Lighting The Nuclear Fire

re: dost-mittar

{You do get to travel a lot, dude!}

...what else is there to do?...

{Next time you need someone to carry your bags, remember me!}

...no no, no need for that :)...planning a weekend in the baltic republics in july..see u there?...

re : rsaxena `

another pluce about goa is thats its CHEAPER i know this hot ass israeli chick whose been there

i heard abiza is so expensive anyway its too expensive for a student

Pakistan Says It Seized Americans Tied to Al Qaeda

By DEXTER FILKINS

New York Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 12 — Several men believed to be American citizens have been taken into custody here during the past few weeks on suspicion of being linked to Al Qaeda, senior Pakistani officials said today.

The Pakistani officials said most of the men had been picked up along with other suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban members in joint American-Pakistani raids in the country`s remote tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan.

They said they believe that the men form a disjointed network of disaffected Westerners who converted to Islam and have been drawn to militant causes, fighting alongside Al Qaeda, the Taliban or guerrillas in Kashmir, the mostly Muslim region claimed by both Pakistan and India.

One man is believed by Pakistani officials to be an associate of Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn-born man detained last month on the suspicion that he was trying to build a radiation dispersal bomb intended for detonation in an American city.

He goes by the name Ahmed Muhammad, which Pakistani officials say they believe is a false name, as well as Benjamin. It was unclear whether Benjamin was used as a first or a last name.

Pakistani officials said several of those detained, including Mr. Muhammad, claimed to be American citizens. But the officials refused to verify the nationalities of any of the detainees for fear of what one called the ``legal implications`` that could impede the interrogations.

Mr. Muhammad, a Pakistani official said, was in Pakistani custody and being interrogated by the F.B.I.

Senior government officials in Washington said they had not yet confirmed that the men being held in Pakistan are American citizens. They also said they had not yet independently determined whether the men are connected to Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. The American officials also said they had not established a connection between Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Padilla.

Pakistani officials say they have picked up about 400 suspected members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in sweeps around the country since December. About 300, they say, have been turned over to American authorities.

They said some of those detained appear to be Westerners who have been drawn to militant Islam. Pakistani officials said today that they believed that an American citizen who had converted to Islam had been killed while fighting alongside Muslim guerrillas in Indian Kashmir in 1998.

They also said they suspected that some of the men recently detained and believed to be Americans may have studied under Mufti Muhammad Iltimas, a radical Islamic cleric who runs a madrasa in Bannu, a village near the border with Afghanistan.

John Walker Lindh, the American charged with fighting alongside the Taliban, is believed to have attended Mr. Iltimas`s religious school, and Pakistani officials say Richard C. Reid, a British subject and suspected Al Qaeda member arrested in December for trying to blow up a passenger jet with a bomb in his shoe, may also have attended the school.

Mr. Iltimas was taken into custody last month during an American-Pakistani operation in the area, and was released the next day.

Taken together, the arrests of Mr. Padilla, Mr. Lindh, Mr. Reid and others appears to offer a glimpse into a world of alienated Western men who apparently dropped out of society and tried to find fulfillment by converting to Islam and fighting for its more radical causes.

One Pakistani official said some of the detained men believed to be Americans may have converted to Islam while serving time in prison in the United States.

Mr. Padilla, who was raised a Roman Catholic and who had a criminal record, converted to Islam when he married a Muslim woman of Middle Eastern descent. Mr. Reid converted to Islam while serving time in prison.

A Pakistani official said his government was looking into the possibility that Mr. Reid and Mr. Padilla were associates during the time officials say they were in Al Qaeda.

Pakistani officials said five other men believed to be of Pakistani or Middle Eastern origin were detained in France today on suspicion of being linked to Mr. Reid.

The officials also said today that they had detained five more people here who are believed to be Pakistani citizens and associates of Mr. Padilla. At least some of those detained are believed to have knowledge of Mr. Padilla`s activities in recent months.

The Pakistani officials said they were also searching for a group of women and children who are believed to have stayed in the same Al Qaeda hideout used by Mr. Padilla and Abu Zubaydeh, the senior Qaeda commander arrested in Pakistan on March 27. American law enforcement officials say Mr. Zubaydeh formed a close association with Mr. Padilla. The women and children are believed to be family members of a senior Qaeda member, possibly but not necessarily those of Mr. Zubaydeh.

The Qaeda hideout where Mr. Padilla and Mr. Zubaydeh were alleged to have spent time together is in Peshawar, a city in Pakistan`s Northwest Frontier Province near the Afghan border. It was some time after that association began that Mr. Zubaydeh was arrested and Mr. Padilla allegedly traveled to Karachi, Switzerland and then the United States with his plans to develop the radiation bomb.

To date, Americans have been detained on suspicion of fighting with the Taliban and with Al Qaeda as part of the Afghan conflict. Today, Pakistani officials said they had confirmed that an American convert to Islam was killed while fighting alongside Muslim guerrillas in Kashmir. The officials said they confirmed the man`s death after seeing a story about him in a magazine called ``Blow of the Believer,`` published by the Army of Muhammad, a Pakistan-based group battling Indian rule in Kashmir. The story did not identify the man by name.

The Army of Muhammad has been outlawed in Pakistan and declared a terrorist organization by the United States. One of its members, Ahmed Omar Sheikh, is charged in the kidnapping and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Pakistani officials said that after the story appeared, they contacted members of the guerrilla group and were satisfied that the account was accurate. The Pakistani officials said the American man was killed during an operation with Lashkar-e-Taiba, another guerrilla group battling Indian rule in Kashmir. The group has been outlawed in Pakistan.

The article is entitled ``The story of an American Shaheed,`` using the Arabic word to describe someone who dies in the act of defending Islam against nonbelievers. The magazine said the man, whose Muslim name was Abu Adam Jibreel al Amrikeeas, joined the Kashmiri movement as a 19-year-old in 1997 and was killed in the fall of 1998 during an attack on an Indian Army base.

The article said Mr. Adam was ``born into a considerably wealthy family,`` and grew up in Atlanta, where he attended the Ebeneezer Baptist Church as a child. Much like Mr. Lindh, who has been described as a precocious young man who explored different religious faiths, Mr. Adam is said to have read deeply about various religions, including Judaism and Buddhism, before finally deciding on Islam.

Sax;

Goa is great. You are right about Ibiza, full of British ravers tranced up on ecstacy.

fawad;

I`m from London, but the image you put in my mind of Lahore full of short skirts nightclubs and other stuff was a top one. Because I think Pakistani chicks are pure hotness!

:)

-h-

fawad79 #487:

``whoever posed this qn about muslim girls marryin non muslim guys i wanna ask the reverse how many indian hindu girls marry muslim guys i dont know many do you ???????????????``

Lots, dude, lots. All the movie star Khans (Aamir, Shah Rukh, Arbaaz, Saif Ali) and the cricketers (Azhar, Pataudi) have Hindu wives.

re: harpreet

...fawad`s right...go to goa...you`ll LOVE it...party town of asia i tell you...if u like spicy seafood, you`ll love it even more...

re: fawad

...ibiza ain`t all that...too many brits on drugs...

``since im assuming ur indian doesnt that kind of stuff already go on in bombay and goa ???``

ghar ki murgi daal barabar :-))))

Faiza #479 Did you see any names mentioned in my post that you write I am divulging personal info of anyone??? Huhn, Ms Faiza (or should I say Mr. Amir, or perhaps Bibi Fatimah)?? And who is the Amina Mir?

re harpreet

i wouldnt emigrate cuz

to be honest i couldnt live in pak its too hard if u grew up here and its too damn hot ......

but id visit more often than now for damn sure

since im assuming ur indian doesnt that kind of stuff already go on in bombay and goa ?????????????????

i hear goa is the place to be ..............and abiza to in spain ??????/

whoever posed this qn about muslim girls marryin non muslim guys i wanna ask the reverse how many indian hindu girls marry muslim guys i dont know many do you ???????????????

Urstruly, Dost Mittar,

Dost Mittar, I have been following the responses to your posts with avid interest. I appreciated your list of questions.

re: Urstruly`s post:

``...However, if she renounces her religion (i.e. Islam openly) then she is tried under the Law of Apostasy, for which the capital punishment is prescribed. (Sunni school of thought even exempts women from the capital punishment for Apostasy). The ``honor killing`` that takes place, to which you have indirectly reffered to has no basis in religion. Those people who commit this dastardly act (honor killing)are transgressors. In most cases, however, the honor killing is a crime of passion...``

Urstruly,

Congratulations for being able to understand that honor killing is an excuse for extreme abuse and control.

Can you actually rationalize the state coerced device of capital punishment for a woman who chooses not to follow Islam as being a case of ``different values?``

Again, I wonder how it is that you live in a country that does not proscribe the death penalty for people who refuse to follow Christianity, for example, but instead supports the individual rights of its citizens to choose and practice their beliefs freely, and yet support what amounts to a state terrorism of its citizen`s right to choose his/her belief system. It is rank hypocrisy.

(Don`t get all sniffy about this-your positions are quite astounding. And if you dare start up your ``kanjar`` nonsense, I will make it my personal mission to heckle you off Chowk. Your past modus operandi will not haul your questionable posts out of accountability.)

Drumz

I believe there was a form of yoga that originated in Ethiopia, according to a school of African studies.

fawad79;

[also i want to have bars in pakistan openly

i want dance clubs women in skirts open dating and a few sausage houses ...........]

- The day that happens I am emigrating to Lahore:)

-h-

Pakistani Crackdown Gives Rise to Doubts

South Asia: Curbing Islamic extremism is widely seen as key to easing tensions over Kashmir. But to some, it borders on betrayal.



By TYLER MARSHALL, TIMES STAFF WRITER

MANSEHRA, Pakistan -- The first hint of a government crackdown against Muslim extremist groups in this dusty market town came in January, local businessman Jamil Ahmed recalls.

That`s when police told him to stop collecting money for the militant Al Badr organization, which for nearly a decade ran a training camp in the nearby hills. Locals say it was one of eight such camps in the Mansehra area that turned young Pakistani volunteers into Islamic warriors--known as jihadis--and then launched them across the frontier to fight in the Indian-controlled portion of disputed Kashmir.





By March, jihadi recruiting posters that had lined the streets of this town in Pakistan`s Northwest Frontier Province for years quietly came down, as did billboards proclaiming Indian atrocities against the predominantly Muslim Kashmiris. Then, Ahmed and other residents say, the camps themselves were closed about two months ago and those who ran them vanished. For political moderates here and in India, that`s good news.

Curtailing the jihadi groups is widely viewed as a vital first step in scaling back a crisis that has led India and Pakistan to mass about 1 million troops on their border and raised the frightening prospect of the world`s first war between two nuclear-armed states.

Pakistani officials say the crackdown in Mansehra is part of a broader move against Islamic militant groups that began tentatively this year and appears to have gradually gained greater purpose. Leaders of many of the militant groups were detained last month, according to authorities.

Today, there is little visible evidence in Mansehra of either the jihadis or their cause.

After initial skepticism, India appears to have accepted that Pakistan has stopped militants from crossing the so-called Line of Control that divides Kashmir, but the extent to which their activities inside Pakistan have been halted remains unclear. India, for example, says that at least three training camps still operate in the area around Mansehra--a charge that Pakistan rejects.

``I can say with authority there are no training camps operating now,`` declared army Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, who is leading Pakistan`s efforts to shut down the extremist groups.

Locals, however, refused to take a foreign reporter to visit the camp locations, saying they were afraid of possible reprisals from ``the agencies``--a reference to Pakistani intelligence organizations, including the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, that for years have been the jihadis` main backers within the country`s military establishment.

The government`s follow-up on the initial arrests of suspected militant group members has also raised questions about the crackdown`s effectiveness. For example, 21 militants arrested here in April under an anti-terrorism law were set free recently for lack of evidence.

For President Pervez Musharraf, shutting off support for the jihadi groups means stepping back from a decade-old strategy: using religiously motivated fighters to harass India with a persistent, but effective, low-grade guerrilla campaign in Kashmir.

The mountainous, spectacularly beautiful territory, claimed by India and Pakistan, has been the object of two of their three wars in the last 55 years. After suffering defeat twice in conventional conflicts at the hands of superior Indian forces in Kashmir, Pakistan embraced the jihadis in the late 1980s.

Although government support for the jihadis has always been denied publicly, the groups for years recruited openly, published magazines, solicited donations and operated sophisticated training camps.

Two years ago, Al Badr leader Bakht Zameen even brought a group of Pakistani reporters based in Peshawar to the group`s camp near here to watch a colorful graduation ceremony for recruits who had completed basic training before heading for Kashmir.

``The level of discipline was amazing,`` said one witness who declined to be identified. ``It was like watching an army.``

A 22-year-old volunteer jihadi from Peshawar who used the nom de guerre Uqab said in an interview this week that his main training camp instructors were retired Pakistani army members. He went through a camp run by the Hezb-ul-Moujahedeen group two years ago near Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani-held portion of Kashmir.

Uqab said the camp offered three types of courses, including three-week basic training and a special forces session that taught recruits how to use a variety of weapons, including hand grenades and rocket launchers. The third course lasted six months and was for suicide bombers.

``Very few people are selected for this course,`` Uqab said.

In recent months, actions attributed to the jihadi groups, including a daylight attack in December on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, have exacerbated political tensions between the two nations.

For Musharraf, moving against the Islamic militants carries considerable domestic risks in a country where the struggle to break India`s grip over Kashmir is imbibed with mother`s milk.

Pakistan`s vociferous fundamentalist Islamic minority already resents Musharraf`s decision to abandon Afghanistan`s Taliban government and side with America and the West in the war against international terrorism after Sept. 11. Some now see Musharraf`s clampdown on the Kashmir militants as dangerously close to betrayal.

``People aren`t happy about this,`` said Junus Khattak, a local leader of Pakistan`s largest religious-based party, Jamaat-i-Islami. ``Jihadi groups should be allowed to operate [in Kashmir]. Their fight is on the side of good, on the side of the oppressed.``

But the biggest danger for Musharraf as he moves forward might not be from an angry populace but from disgruntled elements within his ruling establishment, including the ISI and senior ranks of the army.

Some officers in both institutions see the guerrilla campaign not just as an effective and low-cost response to India`s huge military superiority but also as part of a far larger global struggle to end the oppression of Muslims. As such, these officers have developed strong loyalties to the militants.

``Pakistan had success diplomatically after Sept. 11 when it became the centerpiece of an anti-terror campaign, but militarily, it has suffered a huge setback in Kashmir,`` said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a regional specialist at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, the capital. ``The question now is if this really leads to a de-escalation and genuine dialogue for a peaceful settlement of the issue.``

International diplomatic efforts, such as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld`s visit to the region this week, are expected to dwell on measures to verify the frontier`s stability and to coax both sides to pull back military forces and, eventually, begin talks.

Many Pakistanis worry that Musharraf has conceded too much. With the jihadis cut off from Indian-controlled areas, they fear, India`s security forces are likely to move more freely against indigenous Kashmiri separatist groups. Any such action from New Delhi would put pressure on Musharraf to unleash the jihadi groups again, especially if there is no progress toward negotiations.

``If he gets nothing [from India], he`ll ask the militants to lie low and consider his options,`` Rais said. ``He`ll keep the structures [of the militant groups] intact.``

Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-000041298jun12.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dworld

scouty,

{{there`s nothing to gain from being accusatory and negative towards a neighboring country.}}

Aw, come on , Mother Teresa, whats wrong with a little bit of harmless mud slinging?:)

Its a guy thing, OK! You know..mine is bigger than yours...?:)))

Come to think of it, you gals are no better. I mean.. dont you enjoy a khunnas-ka cat fight every now & then?

Let me tell you, I live with 2 feminazis. Talking about PMS. For some reason, when 2 women live under the same roof, their cycles become synchronized. Jesus Christ, when the 2 of them are PMS, I YEARN for the peace & tranquility of the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit!

I grew up with 3 brothers (no sisters), 13 cousin brothers (no cousin sisters), went to an all-boys Catholic school. The first 16 years of my life were extremely easy.

Then I came in contact with another species of humans: WOMEN!! Perhaps thats why I became a Psychiatrist--to try & understand the ``other half`` of humanity. Fat chance! I ask my collegues (even the female shrinks) even THEY cant understand them! I can even figure out CRAZY people, but WOMEN..thats a whooole different ball game!!

The ONLY thing I cant figure out about us men is why we cant live with them & why we cant live without them. I think its because God has cursed us with those damned hormones...

The ONLY people, IMO, who have REALLY figured out women are the fundo muslims. ``Respect them by locking them up in the house..only send them out with an escort & cage them in a burkha``. Anything less & they will eat you alive!

I think there is a lot of wisdom in that logic. I mean, how else can a guy up to marry 4 of them & still retain his sanity is beyond me! (grinning, running & ducking)...

Tribal marriages

In the traditional marriage market, laws of primitive tribalism obtain. These tribalistic laws are given a thin veneer of religion by almost all peoples. Brahminism promulgated such religious laws, Catholics and Protestants did, Jews did.

Hence, common attitudes toward inter-community marriage(of which inter-religion marriages are a special case) can best be understood by the logic of tribalism.

The logic of tribalism has three salient features: (1) Marriage is seen as an EXCHANGE between two families or groups, not a UNION of two souls. (2) Women are considered as chattel, belonging to men. (3) Daily life is pathologically bound up with constant status gaming.

So when two members of a tribalistic universe marry, one group/family ``gives`` a possession (a daughter) to another group/family. The giving party earns status when the gift is given to a HIGHER status group. The giving party loses status when the gift is ``wasted`` on a lower status group. The receiving party earns status when the gift is received from a higher status group. It loses status when it accepts a gift from a lower-status group.

Some implications quickly follow -

1. Irrespective of religion or nationality, people will be far more willing to accept a man from a `higher-status` other group, or a man who himself enjoys high social status.

2. Outgroup women will be far more welcome than outgroup men. However, women from higher-status outgroup are likely to be treated differently than women from lower status groups. Marriage to women from higher status other-group are likely to be relatively ``public`` affairs. When property is received from a `lower status` group, the exchange is less likely to be equally public. In positive situtations, the dominant attitude is likely to be of magnanimity (we are good people; we don`t discriminate). In negative situations, the attitude is likely to be one of condescension (we did you a favor - humare ladke to tau kaisee kaisee ladkiyan mil saktee theen).

3. People with naturally secured status that can not be easily challenged are more likely to accept an outgroup man for their daughters.

4. Even historically, lower status people gave their daughters to higher status people in return for the latter`s protection, friendship, or simply, mercy. Whoever heard of a woman from a higher status group marrying a man from a lower status group?

Old brahminism had a curious dictum. Brahmin women could NEVER EVER marry a non-brahmin man. However, brahmin men could (although it was not advisable) marry non-brahmin women. Brahminism, went the argument, was a great ocean into which women as tributaries could flow, so long as they were willing to lose their prior identitiy, take up the life of brahmins, raising their children as brahmins.

The silliness of such arrogance and bigotry is, ofcourse, astonishing. But in a tribalistic framework it makes perfect sense. For many people - people with weak individual identities - it is the only way.

Cheers.

anNy #474 I know a Pakistani lady who left her Pakistani husband for an Anglo who has not bothered to convert. She (and sometimes her husband) frequently go to Pakistan and no one has a problem with the situation (except perhaps the ex-hubby, but that is his problem).

I dont know how this question came up, or what the point is, but thought I would throw in my two-bits.