Pakistani hard-line imam warns of launching holy war

An imam of Islamabad-based hard- line Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, on Friday warned that he will declare Jihad if Pakistani government launches operation against the mosque or its affiliated seminary.

The statement came after several hundred of paramilitary soldiers and policemen reportedly had been deployed around Lal Masjid on June 27 to keep tabs on the activities of religious students.

Addressing Friday's congregation, Maulana Abdul Aziz, administrator of Lal Masjid, asked the people to rise against all sorts of vices and be prepared for Jihad, or holy war, as well as suicide attacks.

He said his students will sacrifice their lives and will not compromise on vulgarity and un-Islamic culture and his supporters will do everything to enforce Islamic system in Pakistan.

"Promotion of western culture in the name of enlightened moderation will not be allowed," he announced amid slogans of jihad slogans.

The Lal Masjid Administrator said massage centers and dancing and singing functions and shaking hands with women are un-Islamic acts.

Claiming that their demands are genuine and legal, the Maulana lamented that corruption and other social evils are rampant in the society but the administration remains un-moved.

The cleric alleged that a baseless propaganda campaign has been started against Lal Masjid administration but no body is issuing statement against vulgarity and nudity.

Vowing to enforce Shariat in the country, Lal Masjid managers and their religious students have taken a series of "bold" steps from occupying a government library, attacking local alleged brothel runners and music shops, to kidnapping policemen, since months ago, which have been termed as "unlawful" activities by the government.

Al-Qaida Declares Holy War on India

A group claiming to represent the al-Qaida terror network declared a holy war on India over its partial control of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, Indian officials said Saturday.

A statement and video was sent Friday to the Current News Service, in Srinagar, the main city of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, in which a masked man standing next to an automatic weapon read the declaration.

"We declare righteous holy war against India on behalf of God the great in which Jammu and Kashmir will be the launch pad for holy war in India," said the statement signed by Abu Abdul Rehman al-Ansari, purportedly the chief of al-Qaida Fil Hind or al-Qaida in India.

While this is the first time the group has been heard from since it announced its establishment in July, police said they were taking the threat seriously.

Police are trying to establish the veracity of the statement, said the state's director general of police Gopal Sharma. "But there is no need to panic," he said.

There have been allegations that Islamic militants fighting to wrest predominantly Muslim Kashmir from India have ties to al-Qaida, but these links have not been proven.

The statement _ five pages long and given in Urdu _ mentions insurgencies in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, the Palestinian territories and Algeria and describes them as a global Islamic movement "aimed at wiping out borders and leading to the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate."

Muslims account for 130 million of the India's 1.1 billion people and their relations with the country's Hindu majority have been largely peaceful since the bloody partition of the subcontinent at its independence from Britain in 1947.

But there have been sporadic bouts of religious violence, and India's part of Kashmir _ a Himalayan land divided between India and Pakistan in a 1948 war _ has been beset by an Islamic separatist insurgency since 1989.

More than 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict.

India has also blamed Kashmiri militants for a string on bombings across India in recent years.

Taliban: Holy war, suicide bombs until West exits Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A man identified on tape as the Taliban’s new top field commander warned Wednesday that new recruits were volunteering as suicide bombers and that fighters would continue their holy war until Western powers leave Afghanistan.

Violence struck throughout the country with two bomb blasts that killed four people, including a Finnish soldier in the usually quiet north. NATO said it attacked a meeting of Taliban leaders in the south, killing an unspecified number of militants.
Shuhabuddin Athul, a Taliban spokesman, played an audio tape over the telephone to an Associated Press reporter that Athul said was a recording of Dadullah Mansoor, brother and replacement of Mullah Dadullah, the top Taliban commander shot to death in a U.S. operation this month in southern Afghanistan.

The man on the tape said Taliban fighters were ready to avenge his brother’s death and would "pursue holy war until the occupying countries leave."
"They will pursue their attacks against occupying countries and the (Afghan) government," he said in a first public statement. "The number of suicide attackers is increasing. ... All of the Taliban, we are ready to carry out suicide attacks, roadside bombs and ambushes against the Americans and the government."
There was no way to verify that the voice was really Mansoor’s.
Mullah Dadullah, a one-legged veteran who orchestrated an intensifying campaign of suicide attacks and beheadings, had long been a top lieutenant of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, hailed Mullah Dadullah in a videotape released Tuesday.
Athul has said that Mansoor was one of five prisoners released in March in exchange for kidnapped Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo. He was named as Mullah Dadullah’s replacement last week, Athul said.
In a sign that the insurgency could be spreading, a bomb blast killed a Finnish soldier and an Afghan civilian in the northern town of Maymana, 100 yards outside a Norwegian-led base. Four Norwegian soldiers were slightly wounded.
The soldiers had been on their way to a hospital for the opening of a reconstruction project, said Lt. Col. John Inge Oeglaend, a Norwegian military spokesman.
Northern Afghanistan is relatively calm, compared with the south and east, but it has seen a run of attacks in recent weeks. A suicide bomber Saturday killed 10 people in the northern city of Kunduz, including three German soldiers who were walking through a market.
"No parts of Afghanistan are safe, but the north has normally been quieter," Oeglaend said. "But this is one of the threats we have been prepared for and have been aware of for a long time."
In the capital, Kabul, a suicide attacker on a motorbike blew himself up next to highway police guarding a road construction project, killing one policeman and a civilian, officials said.
An SUV carrying foreigners that had its window shattered in the attack may have been the intended target, said Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawal, the Kabul police director of criminal investigations. The SUV drove off and officials didn’t know what group or country it was from.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said "precision weapons" targeted a meeting of Taliban leaders Tuesday in the southern province of Helmand. A military statement said "all of those who died were enemy insurgents," but did not indicate how many were killed, and Afghan officials said they were not aware of the attack.
In western Afghanistan, suspected Taliban militants beheaded a man and left his body in the Shindand bazaar in Herat province, said Mohammad Naieem, a border police official.
The man’s head was placed on his chest along with a letter purportedly from the Taliban warning that anyone working with foreign military forces would be killed, Naieem said. The man was apparently taken Tuesday night and his body was discovered Wednesday.
In Khost province, a roadside bomb exploded Tuesday as two trucks full of Afghan soldiers were driving by, killing four soldiers and destroying a truck, said Wazir Padshah, a provincial police spokesman.
Attacks in Afghanistan have increased in recent weeks. More than 1,800 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an AP count based on U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.

The Misconceptual Jihad

Jihad: Holy War. This is meaning of the word Jihad as it is interpreted by most Americans and non-Muslims, and rightfully so. The events of the past few years, or even the past decade, make it easy to draw conclusions about other cultures and religions. While most Americans have heard the word jihad broadcast on one of the uncountable news bulletins from Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Iran, or any other hot bed of Islamic violence, the vast majority do not know anything about the Islamic culture, let alone the true meaning of jihad. We are trained by the media to associate the word jihad with bloodshed, terrorism, and suicide bombings. It is not really trickery on behalf of the media, but rather the fundamental stretch of application that is employed by the Islamic extremists. Before we delve into this, let’s take a look at the meaning of Jihad.

Let us examine the term “jihad” from the perspective of a Muslim. The true meaning of jihad is “to strive for moral and religious perfection”. Now what exactly does this mean? This means living in accordance with the five pillars of Islam. For those of you not familiar with the five pillars, they are Confession of Faith, Prayer, Alms Giving, Fasting, and the Hajj. The Hajj is a pilgrimmage to Mecca that every Muslim must undertake at some point in his or her life. So back to our examination of the concept of jihad. You might be asking how people can misinterpret it as a Holy War when the meaning is so far from that. Well, there is more to the idea of Jihad.

Jihad is composed of two parts. There exists both an Internal jihad and an External jihad. The external jihad is the part that throws most Americans off track. Now the confusion of jihad meaning “Holy War” stems from what Muslims call the “Little Holy War”, or the external jihad. The concept of external jihad is fighting in the defense of Islam. Obviously, we see many Muslims refering to the jihad as cause for terroristic attacks, including 9/11. The key word, however, is defense. The term jihad cannot be used to label an offensive, as the Qu’ran lays out a law that force and violence are prohibited as a means to convert others to Islam.

“Defend yourself against your enemies, but do not attack them first. God does not approve of the aggressor.” -The Qu’ran

The quote above comes directly from the Qu’ran. As you can see, your fighting in the name of Islam is allowed, but strictly as a defense. This brings us to the stretching of the concept that is occurring today. We see terrorists and Islamic Extremists declaring jihad in taped messages, and claiming that their actions are valid in God’s eyes. Unfortunately, they are using the term to cover attacks which are certainly not defensive. Flashback to 9/11. While we have had conflicts with the Middle Eastern countries in the past, how have we threatened the Islamic faith? What provoked this attack? You can’t label the terrorism that is rampant today as jihad, because their is no defensive stance to it. Their actions are not sanctioned by God, even if you examine from their belief system. While one could make the argument that our Western way of life is starting to make its way to the Middle East, you cannot blame the choices of your children on us. We do not force our music, food, or clothing on the Islamic culture.

Islamic countries operate on the concept of Islamic Law. This means that all law is based on the Qu’ran. Many Islamic manuscripts have been written in order to layout the guidelines for armed conflict. Even these conflict with what is occuring today. Among the most important laws of armed combat is the prohibition of killing women, children, and non-combatants. Each and every terrorist attack volates these strictly layed out laws.

The main focus of the word Jihad is on the internal side of things. The internal jihad is the struggle within oneself to submit to the will of God, or in other words, the struggle to act as God would have you act, as opposed to how you want to act. To hammer home the point that this is the main form of jihad, I leave you with the Islamic name for internal jihad: “The Great Holy War”.

Former Afghan warlords rally for amnesty Part 1

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - In one corner of a soccer stadium that has seen both athletic contests and executions stands a poster some 20 feet tall of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai. Perhaps appropriately, Feda Mohammad Mujahid has turned away from it.

The 25,000 Afghans crowded into this bare concrete oval hoist up different posters of stern-faced mujahideen commanders who first fought the Soviets, and then each other, before joining with America to oust the Taliban in 2001.

To Mr. Mujahid, wrapped in a white scarf against the winter chill, these are the heroes of Afghanistan's "holy wars," not war criminals. So he has come here to rail against Mr. Karzai and the tyranny of Western nations, which have opposed an Afghan bill that would grant the mujahideen amnesty for war crimes committed during the past 25 years.

"This is a mujahideen nation," he says, as nearby loudspeakers crackle with speeches of defiance. "We want the law of Islam, and the government of mujahideen."

Away from the teeming streets around the stadium, the attitudes of average Afghans take on a different air. Many express frustration that former military leaders who killed thousands and destroyed Kabul in a four-year civil war might never be brought to justice. Yet in a country still divided by tribes, tongues, and traditions, Friday's rally sent a clear message ? that even now, Afghanistan's onetime warlords alone have the power to muster the masses.

In this rally, "you saw their continuing ability to mobilize people and to potentially influence politics," says Paul Fishstein, director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent analysis organization here.

Iraq blast kills 58 at holy shrine

U.S. war efforts in Iraq were dealt another devastating blow yesterday as a car bomb near a holy Shiite shrine killed at least 58 Iraqis and, in separate attacks, nine more American soldiers were slain.

The bomb blast in the Shiite holy city of Karbala came near the shrines of Imam Abbas and Imam Hussein - two major Shiite saints - as Iraqis gathered for evening prayer.

As the blood flowed, mourners exploded with rage, hurling stones at cops and storming a local governor's house, furious at the failure to protect them from the unrelenting bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents.

The attack was the second in two weeks near the Karbala shrine: On April 14, 47 people were killed and 224 were wounded in a car bombing.

The blast is expected to inflame the already out-of-control conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in war-torn Iraq - and make America's job tougher.

The Americans killed in Iraq included five who died in fighting Friday in Anbar Province, three killed yesterday when a roadside bomb struck their patrol southeast of Baghdad and one killed in a separate roadside bombing south of the capital.

The deaths raised to 99 the members of the U.S. military who have died this month in Iraq, and at least 3,346 have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Meanwhile, the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr launched a strong attack on President Bush, calling him the "greatest evil" for refusing to withdraw American troops from Iraq. He said he backs the Democrats' plan to start leaving Iraq by Oct. 1.

Philippine military belittle call of Holy War

The Philippine military on Monday belittled the call of a Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) leader for "Holy War" as government forces pressed to arrest him in the south.

At a press briefing, Armed Forces spokesman Bartolome Bacarro said Ustadz Habier Malik, alias Commander Malik would not be joined by his fellow MNLF commanders in the southern province of Sulu as they abhor his killing acts.

"Most of the MNLF commanders in the (Sulu) area have made announcements that they are not supporting Malik," said Bacarro.

The Philippine military believe that Malik is "isolated" and " on his own", Bacarro added.

Malik's group, a detachment of the MNLF, have launched attacks against civilian and military targets in Sulu last Friday and Saturday, according to military reports.

Malik supposedly declared Jihad or "Holy War" against the government last Friday night which was followed by the attacks on the civilians and camps of the military troops who are in a mission to search for the Abu Sayyaf terrorists and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) bomb experts in Sulu.

The hostile actions of Malik have resulted in civilian deaths, including a child during the mortar shelling, the spokesman said.

Bacarro said that Malik is presently "on the run" being pursued by four Marine battalions, or 2,000 soldiers.

The group of Malik, however, has at least 150 men but could be reinforced by the Abu Sayyaf and JI members, military officials said.