Talk Islam

Latest Updates: Pakistan Taliban RSS

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  johnpi 9:46 pm on February 12, 2010 | 4 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: afghanistan (396), Hazaras, hostages (2), imperialism (12), imran khan (2), Marjah, Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), Pashtuns (11), Tajiks, Taliban pagans (29), Terrorism (399), Theocratic Imperialist Watch (15), Uzbeks (2)

  I am so completely unsympathetic to Pakistani criticism of America for its conduct in Afghanistan as represented in this Imran Khan documentary.

  Early in the video a group of “young cosmopolitan” Pakistani women at a pop music concert are portrayed razing America for imperialism and terrorism.

  My response as an American is to just throw it right back in their faces.

  The lack of self-awareness or self-examination is just amazing. America left the region after the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan in 1989. Gone. And in that time until 2001 Pakistan decided to play ‘masters of the universe’ and support the Taliban throughout its campaign to take over Afghanistan. Pakistan provided unlimited military equipment and supplies, it provided military intelligence and advisors that traveled with the Taliban forces, and tens of thousands of Pakistanis volunteered and fought with the Taliban in Afghan campaigns that had the character of ethnic violence in parts of the country largely inhabited by the Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks, etc. And these educated middle-class Pakistanis are sitting around getting all indignant about America’s conduct?

  Please…I wonder if any Pakistani veterans of the Afghan campaigns brought captive Hazara concubines with them back to Pakistan…

  Related: Speaking of foreign fighters marines and Afghan troops have started their attack on the Taliban-held city of Marjah. A tribal elder reports most of the Afghan Taliban have already fled the area, but

  Militant commanders from the Middle East or Pakistan have stayed on “and they want to fight,” he said.

  I guess it will be foreign fighters versus foreign fighters then. Too bad the Pakistani and Middle Eastern fighters in Marjah won’t allow Afghan civilians to flee the city, thereby putting them potentially in the line of fire.

  How nice of the Pakistani volunteers to come to Afghanistan and take the Afghans hostage…

   

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  johnpi 3:35 am on February 9, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hakimullah mehsud (2), Maulvi Noor Jamal, Mehsud (3), Noor Jamal, Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260)

  Taliban confirm Hakeemullah’s death.

  The Taliban based in Orakzai Agency confirmed on Tuesday that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakeemullah Mehsud is dead.

  However, Alam Tariq the offiicial Taliban spokesman has not yet made a statement.

  Sources said that Maulvi Noor Jamal has been nominated as Mehsud’s succesor.
  ….

  Maulvi Noor Jamal is a native of the Orakzai Agency and rose to power as the leader of the Taliban in the Kurram tribal area.

  He was also given responsibilities for Orakzai when the military began the Waziristan offensive in October.

  Jamal is in his late thirties and was a maulana at a local madrassah before he was made the leader of the Taliban in Kurram.

  He had a close relationship with Mehsud and is known for his brutality. One resident who left Khurram for fear of being wanted by him said Jamal “…kills humans like one will kill chickens.” Jamal is also the man who is allegedly overseeing the flogging of two men and a teenage boy in a recently broadcast video.

   
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  johnpi 11:58 pm on February 8, 2010 | 2 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: drone attacks (13), drones (16), genocide (17), Khmer Rouge, Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), predator drones (11), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29), Vietnam analogy

  Could US drone strikes push Pakistan into Khmer Rouge type genocide?

  A more provocative — and perhaps more ominous — analogy today might be between the CIA’s escalating drone war in the contemporary Pakistani tribal borderlands and Richard Nixon’s secret bombing campaign against the Cambodian equivalent. To briefly recapitulate that ancient history: In the late 1960s, Cambodia was ruled by a “neutralist” king, Norodom Sihanouk, leading a weak government that had little relevance to its poor and barely educated citizens. In its borderlands, largely beyond its control, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong found “sanctuaries.”

  Sihanouk, helpless to do anything, looked the other way. In the meantime, sheltered by local villagers in distant areas of rural Cambodia was a small insurgent group, little-known communist fundamentalists who called themselves the Khmer Rouge. (Think of them as the 1970s equivalent of the Pakistani Taliban who have settled into the wild borderlands of that country largely beyond the control of the Pakistani government.) They were then weak and incapable of challenging Sihanouk — until, that is, those secret bombing raids by American B-52s began. As these intensified in the summer of 1969, areas of the country began to destabilize (helped on in 1970 by a U.S.-encouraged military coup in the capital Phnom Penh), and the Khmer Rouge began to gain strength.

  The Taliban sure hope so…

   
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  johnpi 8:11 am on February 6, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Karachi (11), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), shunning (2), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Government must target militants in Karachi: MQM.

  The MQM demanded on Saturday that the government must conduct an operation against militants holed up in different areas of Karachi.

  Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, MQM’s Deputy Convenor Farooq Sattar said that Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah has also admitted that militants are heading to Karachi to escape the military operations in Swat and Waziristan.
  ….

  He said that some religious parties and other political leaders are still defending the heinous crimes of the Taliban. He appealed the public to socially boycott such parties.

   
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  johnpi 7:36 pm on February 5, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: al qaeda pagans (3), Karachi (11), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), sipah-e-sahaba, SSP, taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29), Terrorism (399)

  Karachi bombings: Ulema rally Pakistanis to call for restraint.

  Ulema from different schools of thought have condemned the two blasts on Friday, appealed to the people to exercise restraint and pointed out that terrorists are trying to distort the image of Islam and the country.

  The Islamic scholars said the perpetrators of the incidents of terrorism were neither Muslims nor Pakistanis, adding that they were trying to divide the people of the same faith.
  ….

  Maulana Hassan Zafar Naqvi ruled out any sectarian aspect of the tragedy, recalling that Shias and Sunnis lived together and would not allow any such conspiracy to succeed in future. However, the series of attacks on mourners was a bad omen, he said, adding that conspiracies were being hatched to distort the image of Islam across the world.

  He said the terrorists were enemies of Islam, Muslims and Pakistan, but, the government could not be absolved from its responsibility. “The government should tell people how many of the criminals arrested in the past had been sentenced to death,” he said.

  Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, the chief of the Central Ruet Hilal Committee, had the same views to share. He said those behind the tragedy were bringing a bad name to Islam, Muslims and Pakistan. He asked the people to keep their sentiments under control, as violence would only strengthen those who were trying to destablise the country.

   
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  johnpi 1:47 pm on February 3, 2010 | 6 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260), US military (60)

  More info on that blast in Pakistan this morning that killed 3 US soldiers outside a girls school that was celebrating opening day.

  Two US army trainers were also amongst the 131 wounded, most of who were school children. Two journalists accompanying the convoy were also wounded.
  ….

  Condemning what it called vicious terrorist bombing, a US Embassy statement said the Americans were US military personnel in Pakistan to conduct training at the invitation of the Pakistan Frontier Corps.

  They were in Lower Dir to attend the inauguration ceremony of a school for girls that had recently been renovated with US humanitarian assistance, the statement said.

  Amongst those killed were four school girls and a paramilitary soldier. “Our teacher was teaching us Islamic education when the explosion caused the roof of our class to cave in”, Samina, a 5th grade student of the school said.

  The official said that the American soldiers were trainers training the Dir Scouts of the Frontier Corps in Dir.

  “They usually wore Pakistani dress, shalwar qameez, and Chitrali caps to conceal their identity”, the official said.

  The Americans were traveling in an armoured vehicle with electronic jammers.

   
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  johnpi 8:06 am on February 3, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: girls schools (6), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), school attacks (4), taliban (260), US military (60)

  Pakistan blast kills US troops, children, say local officials.

  Three U.S. soldiers traveling with Pakistan security force members were killed Wednesday and one wounded in a roadside bombing in northwest Pakistan that also injured dozens of schoolgirls, officials said.

  The soldiers were in the region as part of a small, little-publicized U.S. mission to train members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps to better fight al-Qaida and Taliban militants, Pakistan’s army said.

  The U.S. Embassy declined to comment. If the deaths are confirmed by American authorities, they would represent a major victory for militants close to the Afghan border who have been hit hard in recent months by a surge in U.S. missile strikes and a major Pakistani army offensive.

  The attack, which killed at least four other people and wounded 70, will draw attention to the presence of U.S. troops on Pakistan soil at a time when anti-American sentiment over perceived violations of sovereignty is running high. U.S. and Pakistani authorities rarely talk about the training program out of fear it could generate a backlash.

  The blast hit a convoy close to a girls’ school celebrating its opening in the Shahi Koto area of Lower Dir district, which like much of the northwest is home to al-Qaida and Taliban militants. It was unclear where the convoy was heading.

   
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  johnpi 10:16 pm on January 30, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), suicide attacks (15), suicide bombings (17), taliban (260)

  Suicide bomber kills 17 Pakistanis at market in Bajaur.

  The attack took place at a bazaar in the agency’s main town of Khar. The suicide bomber detonated his vest as paramilitary soldiers confronted him at the checkpoint. Three soldiers and 14 civilians were killed in the blast, and more than 40 Pakistanis were wounded. Several buildings were destroyed.

   
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  johnpi 9:24 pm on January 11, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: orakzai agency, Pakistan (569), Pakistan army (21), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), suicide attacks (15), suicide bombers (14), suicide bombings (17), taliban (260)

  Pakistani army seals off Orakzai Agency, starts moving up artillery and tanks, in preparation for large military operation there.

  According to sources, the decision to launch a military operation was taken after the government got information that 90 per cent of suicide bombers sent to strike Peshawar, Hangu, Darra Adamkhel, Lahore and Islamabad were trained in Orakzai Agency.

   
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  johnpi 9:03 am on January 11, 2010 | 8 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: al qaeda (93), drone attacks (13), drones (16), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), predator drones (11), taliban (260), waziristan (18)

  Farhat Taj, a Pakistani academic now teaching at the University of Oslo, says that Waziristan residents appreciate the drone strikes.

  The people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation under the Taliban and al Qaeda. It is in this context that they would welcome anyone, Americans, Israelis, Indians or even the devil, to rid them of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks.
  ….

  What we read and hear in the print and electronic media of Pakistan about drone attacks as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty or resulting in killing innocent civilians is not true so far as the people of Waziristan are concerned. According to them, al Qaeda and the TTP are dead scared of drone attacks and their leadership spends sleepless nights. This is a cause of pleasure for the tormented people of Waziristan.

   
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  johnpi 9:38 am on January 10, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Karachi (11), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Recalling an earlier article I linked where Nadeem Paracha describes Karachi as a city of well-armed and experienced street fighters organized under the banners of political parties, 31 people have been killed in street fighting in Karachi since Thursday.

  The city has been relatively calm in recent years, but it appears that fears that the bombing of an Ashura procession late last month by the Taliban would reignite political violence are coming true.

   
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  johnpi 9:21 am on January 10, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: mental health (10), mental illness (6), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), psychiatry (3), psychology (11), taliban (260), war (36), warfare (22)

  In Peshawar, violence leaves psychological scars.

  Khairullah is a broken man. “He came to Peshawar to escape the war,” says the 57-year-old’s eldest son, Rahimullah. “But it’s Peshawar that has driven him mad.”

  The single-named father of six from the Mohmand tribal agency in Pakistan’s restive northwest lies on a cot in the waiting room of the Shafique Psychiatric Clinic in Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). His body sporadically erupts into paroxysm, and his tortured eyes dart over the blank ceiling as if caught in a violent waking nightmare. He rarely speaks as his wife, hugging his knees, rocks back and forth to calm him.

  Thousands of men, women and children like Khairullah wander Peshawar’s anarchic streets. They are the forgotten victims of the war between Pakistan’s army and Islamic militants. The city is where the mad come for solace, pouring in from war-torn regions of the Pakistani frontier and even farther afield in search of a disturbingly scarce resource: psychiatric aid.

   
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  johnpi 1:12 am on January 6, 2010 | 4 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: arson (5), collective punishment (4), hirabah (17), Hirabah watch (13), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Collective punishment: The Pakistani Taliban burned down an entire village in Orakzai yesterday.

  Sixty-three homes were torched by the Taliban in the town of Tori Mela in the Feroze Khel region of Arakzai after the residents were ordered to leave.

  “Local people said the Tehrik-i-Taliban [Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan] had ‘punished’ tribesmen because of their refusal to stay on in the village and support them in their fight against security forces,” Dawn reported. Most of the residents had fled the region once fighting broke out between the Taliban and security forces in November.

   
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  johnpi 7:43 pm on January 5, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hirabah (17), Hirabah watch (13), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), sectarian fitna (4), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  ‘Brother’ Taliban strikes again: Militants blow up six shrines in Orakzai, dig up and desecrate remains of spiritual leader.

  Militants exhumed the body of a spiritual leader and blew up six other shrines in the Stori Khel area of lower Orakzai Agency on Tuesday.

  Locals said heavily armed militants came to the area of the Stori Khel tribe, who have raised a lashkar against them, and dug up the grave of spiritual leader Anwarul Haq. They desecrated the remains and then took it to an unknown location.

  The militants also blew up six other shrines in the Khwa area of Stori Khel.

  The Stori Khel tribe has been fighting the Taliban for over a month to keep them away from their area.

  Militant leaders — Tariq Afridi, chief of Darra Adamkhel and Khyber Agency Taliban, and Maulana Akhunzada Aslam Farooqui, head of Orakzai Agency Taliban — have been asking the Shia clan of the Stori Khel tribe to expel security personnel recently deployed in the area.

  Another school was blown up in Bajaur too.

   
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  johnpi 7:46 pm on January 4, 2010 | 2 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), Pashtuns (11), revenge, taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29), Terrorism (399)

  Gloom, fury as Pakistan volleyball tournament death toll nears 100.

  Tribal elders in a Pakistani village where a suicide car bomber killed nearly 100 people insisted Saturday that residents will keep defying the Taliban, even as the bloodshed laid bare the risks facing the citizens’ militias that make up a key piece of Pakistan’s arsenal against extremism.

  Apparently, the lashkar meeting that was going on at the time of the blast was considering punishing the relatives of Taliban militants who had participated in the killing of another tribal elder.

  One reason militancy has spread in Pakistan’s tribal belt — a semi-autonomous region where tribes, not the government, have long wielded the most authority — is because insurgents have slain dozens of elders and filled the resulting power vacuum.

  And the tribal leader in the afflicted town speaks of the tribe’s response:

  “Such attacks will only strengthen our resolve — being Pashtun, revenge is the only answer to the gruesome killings,” said Mushtaq Khan, 50, the head of the tribal council.

   
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  johnpi 9:58 am on January 2, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), school attacks (4), Swat (37), swat valley (9), taliban (260)

  Taliban blow up schools, health centre in Pakistan’s northwest.

  A boys’ high school and a primary school in Mamoond sub-division of Bajaur tribal agency were destroyed when explosive devices planted by militants went off last night.

  A primary health centre was also blown up by militants in the same area, the officials said.

  Also, Al Jazeera has a ‘good news’ report on the schools of Swat, where girls (because girls schools were primarily targeted in Swat) are so motivated that “even without doors and without walls” students are continuing classes in their bombed-out schools.

   
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  johnpi 4:04 pm on January 1, 2010 | 17 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Death toll in Pakistani volleyball tournament massacre nears 90.

  No word yet if the usual suspects have begun blaming it on the RAW/Rand/CIA/Mossad/Blackwater/Pakistani-Americans-traveling-on-visas axis.

  Let me be the first to offer murmurs of disapproval…

   
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  johnpi 8:43 am on January 1, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Pakistani volleyball tournement targeted: 39 killed in suicide bombing.

  Description below from the AP :

  Police said Friday’s bombing in Lakki Marwat city, not far from South Waziristan, was possible retaliation for local residents’ efforts to keep militants out of the area.

  “The locality has been a hub of militants. Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area. This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion,” local police chief Ayub Khan told reporters.

   
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  johnpi 9:52 am on December 31, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: crime and punishment (9), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), suicide attacks (15), suicide bombings (17), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  The Punjab commander of the Pakistani Taliban has been arrested and is accused of having planned and organized the twin bombings at Moon Market that killed more than 60 and injured 150 in early December.

  Interesting report:

  Khalil told investigators that he had a team of 600 suicide bombers.

  The blasts had been widely blamed on the RAW/Rand/CIA/Mossad/Blackwater/Pakistani-Americans-traveling-on-visas axis.

  Inshallah, the crime and punishment aspect of this won’t look like this.

   
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  johnpi 7:40 am on December 31, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Karachi (11), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260)

  The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan have flip-flopped.

  Spokesman Azam Tariq now denies having anything to do with the recent Karachi bomb blast. The other guy, Taliban commander Asmatullah Shaheen, who said attack was theirs and that there will soon be more like it, just ignore him…

   
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  johnpi 10:47 am on December 30, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Mehsud (3), Mehsud tribe (2), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260), waziristan (18)

  The Pakistan government has given the Mehsud tribe a seven-point list of surrender conditions that need to be met for the military to end its actions in Waziristan.

  1. Unconditional surrender of the wanted persons.

  2. A total ban on the display of weapons,

  3. A ban on setting up a parallel administrative and judicial system in the agency.

  4. Shelter would be provided to only the local Mehsud tribesmen who opted for seeking refuge for settling internal disputes.

  5. No foreigner and non-local would be provided any shelter.

  6. No person involved in anti-state elements would be given shelter.

  7. No person from settled parts of the country would be provided refuge.

  Dawn news reports that the elders of the Mehsud tribe have sought time till Jan 20 to thoroughly review the seven point conditions handed over by the political authorities at a grand jirga held at Political Compound Tank, winter headquarters of South Waziristan.

   
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  johnpi 7:54 am on December 30, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hirabah (17), Hirabah watch (13), Karachi (11), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), sectarian fitna (4), sectarianism (34), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claim Karachi bombing, promise more such attacks soon.

  Pakistan’s Taliban on Wednesday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 43 people in Karachi, and threatened more attacks.

  “My group claims responsibility for the Karachi attack and we will carry out more such attacks, within 10 days,” Asmatullah Shaheen, one of the commanders of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, who spoke by telephone to a Reuters reporter in Peshawar.

  And the rest of the article is full of conspiracy theories implying that the Pakistani government “or some other foreign government” ‘must’ have been involved.

  A general strike has been called in Karachi for Friday. It is being supported by both Shia and Sunni leaders, probably for different reasons.

   
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  johnpi 10:22 pm on December 29, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Jamaat-e-Islami (2), Jamaat-i-Islami (3), Karachi (11), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260)

  The fine upstanding Taliban apologists of Jamaat-i-Islami are demanding a judicial probe to get to the bottom of who the “real culprits” are behind the Karachi suicide bombing yesterday.

  “Real culprits” is oblique dogwhistle speak for the RAW/Rand/CIA/Mossad/Blackwater/Pakistani-Americans-traveling-on-visas axis.

  Cynical…err….caring leaders of the party then kindly solicited the hospital for information about the health of the survivors.

   
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  johnpi 12:13 am on December 29, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hirabah (17), Hirabah watch (13), Karachi (11), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Huge economic damage in Karachi wrought by today’s suicide bombing.

  The cost of carnage wrought by the subsequent rioting and violence is estimated at $30 billion rupees, which converts to about $356 million dollars. More than 2,000 shops in the city were set ablaze. Not a bad return on the loss of a single – probably teenage – suicide bomber.

  The death toll has risen to 40.

  It’s like I can feel the realization of the caliphate utopia right around the corner…

   
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  johnpi 10:40 pm on December 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Karachi (11), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), Pashtuns (11), taliban (260)

  Predicting the next wave of violence in Pakistan: Lynch mobs, death squads and night letters targeting right-wing Sunnis and ethnic Pashtuns in Karachi.

  Two events today, the suicide bombing in Karachi and the capture of a Sindh-bound van loaded with weapons, explosives and suicide vests indicate that the Taliban and other loosely federated groups are planning a campaign of violence in the South, with Karachi the most likely target.

  Though it can also be suggested Karachi’s social polity has so far won the social and cultural battle against extremist thought, there is however every likelihood that if the Taliban and their clandestine sectarian partners now decide to make Karachi their next main target, the city’s response will be somewhat different than what it has been elsewhere in the country.

  Karachi has had a volatile history of street battles and of living through near-civil-war conditions (between 1986 and 1999). All the major political parties in the city are heavily armed. But the difference this time is that the PPP, ANP and MQM who have all been involved in street battles fought with sophisticated arms in the past, have in the last two years exhibited a commendable show of co-ordination and mutual empathy in the face of the Taliban threat in the city.

  If the going gets worse in Karachi as far as extremist attacks are concerned, this may as well see all three parties willing to pick up arms to fight a common enemy that is now seen hell-bent on destroying the economic and political interests of these parties’ respective constituencies in the city. These constituencies are the most vital pieces of economic and political real state for political parties operating in an economic hub like Karachi.

  Earlier this year, schools were closed and troops called out into the streets of Karachi due to “gun battles, arsons and the deaths of dozens of people” – most of whom were Pashtuns.

  One big question is what role “puritanical” madrassas located in Karachi will play, or if they could be somehow targeted. In 2005, the Karachi police chief said there were “859 madrassas teaching more than 200,000 youngsters” in the city.

   
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  johnpi 10:53 am on December 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), riots (2), sectarianism (34), Shiites (8), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Full-scale riots have broken out in Karachi following the Khawarij bombing of a Shiite procession that killed at least 30.

  Sadly, these kinds of riots tend to damage the rioters’ own communities, which only furthers the goals of the attackers.

   
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  johnpi 9:53 am on December 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), Sindh, taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  Pakistani police intercept a large militant arms shipment – including detonators, explosives, guns and suicide jackets – on its way to Sindh.

  It may signal that Taliban pagans are set to open a new front of terrorist violence in the southernmost part of Pakistan.

  No reports yet of wild Pakistani right-wing media figures blaming it on RAW, the CIA, Xe or Pakistani Americans; and no reports yet of cowardly Pakistani pop singers blaming the “outsiders” – but the day isn’t over yet.

   
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  johnpi 9:23 am on December 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: hirabah (17), Hirabah watch (13), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260), Taliban pagans (29)

  This story says there have been 30 killed in a suicide attack on a a Pakistani Shiite procession, but I just heard the BBC say the death toll is up to 35.

  According to media reports, angry mob have set ablaze Light House building situated at the MA Jinnah Road. While several vehicles, parked around the city court, have also been set on fire, sources said.

  People are stranded in the building, which was set on fire.

  There are also reports of unrest at different parts of the city, including Numaish, Jafar Society and MA Jinnah Road.

  Edhi ambulances, KESC vehicles and police mobiles were torched.

   
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  johnpi 10:36 pm on December 27, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76), Pakistan (569), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), taliban (260)

  Pakistan Taliban kill another tribal elder.

   
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  johnpi 12:07 am on December 27, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Afghan Taliban (41), Pakistan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban (126), sikhs (3), taliban (260)

  Two Sikh women, angry at Sikhs being mistaken for “Muslim extremists” wrote a post earlier this year, ‘How to tell a Sikh from a Taliban.’

  Do to a certain shallow, outward physical resemblance to some Muslim extremists, our Sikh community has been under attack since the 9/11 terrorist attacks by those who don’t know any better. Now events in Pakistan, where the Taliban has attacked the Sikhs of the SWAT Valley, forcing them out of their homes, make a comparison of the two groups mandatory for anyone who really wants to understand world events. (And to stop picking on innocent Sikhs, as well.)

  And a disclaimer:

  Before I start, let me say that in writing about the Taliban, I am not indicting the Muslim community, which has many good, upright adherents, some of whom I am honoured to include among my friends. Please do not construct anything I say about Taliban to apply to the millions of Muslims who are peaceful, constructive and valued citizens of countries all over the world.

  And then they really let the Taliban have it…