Behind Violent Extremism By Dr Raza Khan: New Age Islam's Selection, 07 June 2017
New
Age Islam Edit Bureau
07 June 2017
• Behind Violent Extremism
By Dr Raza Khan
• Fruitless Days
By Rafia Zakaria
• A New Wave Of Terror
By Noman Sattar
• Deciphering Pakistan’s Perception Problem
By Durdana Najam
• Sanity and Suicide
By Aziz Ali Dad
• Terrorists’ Weapons Of Choice
By Zahid Hussain
• ‘Don’t Do Unto Others….’
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan
• Who Will Police FATA?
By Mohammad Ali Babakhel
• Darkening Clouds ?
By Tariq Khalil
• Britain’s Vote
By Mahir Ali
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Behind Violent Extremism
By Dr Raza Khan
June 6, 2017
While Arab-Muslim countries have started creating an anti-terror military alliance, terrorist and militant attacks continue to inflict heavy losses on several Muslim countries, forcing the need of a deeper analysis of the insecurity in the Muslim world. The underlying reason for diffusion and proliferation of violent extremism and militant groups has been weak and unpopular regimes in many Muslim countries. This is not merely an opinion but the key findings of several US policy think tanks. These findings, having extensive empirical evidence, must make the core of the analytical framework to explain the conflicts and crisis that have had cropped up due to the activities of extremist and terrorist groups in various Muslim countries.
Militant and terrorist groups like the Taliban, Islamic State (IS), al Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabab, Jabhat al-Nusra and numerous others, excluding Hamas, Hezbollah and Muslim Brotherhood, have emerged and strengthened due to the weak and unpopular regimes in the respective Muslim countries and regions. Thus, expansion, control and influence of the extremist groups using the name of Islam in Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands, the Sahel, the Maghreb, Nigeria, Somalia and in the Arabian Peninsula, have much to do with weaknesses of states and illegitimacy of regimes in these regions. However, Muslim countries and their intelligentsia generally have been shying from having a realistic assessment of the situation and issues of extremism and terrorism in the Muslim world. For obvious reasons, Muslim rulers won’t like to have a realistic assessment of the conflict and crisis because this would raise serious questions on their regimes. The problem with Muslim opinion leaders is chronic and they look at the issue in terms of in-out group context blaming non-Muslim, specifically the West, for the problems that have befallen Muslim states. While the West cannot be absolved of its contributing role in supporting the weak and unpopular regimes in the Muslim countries for their own very strategic and economic reasons, putting the entire blame on them is simply myopic and beyond facts.
After identifying that the weak and popular regimes in most of the Muslim countries have been responsible for the crisis and conflict unleashed by violent extremism and terrorism, it is also important to understand how causal relationship has worked. Feeble, illegitimate and authoritarian regimes largely inadvertently but at times intentionally created room for terrorists to capitalise on popular resentment. In repressive regimes, extremists make common cause with local insurgents, the dissatisfied and criminal networks, which operate in poorly governed territory.
For instance, it was the unpopular and authoritarian regimes of Iraq and Syria and their repressive policies that created the contingent conditions for the rise of the IS there. In Nigeria, the extensive and profound corruption by successive regimes left the states and its apparatus extremely weak and unpopular, fuelling popular resentment. Out of this chaos emerged groups like Boko Haram, which by staging mass massacres and loathsome kidnapping of hundreds of young girls, terrorised the whole region.
The Afghan Taliban rose in 1994 in the conditions of statelessness in Afghanistan. Taliban in Pakistan first emerged in Fata, which have been mostly an ungoverned or improperly-governed region. The resultant weakness of administration, state writ and unpopularity of the government allowed the Taliban to exploit the grievances of the people and their sentimental attachment to the religion.
In East Africa, members of al Qaeda’s network fused with militants from the Council of Islamic Courts to create al Shabaab. In Libya, Ansar al Sharia exploited post-Qaddafi factional violence to cement itself in the Libyan landscape.
As weak, illegitimate and unpopular regimes across Muslim countries have allowed radical and terrorist groups to emerge and thrive, we need a strategic approach to counter extremism and terrorism. Unfortunately, many Muslim regimes are themselves part of the problem, which is evident from their unelected, authoritarian, elitist and thus, unpopular nature and orientation. So these regimes cannot be expected to be part of the solution. The only hope is that the Muslim intelligentsia will lead the way forward.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1428089/behind-violent-extremism/
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Fruitless Days
By Rafia Zakaria
June 7th, 2017
THE people of Pakistan have risen. Revolution is in the air and oppression does not stand a chance. Before long, the cruel fruit vendors of the country will be thrown out of power and a new, justice-oriented regime will be installed in their place. Once this is done, the narrative of fruit selling and fruit consuming will be changed forever. It will be a historic moment.
The three-day fruit boycott that began, like all great things these days, on social media and spread via WhatsApp has only just concluded. The aim of its organisers as per the prescriptive posts they splashed on the screens of fasting Pakistanis was to force down fruit prices during the month of Ramazan.
A few days without fruit, the opening of the day’s fast with a date (ironically not considered a fruit for the purpose of the boycott) and the sating of one’s appetite with Saalan (curry) instead of fruit, posters prescribed, would teach those who had so carelessly pushed a price hike on the pocket books of poor consumers, a much-needed lesson.
Fruit, a perishable good, would begin to rot in the hot and non-refrigerated warehouses where it is stored. The threat of rotting fruit and the lost revenue that it represents would push fruit wholesalers to slash prices, the price cut reflected in the prices charged by vendors, the difference to be pocketed by the consumer.
When some folks see higher prices in Ramazan they feel morally entitled to punish those engaged in opportunism.
The intention behind the boycott was possibly a good one. In the larger cities of Pakistan, consumers can be unaware of the supply and demand dynamics that determine the prices of the things they buy. In the case of fruit, a number of consumers noted that the prices of various fruit had been increased by huge percentages as sellers see an increased demand during the month of fasting. The consequences? Increasingly high prices charged for even workaday fruit like bananas and apples.
In this age of social media, they did what all angry people do — they tried to harness the power of collective organisation (rendered ever easier by the networked world of Twitter followers and Facebook friends) to extract revenge.
Their strategy seems to have worked, based at least on the hue and cry regarding the fruit boycott raised on social media itself. Even on the very first day, newspapers reported that the markets in cities like Lahore and Peshawar and Karachi saw little activity on the first day of the boycott.
As for the prices themselves, there seemed to be mixed evidence. One newspaper report said that some people continued to shop for fruit because of various family occasions. Other sellers of seasonal fruits like mangoes did report that they were slowly bringing prices down to half of what they were charging after seeing few customers. In other cases, the fruit vendors told newspaper reporters that they too feel bad charging high prices but are hemmed in by what they themselves have to pay to wholesalers and suppliers.
This last point regarding the supply chain of fresh fruit has been brought up by many people opposing the fruit boycott. These dissenters, who have advertised their displeasure on (where else but) social media, raise some valid points. They draw attention to the day-to-day existence eked out by most fruit sellers who rely on what they sell every day to eat on any day. It is the feudal system, these opponents of the boycott argue, that is responsible for fruit prices and production in the country and it is the real culprit here. Those who can take their grievances to social media, they further argue, are already in a far more privileged position than those who sell fruit.
Instead of ‘teaching a lesson’ to those so significantly worse off than themselves, those so incensed at having to pay more for fruit, these irked organisers and supporters of the fruit boycott should concern themselves with the systems of oppression that enrich only a certain class and mete out injustices to everyone else down the line.
These objections and critiques of the fruit boycott are important but they are also, to some extent, a misunderstanding of the sentiment behind the boycott. This sentiment has to do with the conflicting messages that are produced and consumed in Pakistan during the month of Ramazan. To many, particularly those who are well off or at least a bit better off than fruit sellers and other street vendors, the month represents a time of greater emphasis on moral behaviour, a suspension of business as usual and sinning as usual.
When these folks see prices being increased and opportunistic sale strategies in operation during the month of Ramazan they feel morally entitled to punish those who have engaged in a kind of opportunism. If they are themselves refraining, restricting and disciplining themselves, then so must everyone else, including fruit sellers.
Applied to the fruit boycott, this logic justifies a price being imposed on those who know that more bananas are eaten during Ramazan and who therefore charge more for them. It is a sad situation, for the simple reason that opportunistic price hikes are hardly a monopoly of those who sell fruit. Others engage in the same behaviour in the same holy month, but are less easily punished.
No one is boycotting the expensive boutiques that will soon be peddling their overpriced Eid items, or any others who similarly take advantage of the upcoming demand for new clothes and shoes that will send shoppers to the markets. There will likely be no boycotts for them. Like so much else in Pakistan then, the fruit boycott is simply one more iteration of punishment inflicted on those who can be punished rather than those who should be punished, a question not of what is just but simply of what is possible.
Source: dawn.com/news/1337922/fruitless-days
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A New Wave Of Terror
By Noman Sattar
June 7, 2017
The terrorist wave of the 21st century, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks has, so to say, ‘institutionalised’ the phenomenon of terrorism. Post-9/11, this ‘new terrorism’ has engulfed many countries.
The current wave of terrorism has focused on Western Europe. The last few years have seen deadly attacks in France, Belgium, Germany – the heart of western Europe, and England; England has seen a prolonged wave of terrorism in the last century. In the current wave, one could start with the July 7, 2005 London Underground attacks, killing 38. These attacks shook the island nation. This was the beginning. With a huge Muslim immigrant population, ripe to be radicalised for different reasons, one could assume local recruitment and sleeper cell activity.
Then came March 2017, and the Westminster Bridge attacks broke the lull. The incident was rather bizarre, carried out by an individual with the location also reflecting a new strategy. Isis called the attacker (Masood) a ‘soldier of the Islamic State.’ This attack brought terrorism to the forefront of national discourse in England. And there was more to come.
On May 23 in Manchester a suicide bombing at a concert claimed the lives of 22 people. This attack followed the pattern of the terrorist attacks in France. Isis claimed responsibility but this attack too was apparently carried out by an individual from an immigrant Libyan family.
And now on June 3 the London Bridge and Borough Market attacks followed the pattern of the Westminster Bridge attack – running a vehicle over pedestrians and stabbing but this time there were three assailants. The message of PM Theresa May was grim, “Our country fell victim to a brutal terrorist attack, once again.” This attack came as the British public prepared to go to the polls, and as Britain was hosting the Champions Trophy.
The above series of attacks was a combination of ‘new and old’ tactics. The locations were public spaces. And carried out by a single person, with a support network behind him. There needs to be more investigation behind the Isis claim of responsibility. But it is clear that for now Europe and Britain are on the terrorists’ target list.
Incidentally, the recent attacks follow the Islamic-US Summit hosted by Saudi Arabia, in which US President Trump highlighted the issue of terrorism and extremism in the Muslim world, and called upon America’s Muslim allies to address the issue seriously. The attacks carry a reminder for Western allies to be more serious and cognizant of the terrorist threat.
On a disturbing note, this gives President Trump reason to reassert his immigration restriction policy. In fact, the US Justice Department has asked American courts to lift the ban on restricting immigration from select Muslim countries. Trump now might feel he has a convincing case.
The recent attacks, including those in France and Germany, are reminders that the focus of the ‘war on terror’ has somewhat shifted to the West, to major cities where the terrorists can send a message rather easily. Local recruits, with somewhat tenuous links to terrorist apparatuses, Isis or others, are easy facilitators in the name of faith or for money. Just like Afghanistan and Iraq in the past, the Syrian conflict is a rallying call.
On the other hand, the agenda of terrorist is clear. There is a caveat: they lost Afghanistan and Iraq to Western powers and Syria is not to go the same way. The West’s ambivalence toward Assad and Trump’s cautious approach toward the whole issue is helping Isis getting its way in Syria.
Terrorist attacks, big and small, are symbolic messages and a reminder of the presence and power of new-wave terrorists. As a new wave, it’s a legacy of the post-9/11 (post-American) world. Western countries and systems have yet to devise a means to address the threat of ‘home-grown’ terrorism. One assumes there is more surveillance on the streets and at public places, but there is a need for more among the expatriate community, whether in Brussels or Nice or Manchester.
For now, the new wave of terror has found a niche around Western cities. This calls for a concerted effort to fight terror in its varied forms through a mix of pre-emption and containment.
Source: thenews.com.pk/print/208980-A-new-wave-of-terror
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Deciphering Pakistan’s Perception Problem
By Durdana Najam
07-Jun-17
One of my cousins who lives in the US once asked me if anything good ever happens in Pakistan? He was brought up in the US and has visited Pakistan only once. Though he has no interest in Pakistani politics, but he has been exposed to Pakistani news channels watched by his parents to keep a link with their country. Once, he told me that after seeing Pakistani TV channels, he would never want to settle in Pakistan.
A few days back, I asked one of my batch mates from a course we took together about his job in the US embassy. He said his biggest challenge was to counter negative perception about Pakistan. I got a similar response from an Army officer deputed in Afghanistan. He told me that from the government to an ordinary person on the street, Afghans consider Pakistan to be the perpetrator of chaos and anarchy in their country. The recent attacks, claiming more than 90 lives, were attributed to the Haqqani Network. For quite some time, it has become a pattern that both Pakistan and Afghanistan blame each other for terror-related activities in their countries. This is a self-defeating mechanism. Since playing blame game without finding a solution to the problem is increasing acrimony between the two countries.
In recent years there has been a significant reduction in terror activities in Pakistan. Some economic indicators have also been encouraging. For the first time in ten years, Pakistan’s GDP has risen to 5.2 per cent. All these developments should have rehabilitated Pakistan’s image abroad, but that is not the case. The efforts to defeat terrorism at home and making Pakistan safe for investment has not won us many laurels. The negative perception persists. The US Congress keeps pointing the finger at Pakistan for watering the seeds of terrorism in the region. Surprisingly, whenever Pakistan is accused of providing a haven to the Haqqani network, Afghanistan rocks with blasts and bombshells. Not that there is any nexus, but the recent attack serves as a reminder that unrest in Afghanistan has only increased over the years, and that Pakistan, according to the Afghan government and intelligence agencies, is contributing to increasing it further. Let us return to Pakistan’s perception problem and try and understand what is eating the nation from inside.
During the ‘60s, Pakistan’s development model was praised the world over. We often remember how the UAE sought the Pakistan International Airlines’ assistance in developing the Emirates Airlines. We also reminisce about Pakistan lending funds to Germany to help it rise from the World War II debris. However, the pins that had held the country’s institutions together started falling apart by late 70s as we joined the Soviet-Afghan war theatre, and altered our national narrative.
A new layer of the upper-middle class was allowed to emerge on the back of oil money from the Gulf States. The state took a lenient view of the narcotics smuggled into or taken out of Pakistan. Soon, Pakistan was a place where people were more interested in individual advancement. Groups became powerful turning into mafias. New political parties were birthed from the womb of agencies to screw the PPP primarily. As far as the Pakistan Muslim League was concerned it had no direction of it own. Its masters changed hands as often as there were dictators on the helm.
The last four decades have been a fight for the survival of democracy with an intervening 10-years span of General Musharraf’s regime. After the signing of Charter of Democracy between the PPP and PML-N, the only sense that has prevailed among the political leadership is to never raise their division to a level where a third force can make an easy incursion.
There has been a reduction in terrorist activities. Some economic indicators have also been encouraging. These developments should have rehabilitated Pakistan’s image abroad, but that has not been the case
Amid this entire debacle some important developments did take place, such as the restoration of the judiciary after its sacking by Musharraf in 2007 and the passage of the 18th Amendment that realigned the Constitution to salvage it from dictatorial era amendments. These developments, however, remained superficial; their benefits never trickled down. In the case of the judiciary, lower courts still await reforms. Instead of serving to strengthen the social sector devolved to the provinces, the 18th Amendment has been used as an alibi to turn provinces into independent states with resistance to federal government’s intervention. This has raised new governance issues especially in Sindh.
Internally, the country has been consumed by governments that worked only on consolidating their power and enriching themselves. When political parties are mentioned, it is rarely their work that is discussed. Instead, it is usually the influence of their leaders that is talked about. Each party has become so powerful on the back of their business stakes that the Supreme Court judges, in the recent judgment in the Panama Papers case, could not help but mention the word Mafia.
Corruption is perhaps the main phenomenon contributing to the negative perception of Pakistan abroad.
The country has been looted so thoroughly that not a single institution seems to be working professionally. State-owned enterprises have been turned into leeches sucking the blood of the Exchequer, or the taxpayers to be precise. The trust deficit among institutions has become so wide that each institution sees the other as an enemy in disguise that should be sorted out. Judiciary is being abused in public. The Army is thrown tantrums at — remember Dawn Leaks. There is no foreign minister to represent Pakistan’s case abroad. According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2016-17, the literacy rate in Pakistan has gone down by two percent. Pakistan’s new poverty index reveals that four out of 10 people live in multidimensional poverty.
This situation would take time to change, and not until the leadership takes difficult decisions. In the meantime, however, media could play its part by stop working on others’ agendas and by start looking at the authorities in the eye.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/07-Jun-17/deciphering-pakistans-perception-problem
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Sanity and Suicide
By Aziz Ali Dad
June 7, 2017
The society of Gilgit-Baltistan is on the cusp of change. It is under the influence of various forces, which are both internal and external, and a complex interplay of continuity and change. The result is the formation of new ways of seeing things, lifestyle and changes in values and the emergence of new notions of the self, sense and sensibilities.
In this process, the youth of Gilgit have become both beneficiaries and victims of modernity. One of the benefits of change is that some regions of Gilgit have achieved a phenomenal increase in literacy. However, the seamy side of change tends to appear if we examine the increasing trend of suicide in various parts of the region.
During May 2017, 10 cases of suicides in the Ghizer district were recorded by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan Chapter. In all these cases, the victims were young. There is a general perception that the suicide rate is high in Ghizer Valley while the rest of the region is immune to it. Various cases of suicide have surfaced in all areas of the Gilgit-Baltistan. However, a majority of these cases are not reported. The complete blackout of reports related to suicide and honour killing clearly shows that some parts of Gilgit-Baltistan are still in the grips of a tribal and patriarchal ethos where anything related to women is brushed under the carpet to keep the veneer of men’s honour intact from the onslaught of change brought about by modernisation.
Despite the stranglehold of the patriarchal mind on every sphere of life, suicide cases are a sign of the failure of cultural, religious, social and institutional arrangements in Gilgit. To probe the underlying causes of suicide, it is indispensable to take stock of the situation by situating the individual within the society of Gilgit and identify the factors that form his or her existential reality. It is this life world that begets a mind that decides whether to live or commit suicide.
An important factor in Gilgit is the rapid transformation in every sphere of life.
Unlike the previous generation, the new generation of Gilgit is continuously exposed to novel situations and experiences because of social transformation. Therefore, the youth seek to explore other dimensions of life for self-actualisation. However, the traditional mindset and leadership are still stuck in the traditional worldview. They insist on sticking to the values, institutional structures and ideals that do not understand the emerging reality in the communication age. In other words, the aspirations and ideals of youth exceed the available capacities of social and religious institutions and values. As a result, a new sense of alienation has settled into the hearts and minds of the youth.
When a person feels absolute alienation from their family, religion, social institutions and values, he or she experiences crisis of meaning and metaphysical pathos. As a result, he or she opts for suicide. So, the act of suicide can be seen as an assertion of one’s identity against the collective ethos of society.
Unfortunately, the remedies suggested to tackle the increasing cases of suicide in Gilgit are a nonstarter. This is because the very causes are presented as a panacea for the young mind that suffers from it and wants to transcend the suffocating culture and society. For example, a section of society thinks that suicide cases are occurring because of the weaning away of the youth from religion. Proponents of this arguments claim that religion provides social cohesion whereby the individual relates to the collective identity and achieves what is called existential security of the self. This argument has affinity with the theory propounded by Emile Durkheim in his landmark book ‘Suicide’ where he propounds the view that suicide is prevalent among groups with weak forms of social control and cohesion.
However, the reality is that suicide in Gilgit is the result of a closely-knit society where the youth feels suffocated. If individuals aspire to transcend kinship-based solidarities or the prevalent ethos and ideals, they invite invisible nooses around their necks to strangle themselves. Interestingly, Durkheim finds fewer incidents of suicide among women. On the contrary, the suicide rate among women is high in parts of Gilgit.
One of the major challenges during the period of rapid transition is the disappearance of old ideals and the absence of new ideals in society of Gilgit. That is why society and its members operate within an ideological vacuum. Such a society is bound to feel the existential hole in its core and a lose sense of direction as it does not have an idea of going forward, backward, upward and downward.
With the growing exposure to global ideas, lifestyle and ideals, the youth of Gilgit begin to aspire to a lifestyle which their society does not provide spaces and opportunities for. Instead of heeding to the aspiration of the youth, the ideological guardians of society not only repress dreams but also stifle any form of transcendence to fit them in received ideals and realities. Consequently, the possibilities of diverse dimensions are reduced to create a one-dimensional self. R D Laing, in his book ‘The Divided Self’, writes: “Among one-dimensional men, it is not surprising that someone with an insistent experience of other dimensions, that he cannot entirely deny or forget, will run the risk either of being destroyed by the others, or of betraying what he knows”.
Unfortunately, the intelligentsia of Gilgit-Baltistan conjures up the same ideals of society, which are meant to create a one-dimensional self. This is done through an array of structures, which are institutional, religious and cultural. Amid this arrangement, the strangulated self finds no space and new groups with whom an individual can find existential affinity. In the end, the individual takes refuge in death by committing suicide.
Jan Ali, a populist Shina poet, pithily sums up the suffocating environment of Gilgit and its role in generating a death wish in the individual in the couplet when he exclaims” “Aday Bay Bayokijo Meerok Ga Mishti, Gileet Ga Phat Kon Nayok Gi Mishti (Instead of leading such life, it is better to either commit suicide, or vanish from Gilgit)”
The aspirations and dreams of the youth in Gilgit are either destroyed by the existing order of things, or deviated from to conform to the uni-dimensional idea of the self dictated by society. Hence, we witness the suppression of the individual by society to keep the sanity of the collective whole intact. It is to members of such society that Carl Jung said: “Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you”. Gilgit’s society is in denial of the insanity of its social, cultural, religious and institutional structures. Instead of curing its version of collective sanity, society blames the individual agency of insanity for suicide.
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the self of the youth in Gilgit is walking on a tight rope over the abyss. It is a dangerous walk as looking backward may distract the person from what is ahead and consign him or her to the pits of abyss. In addition, people cannot make an abode of the self in a precious place. All they need is to leave the traditions behind and cross over the present for the sake of their dreams and aspirations.
Only by getting rid of approaches that either see things in terms of pre-modern social arrangements or a reengagement with lost certainties of culture and religion and rejecting the status quo, can we create a new self in Gilgit. This will open the doors to new dreams and ecstasies for the self to celebrate. It will help the individual get rid of the normalcy imposed by society and jettison the false realities inculcated in the individual by culture, society, state and religion.
R D Laing’s observation is quite relevant to Gilgit, especially when he wrote: “Thus I would wish to emphasize that our ‘normal’ ‘adjusted’ state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities, that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities”.
Source: thenews.com.pk/print/208975-Sanity-and-suicide
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Terrorists’ Weapons of Choice
By Zahid Hussain
June 7th, 2017
FROM human bombs to lorries mowing down pedestrians on a crowded street to stabbing bystanders — the militant Islamic State (IS) group is using these weapons of choice as it intensifies its terrorist attacks in Europe. In less than three months, Britain alone has experienced three such assaults claiming dozens of lives. This new method of inflicting terror has further complicated the challenge for the security agencies in the West.
Days after the deadly explosion at an arena in Manchester, where American pop singer Ariana Grande had been performing, three attackers rammed their van into a weekend crowd at London Bridge and then knifed multiple people. The two incidents left dozens of people dead and wounded. The perpetrators were all home-grown radicals with their families originating from different Muslim states. This also raises the question about the trajectory of radicalisation of those murderers. None of them seems to have been trained in terrorist camps abroad.
Not surprisingly, all three attacks were claimed by the IS, though there is no clarity over how they were linked to the terrorist group. Indeed, they reflected a copycat trend influenced by strong IS propaganda. Interestingly, the terrorists struck following the appearance of an IS poster on its website advocating the escalation of its terror offensive in Europe in the month of Ramazan. The poster showed a white van as the weapon of choice. The latest surge in terror strikes has come when the IS is being driven out of territories under its control in Iraq and Syria.
But this was not the first time that the terrorists used a speeding van to kill pedestrians. The London Bridge attack echoed earlier carnages perpetrated by speeding vehicles last year in Nice where crowds were celebrating Bastille Day and at a Christmas market in Berlin. There was a similar attack on Westminster bridge in March this year when a middle-aged man drove his car through the crowd, and then attacked a police officer with a dagger.
The terrorist group’s new weapon requires minimum resources or expertise.
This new weapon of choice of the IS requires minimum resources or expertise; at the same time, it carries with it an element of shock and surprise similar to or even greater than that of suicide bombing. What’s most worrisome for the Western security agencies is that it takes one or just a few radicalised men to plot such an assault with devastating effect as was witnessed in last week’s London Bridge incident. It is almost impossible for the security agencies to detect the attacker until he or she has struck.
Although some of the recent attackers may have come under the radar of the British security services, it is hard to determine what was going on in their minds. It is certainly a nightmarish scenario for Britain where more than 3,000 people are under surveillance for holding suspected radicalised views. In the case of the Manchester attack, there is evidence of the bomber having had direct contact with a militant organisation. Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old man whose family hails from Libya, came into contact with the group during a visit to his homeland.
However, there is no evidence yet of the London Bridge attackers having any kind of organisational affiliation with the global terrorist network operating in the Middle East, although at least one of them, Khurram Butt, was reported for his radical Islamic views. A football fan with two small children, Butt’s journey to becoming a mass murderer remains a subject of investigation.
Son of parents from Jhelum, Butt was born in Pakistan but brought up in Britain. He was described by his neighbours in east London as a keen supporter of the Arsenal football club whose shirt he wore during the attack. Last month, he was spotted urging people not to participate in the general elections. But no one suspected him of planning to commit mass murder. The other attacker, a Moroccan, did not seem to have any history of association with radical activity.
It is suspected that they came under the influence of the IS through the internet that has become the most powerful tool of recruitment for the global jihadist group. The poster on the IS website may have motivated an already radicalised mind to act.
But there is more than just internet propaganda that explains the trajectory of radicalisation of Muslim youth in Britain and other European countries that have been affected by the latest wave of IS terror. Indeed, the internet plays an important role in terms of disseminating information and building organisation brands such as the IS, but in some cases, young Muslims are lured by real-world recruiters to take up jihadist activities.
Perhaps the most serious terror threat stems from the returning jihadists to Europe. Over the past five years, up to 3,000 young Muslim recruits had gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for the IS. Many of them are returning home after the group is being driven out from large parts of the territory it controlled. This presents a serious threat to European countries including Britain. Despite their strong intelligence network, it is hard for these countries to keep a check on each returnee and suspected radicalised Muslim to curb their capacity to influence others to join in jihadist activities.
This cancer of IS terror in the words of Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent, “has metastasised across the Middle East and North Africa and beyond, carried by even more virulent vectors”. In his latest book Anatomy of Terror, the former FBI special agent compares the IS to Hydra from Greek mythology: cut off one head and two more quickly sprout.
It is evident that the military defeat of the IS in Iraq and Syria will not bring an end to global terrorism. In fact, there is a danger of intensified jihadist-inspired attacks in different parts of the world with the continuing civil war in the Middle East taking a huge human toll. The short-sighted policies pursued by Western countries fuelling Islamophobia are not likely to help contain the menace of terrorism.
Source: dawn.com/news/1337919/terrorists-weapons-of-choice
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‘Don’t Do Unto Others….’
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan
07-Jun-17
I consider myself as most fortunate for having spent quality hours with martyred Benazir Bhutto for many years, nay many decades. Despite being an above average educated person, having met top world leaders and travelled far and wide — it was a different thing to be with Bibi. Each time we had a sitting and discussed some important issue-I used to get up profoundly educated.
On many occasions we had academic arguments and like a school teacher she tried to convince me especially in matters related to religion. Though we used to be at variance, we had complete agreement that the best in every religion was to be a good human being.
Once after debating about our own Islam — I posed a question to her if God was to give one commandment to all the religions what that would have been. She answered without a pause — “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want others do unto you.”
These words of sublime wisdom often echo back to me in most difficult times and remind me of Bibi. The other day when Bilawal Bhutto Zardari mentioned about the hullabaloo being made by the elder male scion of the Sharif family of his “ordeal” at the hands of interrogators following simple interrogation of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) made me recall Bibi. One should always remember the golden words — that our deeds are like boomerangs. Many wiser ones call it divine or poetic justice.
The Sharifs must remember those days when they used the likes of Saifur Rehman to settle scores with their opponents
Sharifs and the like who are now feeling the heat themselves must remember the hunting animals like Saifur Rehman they used to break loose on their opponents. To think of the third degree methods employed on political adversaries still raise one’s hair at their ends.
They don’t realise Nature’s mechanism of justice. It may take time to come back to you but it ultimately does. Is it not an irony that the father is all powerful prime minister and yet his sons are being grilled like common thieves.
This is the learning time. There could be worse circumstances. Sharifs got away easy at the hands of General Pervez Musharraf. At no stage they got the treatment that their hatchet men like Saifur Rehmans and Rana Maqbools gave to their political opponents.
Besides, long eleven years in prison Asif Ali Zardari was given worst possible treatment in jail to the extent of being almost killed. Twice elected prime minister Benazir Bhutto used to fly from one place to another separated from her children none above ten, as she had to attend court hearings in cases fabricated against her and Asif by those who any time should be serving life term for committing all sorts of crimes under the sun.
Indeed, one would but agree with Bilawal that the Prime Minister should not be using his children for remaining in power. Anyone with iota of self-respect would have resigned to avoid the sort of incriminating, brazenly ridiculing and below the belt hits that one is being subjected to not only by his political opponents but public at large. “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should not have used his children as shelter to save his rule. Instead he must protect his children in testing times.” — Surely Bilawal, that’s what the parents are for.
Had there been any other person- like some other prime ministers that had been named in the Panama leak — he should have quit before the matter went through damning legal proceedings, his being branded as God Father or Pablo Escobar and his government a Sicilian mafia.
Although Imran Khan would like him and his family to really go through hell, he is lucky to have political adversaries like Bilawal who don’t want that there should be any injustice with him or his children as fair trial is the right of everyone alongside accountability. And he remembered painfully: “Benazir Bhutto Shaheed, while holding finger of his son, used to meet her husband in the Central Jail Karachi in excruciating weather while she was made to wait outside the prison.” I remember those 40C plus hot days in Landhi jail too.
Though it is ironic and spine chilling both that they are going through an unpleasant ordeal while being in power and yet being tried and facing an infamy of being treated as criminals that even entire perfume of their friendly Saudi Arabia would not be able to wash. Is it not divine justice that Hussain Sharif — son of the most powerful prime minister — sits alone in a large room with one chair, waiting as he lamentfully complains— for hours — to be questioned by interrogators who according to him, are not very friendly to him.
Once again the issue that has been raised to seek public sympathy is who leaked the picture of Hussain Sharif sitting remosely alone in the big interrogation room? It is hardly convincing to say that it was leaked from the JIT side. To understand the whole mystery of leaks, one must remember the history, how stories have been planted to character assassinate victims of this government. Recent cases are that of Dawn leaks, currently JIT leak and previously of MQM’s Saulat Raza. All these leaks were managed by those in power now to ease the pressure.
Conclusively, one must remember that the Lord above can give ironic twist to fate related to those who sometimes get to feel that there is no power on earth other than them. I remember an all powerful General Ziu al Haq responding to a question to him in June 1988, that he would not give up his uniform. And on 17th August his plane had a divine fall from the skies. Bhutto’s wife and children were denied by Zia to see his face- I wonder what it was that there was no face left of Zia that could be seen by his wife and children. Moral of the story is: one should always dread divine retribution!
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/07-Jun-17/dont-do-unto-others
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Who Will Police FATA?
By Mohammad Ali Babakhel
07-Jun-17
Since USSR’s invasion in Afghanistan security situation in FATA rapidly deteriorated however post 9/11 scenario fully exposed the weaknesses of colonial law enforcement apparatus. The colonial Criminal Justice System (CJS) meant for FATA was primarily tailored to serve the strategic interests of the imperialists’ hence public safety and public interests were compromised. After independence FATA served as a buffer between Pakistan and Afghanistan primarily governed by Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR).
Since 1976 to reform FATA 15 commissions and committees have been constituted. Appointment of FATA reforms committee in 2016 once again rejuvenated the hopes. The recommendations of committee were recently reviewed and approved by the cabinet. The recommendations of the committee are in fact practical manifestation of point 12 of National Action Plan (NAP).
From 1947 to 1979 people of FATA were primarily subservient to colonial aspirations and customary practices (Riwaj) however in post 1979 scenario FATA emerged as a magnetic pole for the foreign extremists who brought their own recipe of CJS thus apart from colonial law and customary practices they also had to confront with extremism. After the failure of three peace accords made in-between 2004-06 the state was left with only option to employ hard approach consequently militants were either killed or flushed out by military operations. Though deliberations on 18th amendment raised expectations regarding abolishment of FCR and introduction of FATA reforms but the only outcome was renaming of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Indisputably success of reforms will primarily be dependent on two important factors. One: drafting and execution of a well thought out transition programme. Secondly, how to integrate the existing law enforcement apparatus? Such initiative requires legislative, administrative, capacity building and operational interventions.
FATA reforms and its merger in KP gave birth to number of questions needs to be addressed. Since KP Police is a more trained force but on the contrary levies are less trained tribal forces so how to bring levies at par with police? In first phase how to integrate Khasadar force and Levies and in second phase how to transform these amalgamated forces as a modern police service? Apart from training, recruitment criteria and basic required standards are also different so how to bring those at par? Since on-going militancy badly affected the educational development in FATA therefore for recruitment what concessions may be granted? Reporting of crime in FATA is not a norm therefore the reformers are to formulate a strategy how to encourage crime reporting and improve the response system? Since population density in FATA is very low therefore police response may be much delayed. If police are entrusted with maintenance of law and order function but response is delayed that will obviously compromise police image and public trust. To improve response Police are not only to be trained but also equipped with quick mobility and latest communication facilities. FATA is a low crime incidence area but tribal feuds usually create law and order situations. Therefore FATA carries the potential where a formal Law enforcement mechanism may get public appreciation however public trust in informal traditional conflict resolution warrants its legal codification.
Success primarily requires a well thought out ‘doable transition plan’. The plan shall incorporate modalities regarding recruitment and training of man power. Issues related to assets and jurisdictions also require systematic approach. In recent past when Levies were merged in Balochistan Police such issues were not properly worked out eventually resulted into reversal. From conversion and reversal of ‘B’ into ‘A’ area in Balochistan we learned that both decisions were hasty where consultative process with community remained a missing link and finally the proponents of status quo prevailed.
The success of FATA reforms will depend on two factors. Firstly, that a well thought-out transition programme is drafted and executed. Secondly, integration of all existing law enforcement apparatuses
Similarly on the eve of promulgation of Local Government Ordinance 2001 Malakand agency was notified a district where 24 departments were devolved but without a police department. It seems strange that how a district government without an efficient and modern law enforcement apparatus may maintain law and order and effectively function?
Stretched over 6,620 Sq Km area South Waziristan is the largest agency and extended over 1,290 Sq Km area Bajaur is the smallest agency. In KP with 14,850Sq km area Chitralis area wise the biggest district and extended over only 497Sqkm area Tor Ghar is the smallest district. Population-wise Bajaur is the most populated agency. With 2,019,118 souls Peshawar is biggest district however with only 185,000 population from demographic perspective Tor Ghar is the smallest district of KP. In KP population density is 238 and in FATA its 117 per Sq Km. Therefore, another issue is how to rationalise the size of a police district in FATA. Keeping in view such contrast it is imperative to think how to rationalize the administrative size of each agency.
Since FATA faced major burnt of on-going war against terror consequently its infrastructure has been badly damaged. Decision regarding locations of Police stations requires special attention of the planners. As no one knows the quantum of actual incidences of crime hence the only left criteria for the establishment of a police station is either on the basis of concentration of people in an area or public convenience.
Since reforms package proposed Jurisdiction of Supreme court and high court therefore in the absence of a modern police without professional investigation skills it may be a weak jurisdiction.
In certain parts of Balochistan and KP duality of legal system and law enforcement apparatus badly affected the peace indexation. Dual command structure of Levies and Police in Balochistan hindered the smooth functioning of criminal justice system therefore repetition of such mistake may further erode the writ of state in FATA.
Though Report of the Committee on FATA Reforms 2016 recommended additional 20,000 posts in the Levies force but report seems silent on their training and capacity building. Without establishment of a training facility for Levies mere increase in manpower may not yield the desired dividends.
Before implementation of reforms it is imperative to redefine the roles and responsibilities of Khasadars force, Levies, Frontier Constabulary and other forces.
From Operation Al-Mizan to Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad military carried out number of successful operations but now it is imperative upon the civilian administration to come up with a viable transition plan.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/07-Jun-17/who-will-police-fata
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Darkening Clouds ?
By Tariq Khalil
June 6th, 2017
POST Riyadh the world seems to be moving in a new era of confrontation. The collection of monarchs, autocrats Princess, Ministers and collection western experts on the occasion called 50 Muslim countries summit is greatest irony of this century. Trump now is clear more cunning then perceived. His campaign claims to rein in Islamic terrorists is now understandably taking shape. To eliminate Muslims externally is impossible. The answer is simple weaken them internally. Make them fight and destroy them militarily and financially. Earlier considerable damage has been done in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Marrakesh, Yemen Palestine and not the least Afghanistan. Efforts were made even in Pakistan where TTP were the foot soldiers of RAW and came as close 90 km from Islamabad. It is now clear IS is nothing but intelligence Arm of Israel.
The have been funded and armed by CIA and Israel. But now they are enemies. It is no surprise they never attacked Israel. The Trumps visit to Saudi Arabia thus exposed the contours of Trump led in folding of US policy against Muslim world. It the classic move that use Muslim against Muslim and we are going to witness another catastrophe in Muslim world. The beginning of a new war in Middle East and Iran. Middle East itself will fall victim to inter Arab differences on such a policy. The question is why 50 autocratic rulers kings and Prime ministers were there, they went to pay homepage to a person who openly ridiculed them yet no one ruler had a courage to rise and correct him. Rather they were vying even for a hand shake. 110 billion of arms orders against whom – Muslims.
Ironic- Madam May is in Saudi Arabia to cut deal , again weapon sale. Trumps sympathy for India and his remarks India suffering under exported terrorism are very meaningful and rings danger bells for Pakistan. He did not mention how much Pakistan suffered is a huge diplomatic failure on the part of Pakistan. Wave of fresh terrorism in Afghanistan is not owned by Talban and Daesh. Then who is responsible. Ashraf Ghani and India are quick to blame Pakistan. Afghanistan has three power centres. Ashraf Ghani as president, Abdullah and Americans. Where as invested a lot in Ashraf Ghani. They would not like his government fall apart. The debris of the mess is being planned to thrown on Pakistan. Thus be ready for a fresh wave of terrorism in Pakistan. Coincidence? Indian media also claiming investment on Present rulers. Undoubtedly great game is being played. The hearing in US Senate that Pakistan soil is still being used against Afghanistan by Talbans and India may cross borders to mop up terrorists is apparently a policy guide line and Pakistan may face a war sooner or later.
On Pakistan’s Western Front Afghanistan is heating up. More than hundred killed within a week and Talban denied responsibility, then who ? There are scores of terrorist organisations operating and responsibly is now being claimed by Daesh. This already has triggered debate in Washington where even in Senate and White House raising fingers on Pakistan. Thus a new scenario is emerging and more terrorist activities in Pakistan are expected. This also provide opportunity to elements wanting to sabotage CPEC.. Activities are likely to increase on this sector also.
In this Indian open threats and alert to Indian Airforce are meaningful and needs to be taken seriously specially with Indian held Kashmir movement gaining ground and India perceptions that they can get away in this scenario any adventure can not be ruled out. Specially Indian political leadership now counting casualty figures in a controlled nuclear war. What both sides will suffer. On our side we are not ready , logistic reserves and preparedness is far from satisfactory . In public there is no awareness of nuclear defensive measure. At zero point and at certain distance nothing will survive, but fall out of radiation and distance away what measures are to be taken. There is no preparedness also against water aggression. Politically our government is in mess we are in dire danger. It is therefore a situation where Pakistan should evaluate its role in Saudi Alliance and should Raheel continue or resign? Also strengthen guard internally, on the Eastern and Western borders. Avoid war and follow a calculated, patient approach and must not be provoked. We have to buy the time.
Source: pakobserver.net/darkening-clouds/
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Britain’s Vote
By Mahir Ali
June 7th, 2017
THE pall of terrorist attacks — three in rapid succession — hangs over tomorrow’s British election. It is not uncommon, in such circumstances, for the electorate to gravitate towards retaining the status quo. The small surge in support for the opposition Labour Party in the first opinion poll after the appalling atrocity in Manchester therefore came as something of a surprise.
The repercussions of Saturday’s disgusting attack in London had not been calculated in electoral terms at the time of writing. It’s useful to remember, though, that very shortly after almost 200 people were killed in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the Spanish electorate threw out the conservative government that initially sought to pretend Basque separatists were responsible in a foolhardy attempt to ward off a backlash in its unpopular decision to join George W. Bush’s Iraq crusade.
Britain’s Tony Blair was even more complicit in the disastrous misadventure than Jose Maria Aznar, but resistant to viewing the heartrending carnage of July 7, 2005 as blowback. Acknowledging that bad foreign policy can have deleterious consequences is obviously not tantamount to justification for any kind of terrorism. And it’s irritating when people who should know better, such as London’s mayor Sadiq Khan, insist on categorising the latest terrorist outrage as ‘unjustified’.
Surely that much ought to be taken for granted — just as it is unjustified for hundreds of thousands of civilian lives to have been obliterated in the Middle East in this century alone, by a combination of regional potentates and Western firepower. It’s reasonable, on the other hand, for British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to make this point, and ridiculous for him to be categorised as a terrorist supporter just because he was willing to engage with representatives of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Hamas.
What Corbyn lacks in charisma he makes up for in conviction.
Critics tend to forget that the Conservative Party was, in fact, hobnobbing with the IRA long before Corbyn — or that Republican terrorism was eventually halted through negotiations with the IRA/Sinn Fein, and that it entailed reciprocal measures by British armed forces and their Unionist allies. The militant Islamic State group clearly does not fall into the same category as the IRA (and many of its claims are unreliable), but Hamas might.
British Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision, meanwhile, to politicise Saturday’s events in London has come in for criticism, not least from MI6’s former director of global counterterrorism, Richard Barrett, who says “May’s use of words plays to the binary division that terrorists try to create between Muslims and the rest”.
Until she became prime minister last year, May had served David Cameron as home secretary since 2010, presiding over a sharp reduction in police numbers in the interests of austerity, despite warnings that it was dangerous to do so. In the past few days, some of the calls for her to resign have come from Conservative sources. As Corbyn has pointed out, though, the electorate has a chance to make that choice for her in tomorrow’s election.
Of course, sporadic terrorism is not the only, or even the most important, item on the agenda of an election May had declared she would not call. Eventually, she gave way to temptation: a 20-point lead over the opposition was too good an opportunity to waste. What’s more, she arrogantly assumed that the gap gave her the opportunity to obtain a mandate for unpopular measures that would further deplete the welfare state instituted some 70 years ago. It’s understandable, though, why someone whose grin is indistinguishable from a grimace would be kept away by her minders from publicly debating her rivals.
It doesn’t play well among the electorate, though. Corbyn has been steadily maligned and excoriated by most of the media ever since he gained the Labour leadership by an overwhelming majority of votes, not once but twice, but even some of his critics have lately been compelled to accept that his message resonates with those who are able to hear him.
What he lacks in charisma he makes up for in conviction. And the aims outlined in Labour’s manifesto — broadly calling for a more equitable society in which healthcare, education, pensions and public services are properly funded, and the very rich are expected to pay a little more tax — have struck a chord among the public, particularly younger voters, who are more concerned about the future.
The narrowing polls have led to a surge in personal attacks on Corbyn by May and an increasingly panicked media that feels threatened by the resurgence of genuine social democracy. It would nonetheless take nothing short of a miracle for Corbyn to end up as prime minister this week. One must hope, though, that the lessons of his amazing achievement won’t be lost on the Labour Party.
Source: dawn.com/news/1337927/britains-vote
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/pakistan-press/behind-violent-extremism-dr-raza/d/111438