US Bribing Pakistani Media

The Obama administration plans to spend nearly $50 million on Pakistani media this year to reverse anti-American sentiments and raise awareness of projects aimed at improving quality of life, confirms a Washington insider.

Voice of America, a radio and TV platform that speaks for the government of the US already has a tie-up with Geo TV and now they have aligned with Express TV as well.

But the Obama administration must understand that media can never undo the damage, physically and mentally to those innocent people whose lives are affected. What would really help turn Pakistani public opinion around would be the immediate cessation of US drone attacks, which kill scores of innocent people; women, children, the elderly, and the medically infirm, repatriate Dr Aafia Siddiqui and other innocents, who are falsely accused and stop doing covert operations inside Pakistan.

Fore investigative stories, documentaries, research reports and analysis on international politics, please visit our website www.xtribune.com

Leading Muslim cleric killed in suicide bomb attack in Lahore

A prominent Pakistani Muslim cleric who founded a religious alliance against the Taleban was killed today in a suicide bomb attack on his Islamic college in the eastern city of Lahore.

Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi appeared to have been the target of the blast in his office at the Jamia Naeemia madrassa, which he headed and where he had just conducted Friday prayers.

Dr Naeemi — whose father founded the madrassa and who was well known and respected in Lahore and across Pakistan — died on the way to hospital, according to his son, Waqar.

“I was still in the mosque when I heard a big bang. We rushed towards the office and there was a smell of explosives in the air. There was blood and several people were crying in pain,” Waqar said.

Geo TV showed Dr Naeemi’s body lying on a stretcher, his beard and hair covered in dust and blood stains around his nostrils.

Tariq Saleem Dogar, the Punjab provincial police chief, denounced the attack on the madrassa — which taught maths and computer science as well as Islamic studies — as un-Islamic.

“It could not be an act of a Muslim to carry out an attack in a mosque,” he said.

In another blast at around the same time, a suicide car bomber struck near a mosque in the northwestern town of Nowshera, killing at least three people, police said.

The attacks are the latest in a spate of bombings which local officials say are revenge for Pakistan’s army launching an offensive against the Taleban in and around the northwestern region of Swat last month.

They came the day after the army opened a new front against the Taleban near the tribal region of Waziristan, and the US House of Representatives approved tripling aid to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion a year for the next five years.

Dr Naeemi appears to have been targeted because he had been integral in helping to generate political, religious and public support for the army’s campaign in Swat over the last few weeks.

Last month, he established the Sunni Itehad Council, an alliance of more than 22 Islamic groups and political parties with the explicit goal of opposing the Taleban.

The council claims to represent about 85 million Pakistani followers of the moderate Barelvi school of Sunni Islam, which incorporates music and mysticism and venerates saints and their shrines.

“The Taleban is a stigma on Islam,” Dr Naeemi told The Times in an interview at his madressah last month.

“That is why we will support our Government and our army and their right to destroy the Taleban. We will save Pakistan.” The Taleban preaches an extreme version of the Deobandi school of Sunni Islam, which maintains that many Barelvi practices are un-Islamic and advocates the use of violence against Barelvis and Shia Muslims.

Militants have destroyed several Barelvi shrines in the northwest in recent months.

There are no precise statistics but experts believe that at least half of Pakistan’s 173 million people are Barelvi, and about 20 to 25 per cent Deobandi. Another 20 per cent are Shia. Source

What have Muslims done in since 9-11 to denounce Terrorism

In Iran, they observed a minute's silence for the victims of 9/11. Ayatollah Imami Kashani said this act of terrorism could only be condemned by all Muslims, adding that the whole world should mobilise against terrorism. On September 18th, Iranians held a vigil on the streets of Tehran. They lit candles, prayed for the victims, and condemned terrorism.

In Bangladesh and Indonesia they held rallies condemning terrorism.

Palestinian organizations strongly condemned the terrorist attack. Palestinians held candle light vigils on September 12th and 14th to express their grief and solidarity with Americans. Close to a million Palestinian students stood for five minutes in silence, to express their solidarity for American children who were struck by the tragedy. Palestinian university students in East Jerusalem began a blood drive to donate blood to the victims of 9/11.

In Kuwait, they sent so many flowers in sympathy to the American Embassy, it formed a ring around the embassy.

Every leader, from every Muslim country, except Iraq, condemned the terrorist attack and denounced terrorism, along with thousands of Muslim organizations and scholars around the world.

American Muslims held a rally in Washington attended by thousands to condemn terrorism.

Here in the United States, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), American Muslim Alliance, American Muslim Council, Muslim Public Affairs Council, Muslim American Society, Islamic Society of North America, Islamic Circle of North America, Muslim Alliance in North America, and American Muslims for Jerusalem all condemned the attacks and denounced terrorism. These groups represent most of the seven million Muslims in the United States. None of it made national headlines, just local headlines.

Thanks to Isabella-37

Benazir killer responsible for Lahore attack: Pakistan

Director General of Pakistani Rangers General Yaqoob Khan said that Hizratullah, the terrorist captured alive during Monday's attack at the academy, said that he was sent by Baitullah Masood. Pakistani initiated UN investigations are it appears are a political swindle - The killer is known it is not 'foreign' it is within...will the government now take measures to stop the investigation and get the 5m US $ of a very poor nation back. The killer is known to everyone from the day one.

Baitullah Mehsud- is the enemy within!!

The killers are hunting the nation. What a dishonor, the killer who was obvious caught on tape from day one was left to operate and given an advantage of uncertainty for opinionated gains which were minimalistic. Politics cannot be played on dead bodies, that callous display of opportunism overlooked by nearly all and sundry in Pakistan is today consuming the public like a cancer. Heartless assassins removed an icon of democracy and pluralism in Pakistan, however, political expediency took over the better of our conscious, in a sorrowful display of politics over her dead body the nation imploded within. Her killers remain at large in the wilderness.

Mehsud has claimed responsibility for Monday's attack at the police training academy on the outskirts of Lahore. The opportunity to grab them was lost by the present leadership, when she was assassinated the leadership instead of condemning Mehsud politicised the carnage and pointed fingers at government in supremacy. Now in a peculiar turn of events this outrageous politicisation has come to a full turn.

The real culprits who want to subvert Pakistan and make it a 'religious caliphate' were given a clean slate by a bunch of very 'secular imprudent people.' The real murderers can now cherry pick their leaders to eliminate and still get away with all this carnage. We and our 'dillydallying' as a nation are paying a price for ineptitude and power lusty gamesmanship post-BB murder. The political leadership of our country remains inept, futile and totally power hungry with no idea of penalties emerging from dreadful results of political expediency.

I wrote at the time that for sake of record one should note that politicising an ideologically stimulated slaughter will bring great damage to Pakistan. Baitullah today has been accused by the Pakistanis as the brain behind the Lahore incident and now pointed as BB killer. The nation lost a great change to channel the combined hatred of nation to eliminate Al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban, the message of Qatil league - Mush nexus divided a conspiracy prone nation in 90/10% divide where 90% believed that it was government agencies, it created a rift with the Army and golden opportunity to unleash full force of government behind the killers of BB was lost to political gamesmanship and point scoring. Political Islam pre-occupation with global enforcement of the Shariah law and establishment of a global capihate on a papal style has been a wish that has never died amngst the faithful. From 'Wahabbi elements to Ayatolahs and to the secular Turks' in one form or the other the dream is alive. Taliban has driven this dream relentlessly with blood, horror and killings.

I owe this article to the soul of BB; the shameless accusation of her death through a nonexistent bullet that was never the case (Scotland Yard report), and the crime scene being washed by overeager foolish police diluted the emphasis on the main culprit and effectively put Pakistanis on a collision course with their own selves. Scandalous politicising of her remembrance is the ultimate human and moral low with which some of these present leaders who played with her demise will have to live with. If not their own conscience that should prick them daily, I am sure history will not forgive them. Read More here



Sallam Alaykum / Peace be unto you

Please share