Latest Updates: sectarianism RSS
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thabet
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thabet
‘500′ are reported to have been killed dead in the latest violence in Jos, Nigeria:
A resident in Plateau State, where the tragedy happened, said he had seen armored vehicles and military trucks arrive in the village along with patrolling troops.
The latest military move came after a Nigerian government official confirmed on Monday that at least 500 had been killed in a communal clash in Jos, which followed the crisis on Jan. 17 in the same region when some youths attacked worshippers at St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Nasawara Gwom.
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plimfix
“Every Salafi and Deobandi is not a terrorist but I have no hesitation in saying that everyone is a well-wisher of terrorists and this has not been appreciated by the Western governments.” Dr. Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, head of Minhaj ul Qur’an International (MUQ), quoted in an article in This is London by Allegra Mostyn-Owen (herself linked to MUQ) and endorsed by the not very nice Douglas Murray, Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion. For an intelligent response to Qadri’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs.
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johnpi
Sectarian strife makes love difficult in Iraq.
The problem of inter-communal marriages is largely new in Iraq, where the community one belonged to was previously of little importance in the quest for a spouse. Executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime comprised a Sunni Arab elite but was largely secular.
“The situation deteriorated after the fall of the former regime and the sectarian violence that followed.”
Sociologist Suha al-Shamaa, who also works in the women’s section at the human rights ministry, said: “Before the U.S. occupation of 2003, the question of which community a woman belonged to was not asked. Today it’s essential.”
….As many as 41.5 percent of Iraqi men and women over 12 years old are single, the WFP says, and 4.2 percent are widowed.
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johnpi
Thousands pack funerals for Pakistan bomb victims.
Beating their chests with hands, thousands of minority Shiite Muslims attended a mass funeral Saturday for those killed in a pair of bombings in Pakistan’s largest city.
At least 33 people died and 170 others were wounded in Karachi on Friday when suspected Sunni militants targeted a bus carrying Shiite worshippers and then attacked a major hospital treating victims of the first bomb, said government spokesman Jamil Soomro.
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abunoor
Iraq’s electoral commission bars 500 candidates, most of them Sunni Arabs.
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s electoral commission on Thursday barred 500 candidates from running in March’s parliamentary election, including a prominent Sunni lawmaker, in a decision that is sure to deepen Iraq’s sectarian divides.
Hamdia al-Hussaini, a commissioner on the Independent High Electoral Commission, said the commission made the decision after receiving the list from a parliament committee that vets candidates for ties to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party.
The decision to bar the candidates — most of whom are believed to be Sunni — potentially threatens the country’s fragile security because it risks leaving Sunni voters feeling targeted and disenfranchised. The Sunni boycott in a January 2005 election is considered one of the key factors that deepened the insurgency. -
johnpi
Iran, Turkey rule out ‘military solution’ for Afghanistan.
That’s a commendable change of heart for Iran, considering that 12 years ago it had over a quarter million troops massed on its border with Afghanistan, and the UN and the rest of the world were working hard to head off the perceived threat of an invasion of Afghanistan.
This was taken very seriously at the time, as this Iranian writer communicates:
I don’t want another war, no matter what the excuse. I don’t want us to march on Herat or further afield. No reason that has been stated by the Iranian government is good enough basis for an invasion of Afghanistan. I was devastated when I read the Amnesty International report stating that the 11 Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif were killed after the fall of the city. The image of the bodies left in the Consulate for two days without burial shattered me. I thought of the rubble, I thought of the sound of artillery in the background and of rivers of blood. But even this atrocity and the humiliation attendant to it is not a reason good enough for a war. Nor is the Iranian government’s crying foul of the brand of Islam practiced by the Taleban. It is NONE of their business.
That was during the time that the Taliban had taken control of the major city of Herat – predominantly Shiite and Farsi-speaking – and were engaged in their now infamous acts of ‘forced reIslamization.’ There was a concern that if Iran engaged with the Taliban it could draw in Pakistan (Iran had believed the 11 murdered diplomats had the protection of ISI personnel who were traveling as military advisors with the Taliban).
One way for Americans to look at this is that withdrawing troops from Afghanistan to let some other military power step up that is convinced it cannot live with a Taliban government such as Iran or Russia would be just fine.
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thabet
So what Mufti Taqi Usmani is saying is that the Tehrik-e-Taliban are Blackwater agents?
Addressing a news conference along with Mufti Muhamamd Taqi, Mufti Muhammad Naeem, Maulana Tanvir ul Haq Thanvi and traders here on Wednesday, Mufti Rafi Usmani said that Blackwater is involved in the killing of innocent people at the Muharram procession.
(cf. “Taliban claim Karachi suicide attack”, a story which broke earlier in the day.)
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johnpi
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
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
An editorial decries the rising tide of hatred in Pakistan.
Two NWFP ministers of the beleaguered ANP-led government, who made it to the tragic sites [of a car bombing that killed 120 in October] within minutes of the blasts, were seen and heard across the country pointing in vain to the enemy within. Both are roundly rebuked and branded foreign agents.
Those differing with them walk through the streets and narrow alleys of the interior city but they choose to ignore the signs and sights of the orgy of death that has engulfed us. Several deadly blasts have taken place in the one-kilometre radius area in and around the fabled Qissa Khwani Bazaar in the recent past. All impacted sites are at a stone’s throw from each other. The area is like a game reserve with teeming flocks of game birds for the gamekeepers presently engaged in ideological war games. And why shouldn’t it be?
Hate is inscribed in clear and bold fonts all across the area. Massive billboards, which in previous days were a feature of cinema houses, now hold the larger-than-life portraits of militant leaders of certain sectarian organisations. Ancient and sweet-sounding names of the streets have all been discarded and replaced with the names of those who have fallen in the sectarian warfare. Posters and graffiti proclaiming the title of infidel for the adherents of rival groups and death for the US, India and Israel adorn all walls in the area.
And most disturbing of all:
Mosques that had jealously guarded their nameless structures for eons have been labelled in factional colours and hence declared restricted places of worship.
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johnpi
Women fight new battle in Iraq’s restive corner.
In what was once one of Iraq’s deadliest areas, women who survived sectarian carnage and insurgency now fight a new battle to feed families whose menfolk have been killed, jailed or left jobless.
Violence has abated in the past 18 months in the infamous “Triangle of Death” hotbed of insurgent activity near Baghdad, but years of daily attacks in rural towns like Latifiya have killed scores of men and left the rest in prison or unemployed.
….Cultural norms mean that few among the town’s mostly illiterate menfolk have opted to help their women in the fields.
“There is no way to change our lifestyle. This is our fate,” said Um Sajad, 35, whose blistered palms reflect long hours on the farm. Her husband has given up hope of finding a job.
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johnpi
132 slain, 600 injured in twin Baghdad bomb blasts.
U.S. military officials say attacks like these are aimed at reigniting sectarian conflict that gripped the nation after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion, or at undermining confidence in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki before a parliamentary election next year.
Maliki is expected to run on improved security conditions throughout the nation.
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thabet
Fighting in Yemen continues:
A Yemeni military source claims there were many casualties, although there is no independent confirmation.
The UNHCR, Al-Jazeera, and Juan Cole’s blog have a bit of a background on the people fighting against the Yemeni government.
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Kawthar
Jordan is trying 6 Shia Muslims (before a military court) for “promoting Shi’ism“
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thabet
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johnpi
The killings, especially of faction leaders, raise fears of revenge attacks triggering cycles of violence.
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thabet
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razib, murtad fitri
Attacks on Shiites Kill Scores in Iraq. what’s the point of this? the prospect of sunni arab hegemony over iraq seems very improbable. for various nationalistic and economic reasons sunni arabs do not seem to want to partition iraq either. is this all nihilistic transnational islamic terrorism without a concrete purpose?
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johnpi
To counter sectarian social breakdown, Iraqi government offers payment program to encourage mixed Sunni-Shia marriages.
The Iraqi government pays all new brides/grooms, but the amount furnished to mixed-sect couples is almost double that of the others, according to Fox News.
(via)
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johnpi
At least 69 people killed in a bombing in Baghdad in a predominantly Shi’ite area.
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thabet
Profile of the religious scholar killed in the bomb blasts in Lahore.
And the bomb blast in Peshawar on Friday occurred during the prayer according to reports.
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willow
In an effort to further shred his own credibility–for I can fathom no other reason–the Mufti of Saudi Arabia has declared that Yazid was right to order the murder of Imam Husayn. Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor. Thankfully, the Sunni backlash begins in the comments below the video…and I hope it continues until it echoes in the halls of Azhar and Aqsa, because this, if you’ll pardon my French, is fucking ridiculous.
This to me is proof that the divide between the extremists and ordinary Muslims is not about fiqh or history or politics…they really do want to destroy this religion, plain and simple. And if the *mufti of Saudi Arabia* can say stuff like this *on television*, they might well succeed.
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abunoor
Nir Rosen in a lengthy piece examines the deep sectarian tensions and fear for the future lying just under the surface of a Baghdad that seems relatively peaceful.
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razib, murtad fitri
Sectarian Tension Takes Volatile Form in Bahrain. two themes
1) shiites are tired of being second class citizens in an island where there’re the majority. with the rise of a shia iraq, how long could one expect bahraini shia to accept their role as a majority which “knows its place”?
2) the khalifa are reportedly importing sunnis who redress the demographic imbalance and turn the shia into a minority, all the better to marginalize them. no great surprise, the ashkenazi elite in israel was certainly excited by the bolstering which the russian influx provided. there is a delusion in plural societies that immigration should be blind to the ethnic & religious balance, but it’s ultimately a game which interest groups manipulate (ethnic, religious & economic).
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thabet
Innovative Minds (a website dedicated to boycotting ‘pro-Israeli’ businesses) should be avoided because it is a “Shia” website.
Stupid.
I am surprised he doesn’t also ask for the website to be avoided because they use the word ‘innovative’.
Update: The blogger has removed the “Shia” reference.
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thabet
Yunus Yakoub Islam has a response to the response to Umar Lee’s comments which have caused a kerfuffle across the Islamsphere.
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thabet
Rising Iraqi nationalism: A very interesting chart from a study into Iraqi self-identification:
It may point to future problems with the Kurds though…
John Sides has further discussion on the paper.
(Via Yglesias.)
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thabet
35 pilgrims killed by suicide bomber in Iraq, as they prepare for Ashura.
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razib, murtad fitri
isn’t it interesting that despite sunni muslims outnumbering shia in pakistan 4:1 a prominent shia family such as the bhuttos could acquire political power? the current PM, benazir, her father. yahya khan and jinnah were also from shia backgrounds.
