There is one clear reason those tasked with protecting the United States from attacks of the type that claimed almost 3,000 lives on 9/11 were so interested in Zain Abidin Mohammed Husain Abu Zubaydah’s diaries: They wanted to find the mental weaknesses of a high-value captive they believed held vital information on future plots. The CIA’s own July 2002 draft psychological assessment, which acknowledges a heavy debt to the diaries, is focused principally on what they show about how to break down an operative the CIA believed at the time might have written Al-Qaeda’s manual on resistance to interrogation……

In the Patna serial bomb blast case, we notice again that all the culprits belonged to Ahle Hadees, considered the purest Wahhabi sect. What is so distinct about Ahle Hadees? First and foremost, it gives very high stature to Kutub al-Sittah i.e., the six “authentic” books of Hadiths. In these 6 “authentic” books, two of them stand out and they are Sahih (authentic, emphasis added) Bukhari and Sahih (authentic, emphasis added) Muslim. Secondly their interpretation of Islam is puritanical and literal, and according to their interpretation of Islam, anyone who differs from their way of religious life is ‘Wajib-ul-Qatl’ (worthy of being killed). Thirdly since they give equal stature to the Hadees as compared to the Quran, they believe they are ‘Naqi Muslims’ or pure Muslims and the rest of the word, including Muslims are ‘Najas’ i.e., impure. Since they believe that the rest of the non-Wahhabi world is ‘Najas’ then it is morally obligatory for them to change them or if changing them is not possible, then it is better to eradicate them.

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Patna Bomb Blasts: What Were They - Response, Revenge Or...... Ideologically Driven In Search Of 'Promised Rewards'?

However, in their efforts to shield the enemy, the deceptions deployed by the extremist lobby within mainstream society in Pakistan imply a most heinous dishonour to some of the most revered religious personalities for Muslims. Still, they do not desist from such antics in their aims, which are anything but innocent. These are the front men and women of the extremists within us – hoping to deliver Pakistan into the hands of the Taliban and Al Qaeda through the use of their golden tongues.....

 It is the deprivation of people that the Taliban exploit and rather than talking to them, given their own reluctance to even consider peace, it may be far more logical to address the root causes as to why they have been able to gain a stronghold in various parts of our country and also gain sympathy in other places. We need to do more to tell the truth about who these people really are and prepare ourselves to defeat them……

One should not wonder at the recent statement of Maulana Munawar Hassan if he has a vivid memory of the past. Nearly all Pakistani terrorist organizations, be it Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangawi, Harkat ul Jihad al-Islami ,Harkat ul Mujahideen or any other terror outfit practically engaged in Pakistan with new names, enjoy open or tacit support of thousands of leaders and Ulema. They have been standing by these organisations for almost three decades and are now exerting every possible effort to back them up to boost terrorism and terrorists in Pakistan. …..

Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters made women wear the veil, cut off the fingers of Iraqis who were caught smoking, and even forced produce sellers to separate cucumbers and tomatoes, as placing the two vegetables next to each other was deemed to represent the mixing of the sexes….

To get “un-technical”, it sounds like one of the worst ways to die…ever. Through recent use of the charming death experience as a radical killing method which screams “I have a bigger agenda here than this person's head”, beheading has become synonymous with extremism, specifically in the Middle Eastern regions….

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, one-upped Hassan, adding that any creature killed by the Americans should be considered a martyr, even dogs. Anti-American sentiment can really warp logic and rhetoric in Pakistan. Hassan also argued that the army troops killed while fighting with the United States against the Taliban should not be considered martyrs because their contributions were anti-Islam.....

He was confirmed in office by the Afghan Taliban chief, Mullah Umar, who is considered “Amir ul Momineen” (caliph) by the TTP rank and file. This took no time, because Fazlullah is the chosen one of al-Qaeda, which was not too pleased by initiatives among some of the TTP factions to engage in peace talks with Islamabad…..

…the failure of governance have already given birth to extremist groups (of the sectarian and Jihadi kind) — of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) varieties — the abuse of these actors by the military and the ISI created an ugly internal situation for Pakistan from the 1990s. Extremism and radicalism were well entrenched at the national and provincial levels well before drone attacks and even 9/11…..

The recent serial bomb attacks in Patna highlight the ideology-driven actions that led to a first of its kind series of blasts in the capital of Bihar, Patna. What led to these 12 men to plant bombs in the heart of the city to cause maximum damage. The main intention was to kill, especially women and children via stampede but fortunately these handful of radicalised Muslim terrorists were unable to connect the wires properly which did not lead to the result they desired.

The worrying question is how long moderate Muslims will keep quiet. These fanatics are not only souring the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims but they are also maligning the name of Islam, which in turn forces more moderate Muslims to fall into these hard-line groups because of the negative response from the members of non-Muslims community….

While many commentators instinctively pointed to an Islamic motif in the attacks, the perpetrators themselves gave very little evidence that Islam was the basis. By mistakenly focusing on religion as a cause, we risk missing the opportunity to focus on real root causes that could help us to reduce such acts of terrorism in the future….

Regardless of the merits of the case one gets a sense from Hefazat-e Islam threatening civil war in which "lakhs of people will be killed" as well as the events surrounding the "sudden" emergence of Hefazat that Political Islam is on the march in Bangladesh. A creeping radicalisation of the society is going on. Unimpeded. No organised effort seems is being made to check its growth in the only way it can be checked – with a counter-narrative of moderate, mainstream Islam.  Bangladesh has the reputation of a moderate Islamic country which said NO to Two-Nation Theory and put its ethnic, linguistic identity above its religious one.  

Spiritual, mystical side of Islam is not much in evidence, however, today, in Bangladesh as also in many other parts of the Muslim world.

One gets to read an occasional plea in the Bangla media: “O God, or O Politicians, don’t let Bangladesh become another Pakistan or Afghanistan.” But neither politicians nor the media are using Islam’s peaceful, moderate, spiritual side to counter the radical, supremacist, totalitarian, misogynist, narrative of political Islam that means to destabilise the region and the wider world. ...

Based on the author's contribution as a panellist in the release of Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Frances Harrison’s Report "Political Islam and the Elections in Bangladesh" released at Senate Hall, University of London, on 30 September, 2013

Since Mulla Fazlullah has been appointed the new Emir of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, there is high probability that Taliban will decline to hold any talks with the Pakistani government. The appointment of Mullah Fazlullah as the Emir of Pakistani Taliban is a clear sign that this terror outfit has keen interest in establishing its own absolute sovereignty going far ahead of its ilk and other terrorist factions and even Taliban leaders who had a sort of soft corner, in some affairs, for Pakistan. The former Taliban leaders had good expectations from Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf and Muslim League, given their soft strategies and mild attitudes towards them. But now after the appointment of Mulla Fazlullah as the Emir, the Pakistani army will get rid of the accusation that they have adopted the policy of discrimination with Taliban.

The point that became explicitly clear now is that Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is no more obliged to go by the directions of Afghan Taliban or Haqqani network. This will be such an absolute sovereignty that will make Taliban more sustainable, powerful and injurious to the state of Pakistan. According to the majority of the Tahreek-e-Taliban’s factions engaging in the regions adjacent to the Pak-Afghan boarders, the situation is now spinning out of Pakistani intelligence’s control. The few Taliban groups that used to stand by the government, sometimes, are either on the verge of extinction or have allied with the more powerful groups. They are in no mood to rest assured of the Pakistani government, while we clearly witness the growing influence of the Tahreek and its scores of foreign allies from Arabs, Uzbek and Chechens who are not at all ready to rely on the government. Rather, they consider the Pakistani army one of the likes of NATO and American forces. ...

The party, while trying to stay in the mainstream, has made many Freudian slips on where it stands on Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Intelligence reports over the years have determined a clear connection between many Al Qaeda terrorists and Jamaat leaders at various tiers. One of its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa leaders, Siraj-ul-Haq—who was a senior minister in the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal government and is the Jamaat’s point man again in the coalition government in the province with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf—was very close to Pakistani Taliban commanders in Bajaur…..

How did he get to the top of the heap that is the Pakistan Taliban? This question is important for two reasons. One, Fazlullah, a Gujjar from Swat, is not a Pakhtun by blood, let alone a highlander Pakhtun from the tribal areas. For him to replace a Mehsud, especially when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) core comprises, broadly, though not exclusively, Mehsud tribe highlanders, is unusual. Two, while he headed his own faction of the Taliban, he was not close to the killed TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud. That would have been Khan Said [not Syed], a.k.a. Sajna, another Mehsud. Sajna could not make it, even though he was a claimant in the TTP game of thrones…….

If the Awami League of Hasina is either pushed out of office by mass protests or in an election, be prepared to see another Pakistan emerge on India's eastern flanks, with hard-core allies of the Muslim Brotherhood turning back the clock on one more Islamic country……

The media went into a frenzy with political and religious parties expressing grief and anger over his death, terming the attack as a “murder”, describing Mehsud as a “martyr” and demanding that the US be held accountable for their action....