Radical Islamism and Jihad
The insurgency produced ‘Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia’, which morphed into
the ‘Islamic State of Iraq’, and then in 2011 became the ‘Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant’....
His passing brings to mind the line spoken by Malcolm, one of the king’s
sons in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, heralding the execution for treason of the
traitorous Lord Cawdor, “Nothing in his life became him like leaving it”....
They felt more comfortable with Zia’s Islamic, status quo, orientation
as opposed to Bhutto’s socialist rhetoric. Unfortunately, some sectarian
groups, Sipah-i -Sahaba and Tehrik-i-Jafena also surfaced and flourished under
Zia’s patronage...
Baghdadi was in US custody in Iraq in 2004, and in the prison camp he
made some of the contacts that later formed the ISIL terrorist organization.
The US at any one time held 25,000 Iraqi young men in camps on suspicion of
trying to resist the US military occupation, brutalizing and further
radicalizing them. ...
An online magazine catering to supporters of the Islamic State in
Southeast Asia is not the first place you might expect to find a spread
featuring an illustration of a pink flower. But there it was amid articles
about beheadings and bombings in an issue last year of Al-Fatihin, or The
Conquerors....
As its so-called caliphate expanded across large parts of Syria and
Iraq, the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group promised its followers an
apocalyptic battle to come, a victory over the “crusader armies” that would
usher in the day of judgment and birth a new world....
A North-South breakup of SF fatalities over the last nine years
indicates that SF fatalities in North Balochistan – afflicted by Islamist
terrorist formations – are consistently higher than South Balochistan – where
rebel Baloch nationalist organisations operate....
Let
us ponder over the Zahir and Nass related to the verse 9:5 “kill
the Mushrikin wherever you find them”. This verse is Zahir in its
commanding the believers to kill the Mushrikin wherever they are found, whereas
this verse is Nass in its commanding the believers to fight against the
religious persecutors and violators of peace-treaty in the state of war....
Trump deserves full credit for approving the operation that led to
Baghdadi’s demise. It’s a shame the information that led to the raid apparently
did not come to him before the tragic decision to abruptly pull U.S. Special
Forces from much of northeastern Syria...
However, over the past few years, Moscow, Tehran and Beijing have warmed
up to the Taliban. Obviously, they have both interests and apprehensions
attached to the group and its state of war or peace....
A few months back, the Al Qaeda's head Ayman Al Zawahiri had released a
message exhorting Muslim youth of Kashmir to wage jihad in Kashmir. Zawahiri
considers himself the self-styled leader of Muslims whereas the reality is that
Al Qaida is a terrorist organisation and the Islamic jurists have unanimously
declared them Kharijites. Kharijites are the extremist Muslims who fought even
Hazrat Ali (RA) and assassinated him, although they were a breakaway group of
his own party...
The future of political Islam will depend on the extent to which the
protesters achieve their goals through effective organization and prove able to
persuade reluctant militaries to give up their power. Failure to achieve these
results might resurrect a more hardened political Islam....
What uses can and should
be made of the power and the forces that we still possess? How vigilant must we
be—and against what new dangers? We owe it to ourselves, to the Kurds, to other
like-minded friends and allies—and to the forgotten peoples of Darfur, Yemen,
Somalia, and the Sahel—to answer these questions....
The Islamic State of Medina was
the ideal manifestation of coexistence, pluralism and diversity amongst
humanity. What convinces people to believe in this self-created bogey is a
distorted and twisted explanation of some of the verses of Quran, Ahadees of
the Holy Messenger SAW, and some misquoted historic incidents....
Fissiparous forces like the simmering Baloch
resistance and the Pashtun Tahaffuz movement will remain thorny issues, which
could develop adverse momentum if not handled with maturity….
“The
group remains a financial powerhouse,” boldly proclaims the Atlantic. “It still
has access to hundreds of millions of dollars, according to experts’ estimates,
and can rely on a battle-tested playbook to keep money flowing into its
coffers.”...
A unified society rather than a fragmented one will be the best
resistance to the ever growing trend of militant extremism in Pakistan.
Religious tolerance and moderation are the key words towards de-radicalization
in Pakistani society….
The politically sensitive issue of ‘disrespecting’ Islam will have to be
deftly handled by the Government, and not be allowed to undermine much needed initiatives
against radicalisation and terrorism....
The call for innovation is particularly significant as it is a reaction
to successful counterterrorism measures by many states which have weakened
al-Qaeda Central and ISIL....
Tragically, a few years from now, Syria will be right back where it was
before the campaign against ISIS: suffering from chaos and conflict, with
terrorism ascendant...
Their sermons targeted India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, US and, to some
extent, Pakistan. This group had already started identifying themselves as AQ
in “Barre Saghir” (South Asia), suggesting a South Asia-focused AQ branch,
which was exhorting Muslims of these countries to wage jihad in their own
countries against pro-West governments....
I attached a picture of Wiranto’s family during a funeral of his
grandson in November 2018 which went viral on social media for its exposure of
his daughter, Lia Wiranto, who wore a Niqab (full-face veil) and her
husband, who sat next to her, wearing a white turban. At that time the image
led to speculations that some members of Wiranto’s family had joined a radical
group....
Mr. President,
Islamophobia and Islamist
violence are both growing and in the unlikeliest of places. Recent attacks on
churches in Sri Lanka were as much of a surprise as the attack on mosques in
Christchurch. And now copycat attacks are taking place elsewhere. A vicious
cycle of xenophobic violence is in operation.
While the world suffers
from Jihadist violence, Muslims in particular suffer the most causalities in
sectarian wars incited by the Islamist Jihadist ideology. And yet, even almost
two decades after 9/11, Muslim nations continue to be in denial. Islamist
ideology based on the Islamic theology of consensus is absolved of any
responsibility for violent extremism.
The result is that Muslim
children continue to be taught in madrasas Islam supremacism and contempt for
other religions. Even explicitly violent passages have not yet been weeded out
from text books.
The terrorism it generates
takes many shapes. If Hindu, Sikh and Christian girls are abducted and forcibly
converted to Islam in Pakistan, this too essentially comes from contempt for
other religions taught in religious seminaries. In several countries including
Pakistan, some Muslims do not wait for courts to pass judgements to punish
those they consider guilty.
The Council should convince the offending
states to establish the rule of law on the basis of the UN Charter and repeal
unacceptable laws against freedom of religion and conscience.-----
We need to consider two things here; firstly if the act of Shirk
(polytheism) had been the cause of fighting, the peace-treaty would not have
been signed between the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the Mushrikin of
Makkah. Secondly, if those Mushrikin had not been the religious persecutors or
the violators of the peace-treaty, the fighting would not have occurred. ..
Dr
Ayman al-Zawahiri, you should have sought to understand the philosophy of
Kashmiriyat that reigns in Kashmir before writing your latest missive. The
Muslims of Kashmir have traditionally understood the message of Islam much
better than the fundamentalists and exclusivists who present Islam as a
totalitarian, fascist, political ideology of world domination, which seeks to
eliminate all the scores of religions sent by God before Prophet Mohammad. This
is the reason why even those Kashmiri politicians who now advocate secession
have contested elections for the legislative Assemblies constituted under
India’s secular and progressive constitution. This is the reason why only a few
Kashmiri youth have taken to the path of terror, which you call Jihad. Most of
the terrorism seen in the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been part of a proxy
war waged by neighbouring Pakistan for its own ends. Pakistan, of course, has
turned export of terrorism to a fine art, affecting all corners of the globe....