistan. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, also was instrumental in helping Al Qaeda set up an infrastructure in its own country and in Afghanistan, and the two outfits jointly operated training camps along the border where militants were taught guerrilla warfare, the official said. "It started day one," the official said of Pakistan's involvement. "They controlled the Taliban; they controlled the border." LA Times

Why did this become news now ? Didn't anyone know about this or is this article a reminder to someone who forgot that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were two of the three nations who recognized the Taliban Government in Afghanistan ? If the 9/11 Commision had read Ahmed Rashid's book Taliban, they would have found most of this information.

Seoul, South Korea, Jun. 20 (UPI) -- Renegade Pakistani scientists may be helping North Korea develop nuclear weapons, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported Sunday. Quoting a report from the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, the agency said the north might have achieved a higher level of technology for enriched uranium with the help of foreign scientists. "Nine Pakistani nuclear scientists have been missing since they left their country six years ago and we cannot rule out the possibility that some of them are in North Korea," institute officials said. Washington Times

A decade after Pakistan created Taliban, a commision investigating the 9/11 disaster discovered the link. Many years down the line, the connection between Pakistan and North Korea will also be admitted by American Officials.

The previous NDA administration had started a negotiation process with Pakistan. Now that they are no longer in power and a new Govt. is in place, how do you bring them to the negotiating table ? First some murders, some throat slitting, murder of security forces, and some taking of women as hostages. As Kuldeep Nayar of I-forgot-to-buy-the-candle fame writes

The army on the Indian side of Kashmir says that infiltration from Pakistan has increased. The home ministry reports in a 30-page document that training camps have been reopened on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and some 500 militants are undergoing training. This is nothing unusual. Militants' camps have never been completely wound up and infiltration takes place after the melting of snow at the passes straddling over the mountains.

The quantum of infiltration is still small. One cannot say for certain whether it would reach the proportion which it had in the past decade. Nor can one be sure about how far Pakistan was behind it. There are some jihadis who, even Musharraf admits, cannot be checked since they are like a loose gun beyond anybody's control. But if infiltration is beginning in the same old way, it is an unfortunate development.

It will be a clear message from Islamabad that it is not happy over the content of talks. The Pakistan spokesman in his last week's briefing dropped a hint: "There are some differences. Pakistan has its own position and India its own. We have been talking about it for quite some time without reaching any conclusion."Dawn

As an after effect to terrorism striking home, Saudi Arabia took a decision to allow women to get commercial licences. They also started the Saudization program where they would bar foreigners from working in gold and jewellery shops. Now to combat terrorism, the Saudi Arabia Govt. is subsidizing the employment of young Saudis hoping that better economic opportunities would counter terrorism.

Across the Middle East, millions of young Arabs are struggling to break into stagnant job markets. Political analysts say this mismatch is starting to generate destabilizing pressure that could bring governments down if they're unwilling to reform economies hobbled by cronyism, Byzantine regulation and rigid state control. The problem is particularly acute in this resource-rich country of more than 25 million people, where many have long viewed work as something done by others. The government is struggling to provide economic possibilities for the 60 percent of the population under 18 years old.

After bombings and shootouts this year that have killed about 50 people in the kingdom, the Saudi government has come to view putting more of its people to work as a matter of national security. With oil prices hovering near a two-decade peak, it is putting some of the new income into a languishing campaign to recast the labor market with a Saudi face. [Saudis Fight Militancy With Jobs]

While religion is something which you use to attain inner peace, Islamic terrorists have hijacked it to justify their barbaric activities. Mosques are used to preach hatred as seen in Tom Friedman's program on the Roots of 9/11. In one segment he sits through the Friday prayer at the Al-Azhar mosque in Egypt, where thousands of common people are involved in a personal communion with their God. But once the prayers are over, some people take over and start preaching hatred filled words against America and there is no one stopping them. But now with the barbaric masscre in Beslan, there has been some introspection in the Arab world.

"Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims," wrote Abdul Rahman Rashed, general manager of the popular Al Arabiya television channel. In a blunt column in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al Awsat, Rashed listed attacks carried out by Muslims in Iraq, Russia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. "Our terrorist sons are an end product of our corrupted culture," he wrote. "The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us."

The Saudi daily Arab News blasted Putin as "a servant of state dictatorship and control," a man who could not afford to lose his "tough-man image." But the editorial saved its harshest condemnation for the guerrillas, "who had put themselves in a position where no one would shed tears when the punishment came. They reached a new low when they chose toddlers as bargaining chips."

An editorial in Lebanon's Daily Star called for "better governance systems and socioeconomic opportunities in those countries and regions, including our Middle East, that seem to generate so many terrorists." "Terror emanates largely from despair, hopelessness and humiliation," the editorial said. "And these are sentiments whose causes can be identified, tracked, grasped and addressed."[Russian School Takeover Stirs Self-Criticism Among Arabs]

On Sept 10, in 2002 and 2003, Osama bin Laden came up with his lecture to the world and surprisingly this year there was no message. This has led B. Raman to wonder

The absence of an anniversary homage to the terrorists of the 9/11 operation by Osama is interpreted by some as an indicator that either he is already in the custody of the US or Pakistan and will be produced before the world just before the polling day in the US or that he is dead or that his health has deteriorated aggravating the speech disability reportedly suffered by him due to the sharpnel injury. There is, however, no evidence to corroborate any of these interpretations. He must be presumed to be alive and free till there is evidence to the contrary.[Osamaâ??s intriguing silence]

Here is where various people stand w.r.t the question, if Osama is alive or not

• Major General Eric Olson: Alive
  
• Colin Powell: Alive
  
• Sheikh Rashid Ahmed: No Idea, followed by Dead
  
• ProFindPages: Captured
  

B Raman thinks that besides the Americans, Osama bin Laden has one more enemy who is out to get him - the Shi'ites of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are hunting for bin Laden not because of any love or sympathy for the Americans, but for their own need for revenge.

That might be because they haven't forgotten what he did to them in 1988. It was then that hundreds of Shi'ites of the Northern Areas (NA - Gilgit and Baltistan) of Pakistan, known before 1947 as the Northern Areas of Jammu and Kashmir, were massacred after a demand raised by them for the creation of an autonomous Shi'ite state called Karakoram, consisting of the Shi'ite majority areas of the NA, Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). Military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq called in bin Laden, then living in Peshawar, and his Sunni tribal hordes to carry out the massacre.

To avenge these deaths, a Shi'ite airman is believed to have caused an explosion on board the aircraft in which Zia was travelling from Bahawalpur to Islamabad in August 1988. This was followed in 1991 by the assassination in Peshawar of Lieutenant-General Fazle Haq, a retired army officer, close to Zia and hated by the Shi'ites because of his suspected role in the assassination of a respected Shi'ite leader. [Osama and his Shi'ite nemesis]

Osama mean time is appearing all over the region. He is in Tibet-Laddakh region, Iran, Balochistan all at the same time.

Just days before the RJD-sponsored rally in Patna on December 23, CPI-Maoist naxalites on Sunday night blew up a small railway bridge between Karmandiha and Sasaram, 96 km from Gaya, in Mughalsarai division of ECR.

Maoists, who were prevented from holding a rally in Patna, have threatened to disturb RJD rally by targeting railways, among other things. The RJD has booked 18 special trains to ferry party supporters to Patna from different parts of the state.

Sources said that over two dozen armed naxalites reached the spot around 1 am and blew up the bridge. "It could have been fatal had they blasted the bridge half-an-hour earlier when the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express crossed the bridge," a railway official said. [Maoists blast rail bridge to disrupt rally]

The Communist contribution to the development of India.

The Saudi government, itself under assault from Al Qaeda, is not in the business of directly financing terrorism, and since 9/11 it has responded to American pressure to control the flow of charitable funds to active terrorist groups. But what it still pays for, and what the religious charities its citizens are obliged to contribute to pay for, is a worldwide network of mosques, schools and Islamic centers that proselytize the belligerent and intolerant Wahhabi variant of Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia. As a result of this oil-financed largess, the teachings of more tolerant and humane Muslim leaders are losing ground in countries like Indonesia and Pakistan. Wahhabi mosques that glorify armed jihad have also made alarming gains among the Muslim populations of Europe and the United States.

For years, Saudi Arabian oil money bankrolled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and provided financial support to Pakistan's government. It was Saudi aid that allowed Pakistan to defy international sanctions imposed over its nuclear bomb testing. Without Saudi money there is some question whether chronically impoverished Pakistan could have ever afforded to develop nuclear weapons and the crucial bomb-related technologies that its scientists passed on to Iran, Libya, North Korea and perhaps other countries as well. [The Saudi Syndrome]

The Saudi support for Pakistan's nuclear program has been reported before and Saudis have used this as a bargaining chip. While Benazir Bhutto was not allowed to visit the nuclear facilities, Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan was given a guided tour.

The editorial is a call for Americans to think while buying gas guzzlers. Here in California there are more and more hybrid cars on the road than before. But then what happens in tree-hugging, war-hating California is not a reflection of the nation. The demand for oil around the world is just increasing as China and India need it to keep their booming economies running. This means more money for Saudi Arabia to fund its militant programs.

But as the largest consumer of Oil, it is United States that has to take the lead in reducing its dependency. Will that happen voluntarily ? I doubt unless the gas price shoots up to the unaffordable range or the oil wells dry up, the consumption will reduce.

The Acorn points to this editorial in Indian Express which talks about the gains made by the Naxalites in India. (Naxalites are Communists who think that murdering others is the best way to advance their causes). While the spread of Naxalites are increasing, the Govt is going soft on them. But the troubling news is that, these Communists are anti-nationals as well.

The "admission" by the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) leaders comes in the wake of Chhattisgarh Home Minister Brij Mohan Agarwal's charge Sunday that Maoists used Pakistani and Britain-made bullets for killing three state police personnel in Sarguja district on Saturday.

Maoist commandoes Kosa and Aaytu told reporters Sunday in a hideout in the state's southern Dantewada forests, about 420 km from state capital Raipur, that they exchange notes with Pakistani militants on methods of war and accept modern weapons from Pakistan.

Kosa said: "The way we made a base in Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and have been progressing in Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, we will be able to capture 30-35 percent of India by 2010." [Maoists 'admit' to Pakistani links]

The aim of CPI(Maoist) is is to establish a Compact Revolutionary Zone and then take their armed struggle to other parts of India.

Even though Musharraf was the man behind Kargil and whose popular hobby is making India a hostage by holding a gun to his head, we are shamelessly giving him a red carpet welcome. On April 17th, Kargil mastermind and Pakistani "cross-border-terrorism-expert" dictator is arriving in India in the pretext of watching a cricket match between India and Pakistan.

Indian bloggers are uniting to protest this visit. Please join by displaying the above graphic in your blog. Details here.

Participating Bloggers: The Acorn, India Defence, Secular Right, Nerve Endings Firing Away, Rabble Rousing Random Ramblings, Seriously Sandeep, Dancing with Dogs, Rojnamcha, Niket Kaisare, Communism Watch, vichaar.org, Quizfan, Marwadi, Suren, Transport Phenomena, Akash Mahajan, Blog of Parag , Null Pointer, Rajagopal, Idhar Udhar, Rediff.com's Rajeev Srinivasan, Sathish Kumar, Parag, Saket Vaidya, wgaf, sen's spot, sudeep jain, Atanu Dey, Mahesh Ganapaty

Related Links: We are so flexible, Did Nawaz Sharif Know ?

Praful Bidwai in defence of Maoists writes

Opposing the king does not amount to strengthening the Maoists. Indeed, it can encourage long overdue reform, including land reform, and further decentralization. The Maoists' methods can be criticised, but not their political platform -- a representative, radicalized, democracy. Their violence fades into insignificance beside the excesses of the RNA, which is responsible for a majority of the 11,000 people killed since 1996. [India's U-turn for a despot]

"About 17 gangs, mainly of the PWG, equipped with sophisticated weapons like AK-47 rifles, wireless sets and remote control devices, were reportedly active in Bastar, Dantewada, Dandori, Kanker, Rajnandgaon, Balaghat, Kawardha and Mandla districts," a police source said. Naxals raze Hindalco camp in Chhattisgarh; abduct 4

Sandeep has a detailed analysis of Praful Bidwai's Maoist cheerleeding.

Praful Bidwai has two new theorems. a) Naxalites in 35 districts of India don't talk to their comrades in the remaining 140 districts and b) if the number of people you murder is numerically less than your opponent, it is OK.

Theorem A, comes from the following statement.

Fears about the 'Maoist factor' are, to put it mildly, exaggerated. The Naxalite movement is indigenous. Less than a fifth of the 175 districts affected by it are anywhere near Nepal India's U-turn for a despot

So Comrade A1 from Uttar Pradesh meets Comrade B1 from Andhra. After exchanging pleasantries like the number of innocent people they have murdered, Comrade B1 asks for some help. He says that the Andhra police is now hunting them down and the comrades are losing morale and need more arms. Comrade B1 knows that A1 has links with the Maoists in Nepal and wonders if he could help. At this point, A1 shakes his head and says, "Comrade B1, I wish I could help. But that would violate Praful Bidwai's theorem A. He wrote recently that only one fifth of the Naxal districts border Nepal are affected by Maoists and since you belong to a district far way, it would not be prudent for me to teach you Nepalese techniques. I may be a murderer, but I am not a proliferator."

Dejected, Comrade B1 treks through the jungle back to Andhra Pradesh when he is taken out by a police ambush. As his soul flies over the forest canopy, it showers the choicest abuses on Theorem A

Opposing the king does not amount to strengthening the Maoists. Indeed, it can encourage long overdue reform, including land reform, and further decentralization. The Maoists' methods can be criticized, but not their political platform -- a representative, radicalized, democracy. Their violence fades into insignificance beside the excesses of the RNA, which is responsible for a majority of the 11,000 people killed since 1996. India's U-turn for a despot

This combat is increasingly following all wars' dread logic: killing and maiming innocent people, devastating homes, inflicting horrible suffering. What makes it especially loathsome is that it's being fought in the name of the very people it is turning into a mass of bleeding bodies and severed limbs. If civilians are overtly targeted, the war will become even more unpopular and the anti-war movement more assertive. The demand to bring back US-UK troops will turn into a roar.[The Emperor's new clothes]

Sandeep Pandey wants India and Pakistan to give dual citizenship to citizens of both countries as a solution to all problems. Ever heard of something called partition Sandeep ? Now at this point, Musharraf, who has even rejected the idea of soft borders is wondering, "I have to fight hard against these Indians to be their Enemy No. 1"

Ethnic cleansing continues in Kashmir, and even school children are not spared. Infiltration continues, and innocent civilians are murdered. But Mahesh Bhatt is unhappy that he is not able to get Pakistanis to act in his B-movies

Religious leaders in Pakistan have described the suicide attacks by Muslim freedom fighters in Kashmir as "justified", but "not justified" if waged within Pakistan. The religious leaders said that such attacks were also justified if carried out by Muslim freedom fighters in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

They said that in those countries where Jehad is being waged the suicide attacks are justified, but such attacks are prohibited where Jehad has not started even if it is a non-Islamic country.

The statement from as many as 40 religious parties in Pakistan has come as a response to the recent `fatwa' issued by a section of clerics saying that suicide attacks were forbidden in Islam.[Pakistani Muslim clerics: suicide attacks in Kashmir OK]

At this point Crown Prince Abdullah picked up the phone and called Musharraf and said, "These people are hijacking Islam and using it for murdering innocent Indians.As the guardian of Islam's most holy sites I cannot tolerate this and we have to put an end to such nonsense. Indians, as you know are friends of ours. They have been supporting us and also their unwavering support for the Palestinian issue even puts Palestinians to shame. Their minister recently carried some vehicles personally. If this is not commitment, I don't know what is.

Sadly, none of that happened.

The alleged desecration of Koran story resulted in the death of many Muslims and the reaction has been violent, verbally, in United States

Instead of sending Mr. McClellan out to flog Newsweek, President Bush should have said: "Let me say first to all Muslims that desecrating anyone's holy book is utterly wrong. These allegations will be investigated, and any such behavior will be punished. That is how we Americans intend to look in the mirror. But we think the Arab-Muslim world must also look in the mirror when it comes to how it has been behaving toward an even worse crime than the desecration of God's words, and that is the desecration of God's creations. In reaction to an unsubstantiated Newsweek story, Muslims killed 16 other Muslims in Afghanistan in rioting, and no one has raised a peep - as if it were a totally logical reaction. That is wrong.[The Best P.R.: Straight Talk]

No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ" -- a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine -- was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O'Connor, appearing on ''Saturday Night Live," ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

There was no reminder that Jewish communities erupted in lethal violence in 2000, after Arabs demolished Joseph's Tomb, torching the ancient shrine and murdering a young rabbi who tried to save a Torah. And nobody noted that Buddhists went on a killing spree in 2001 in response to the destruction of two priceless, 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Of course, there was a good reason all these bloody protests went unremembered in the coverage of the Newsweek affair: They never occurred.

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers -- ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols" -- was any reader surprised?[Why Islam is disrespected]

Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mufti Mohammad Sayeed today said that Kashmir, which was earlier considered a bone of contention between India and Pakistan, will now serve as a bridge between the two countries.[Kashmir will serve as a bridge between India and Pakistan: Mufti]

Militants have blown up a bridge on the route to holy cave shrine of Amarnath in Pahalgam area of Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said here today.Bridge no. 2 at Chandanwari, 15 km from Pahalgam, was blown up by using an Improvised Explosive Device late Monday night, the sources said.Chandanwari is the first halting station for the pilgrims en route to the holy cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.The annual Amarnath yatra is expected to begin next month. Last year, three lakh devotees went on the pilgrimage. [Militants blow up bridge on Amarnath yatra route]

The General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a Mallu by the name of Prakash Karat has met with a terrorist leader from Nepal. According to the Times of India, this meeting was arranged by Indian Intelligence Agencies.

Sandeep (who is the envy of IISc Professors) and The Acorn have detailed analysis

In an Op-Ed piece in New York Times, Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey argue that a myth has been perpetuated that madrassas are graduating students who become terrorists. They examined the background of 75 terrorists and found that most of them are college-educated and often in western countries. Madrassas produce fundamentalists, but they do not give the weapons training required to cause massive damage as the 9/11 terrorists or the Bali bombe. Also, according to their investigation only 1 percent of Pakistani students study in madrassas and not 10 percent as reported in the press.

To these people I have only one word - Taliban. These Afghans who were born in refugee camps in Pakistan, educated in madrassas learned their fighting skills from Mujaheddin parties in Pakistan. The madrassas belonged to Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam which has support among Pashtuns in Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province. After they captured Khandahar, students from Afghani and Pakistani madrassas rushed to join the Taliban. It was these Taliban who gave a base for Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda and few years later we got some 3000 dead Americans on Sept 11th.

So when Bergen and Pandey say madrassas don't provide weapons training, they might be right. But madrassas condition the mind and in Pakistan there are enough people to provide the required training.

Porter Goss, the CIA chief cannot catch Osama bin Laden due to some "weak links", which seems to be the new code word for Pervez Musharraf.

The CIA boss was delivering a clear message to the ``weak link'' -- Pakistan and its military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

As he did two weeks ago in Australia, Musharraf claims to have Al-Qaida ``on the run'' in Pakistan, his forces having chased them out of cities into the mountains and then ``occupied their sanctuaries.''

That rhetoric draws derision inside the CIA. According to sources familiar with the intelligence community discussion on this issue, there is mounting evidence that the Pakistani military -- and its intelligence wing, the ISI -- is nurturing its deep ties to Islamist extremists, including those who are sheltering the Al-Qaida leadership and leaders of the Afghan Taliban.[Pakistani forces tied to Taliban are hiding bin Laden, CIA thinks]

Six armed gunmen tried to storm into the Ram temple in Ayodhya. One of them, a suicide bomber, rammed a jeep filled with explosives at the first barricade. The others hurled grenades and fired indiscriminately with AK-47s. Makes you blood boil doesn't it?

But blood should not boil. That's what Teesta Setalvad has to say.

Such an incident poses a challenge to the secular fabric of the country. Transparency needs to be followed in investigation. The media needs also to respond responsibly to information when labels like ‘terrorist’ and ‘jehadi terrorist’ are used intentionally by some organisations. Above all, this should not become an occasion for venom and hatred against minorities clouding our public sphere once again. [Press Release]

Rajeev Srinivasan has more

BBC violated its policy of not calling terrorists as terrorists. It headlined its report of Thursday's bombings in Londonistan as ' London rocked by terror attacks'. Its editorial guidelines state the following:

The word "terrorist" itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution.

Indian police have killed five gunmen who attacked a flashpoint religious site in the northern city of Ayodhya.
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The Ayodhya complex is one of the most fiercely disputed religious sites in the world...

Update: BBC listens to Teesta. The word "terrorist" is erased and the barrier to understanding has been removed.

Natwar Singh, who was here to attend a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the G4 countries, hoped the peace process with Pakistan would continue unimpeded, "unless there is a terrorist attack like the one witnessed in London."

India has said terrorist camps are still operating in Pakistan and New Delhi has photographic evidence to prove it.

"I have told the Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz that the terrorist camps have not been dismantled. We have the photographs and I have told him that we can provide photographic evidence," External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh told the BBC here last night. [Terrorist camps still operating in Pakistan: Natwar]

Update: Thank god these "militants" were stopped, else Nut-war would have called off the peace process.

Tony Blair said yesterday that he was shocked to learn that the terrorists (or bombers for BBC folks) were actually British nationals and we were shocked that Blair, a British national, lacks general knowledge. British born Omar Sheikh is in a Pakistani jail for murdering Daniel Pearl. Richard Reid is in an American jail for trying to see how a 747 would look when it explodes. Saajid Badat was the co-conspirator of Reid. Assaf Mohammed Hanif who blew himself up in a Tel Aviv pub in 2003 was carrying a British passport.

As Steve Emerson noted on Fox News

Not only disrupt but here is the ultimate irony. Britain invited this. Britain created conditions in London that now host more radical Islamic groups and cells, and leaders, that is, than any other capital in Europe or even in the Middle East, outside the Middle East that is. And the fact of the matter is open immigration, a very liberal asylum policy and they still continue to embrace and empower radical Islamic groups. For example, in Prime Minister Blair's comments right after the attack he praised the Muslim Council of Britain. That is an organization that is directly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood that believes in carrying out suicide bombings, that has been linked directly to Hamas and to other jihadist organizations.[Steven Emerson on British permissiveness towards Islamic radicals & on sleeper cells in U.S.]

Atleast now, Blair should wear a fake beard and walk around the Bethnal Green Underground station like Evan Kohlmann and see for himself what is happening in his island.

Perhaps what disturbed me the most about Faisal's desperate words was searching around the room and seeing dozens of eyes diligently trained on him--the eyes of young, impressionable Muslim kids. It is common in this modern era for Western youths (of all backgrounds) to worship popular rock stars or Hollywood actors and aspire to become them. Yet, for many years, the radical religious fringe has preached a consistent countermessage to young Muslims: "by virtue of your heritage alone, you are different from your peers and 'we love death as they love life.'" A minority of these youths have been raised to idolize Usama Bin Laden and Mohammed Atta in the same way that many Americans follow Johnny Depp and Bruce Springsteen. With disastrous "Muslim wars" ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of those brainwashed into following Al-Qaida now see a unique opportunity for themselves to step forward from obscurity and become famous, heroic "martyrs" of the Islamic nation, much like the 9/11 hijackers. Let noone be mistaken: the deluded suicide bombers responsible for the carnage on 7/7 are far from alone. The age of the "human cruise missile" is now fully upon us and it is likely only a matter of time before this problem crosses the Atlantic and reaches the shores of the American homeland. [Where do Homegrown British Suicide Bombers Come From?]

Cynthia McFadden of Nightline was allowed unprecedented access to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf after the London Bomb blasts. Through her report we come to know that everyday morning he has breakfast with his mother and she gives no advice to him since he requires none. Then he goes about the daily job of making sure Pakistan is run properly. During the day, Musharraf turns to McFadden and describes all the things he is doing and produces sound bites for the media. So he innocently asks why Pakistan is being blamed for all the bomb blasts in London and tears start rolling out of our eyes.

Here is a gentleman, who has breakfast with his mother regularly being accused of breeding terrorists. What a sacrilege. That whole report (available via iTunes Podcast) reminded me of Suketu Mehta's glorifying tribute to the gangsters of Mumbai in his excellent book Maximum City. But now the Pakistani connection is turning up at every single terrorist activity in the world whether it be the murder of school children in Kashmir, innocent civilians in London or tourists in Egypt

"Al-Qaeda does not exist in Pakistan any more," he told reporters in Lahore, after unconfirmed reports Pakistanis were being sought over bombs in Egypt.

President Musharraf said al-Qaeda "sanctuaries" in Pakistan had been over-run, and that Pakistani security forces had arrested 700 of the movement's fighters.[Al-Qaeda 'destroyed in Pakistan']

Although Pakistani officials insist they've cleaned out al-Qaida training camps in their country, a young Lodi man told FBI agents in June he spent six months in such a camp near Rawalpindi in 2003-04, according to federal court documents.

Hamid Hayat said he "observed hundreds of attendees from various parts of the world at this camp," his FBI interrogator wrote in the documents.

But Hayat, 22, and his father, Lodi ice cream vendor Umer Hayat, told the FBI of a half-dozen other young Lodi men who received jihadi training in Pakistan, the documents state. Umer Hayat, 47, also said he toured several other training camps and observed training in weaponry and urban warfare, says an affidavit filed in the case.[Pakistan a hotbed for terror recruits]

How many more people should die before Musharraf is asked to clean up his country?

Immediately after the London Bomb blasts, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf came on TV and offered words of advice to Tony Blair and declared that there were no terrorists in Pakistan. He also issued an order to crackdown on terrorists, if there were any. Now this dance routine, which follows every terrorist act in the world has become so perfect that it can be turned into a broadway musical. Sadly no one takes him seriously. The editorial in LA Times notes

Yes, there's a pattern here. To be clear, it is not that Pakistanis are more inclined toward terrorism than are citizens of any other country. It is that Musharraf is unable, or unwilling, to confront the terrorists in his midst. Musharraf has even had the gall to say that while, yes, Pakistan has a problem with Islamic extremism, so does Britain and the government there needs to address it.

Pakistan has arrested hundreds of suspected terrorists, including top Al Qaeda operatives. For his efforts, Musharraf has twice been the target of assassins. But terrorist training camps can still be found in Pakistan, and the army cracks down on infiltration into India only under foreign pressure.

But Musharraf could direct his underlings to crack down harder. When outside pressure reaches a boil, he reacts. When the pressure eases, so does he. That's not good enough[Pakistan's problem

After last week’s bombings in London our friendly neighbourhood military dictator went on international television to aver, as he usually does after an act of terrorism, that Pakistan would never allow itself to become a breeding ground for terrorists. What he did not mention was that he has little control over the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) government in his Northwest Frontier Province which just passed (July 14) the Northwest Frontier Province Hisba Act, 2005 which will effectively set up an Islamic government of Taliban genre. When it becomes law, one of the first things that will happen is the creation of a governmental department to ‘‘discourage vice and encourage virtue’’. Sound familiar? A mullah will be appointed to head it and his job will be the protection of Islamic values and traditions according to the rules laid down by the Prophet 1400 years ago[Madrasas can only breed fanatics]