Afghanistan: The Fog of War, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Afghanistan: The Fog of War

By Arun Gupta

Anand Gopal has gone where few others reporters have been.

Currently correspondent for The Wall Street Journal based in Kabul, Afghanistan, Gopal embedded with the Taliban in 2008, giving him unique insight into a force that was swept away by the U.S. invasion after the 9/11 attacks but still rules much of the countryside and has battled Western forces to a stalemate.

In his writings, Gopal explains that while every “suicide attack and kidnapping is usually attributed to ‘the Taliban’ … the insurgency is far from monolithic.” The United States is battling a diverse group of fighters, Gopal says. “There are the shadowy, kohl-eyed mullahs and head-bobbing religious students, of course, but there are also erudite university students; poor, illiterate farmers, and veteran anti-Soviet commanders. The movement is a mélange of nationalists, Islamists and bandits that fall uneasily into three or four main factions. The factions themselves are made up of competing commanders with differing ideologies and strategies who nonetheless agree on one essential goal: kicking out the foreigners.”

Gopal notes the Taliban are drawn from the Pashtun ethnic group. “They are motivated by joblessness, bad government and U.S. military violence. They have a good deal of support from the locals and they are a different breed of Taliban from the ones that were there in the 1990s.”

http://newageislam.com/afghanistan--the-fog-of-war/war-on-terror/d/2289

The autonomous jihad in America, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

The autonomous jihad in America

By Praveen Swami

Nov 23, 2009

Once distant enemies now pose a real threat to the U.S. at home.

“By god,” said al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a 2002 broadcast, “the youths of god are preparing for you things that would fill your hearts with terror and target your economic lifeline until you stop your oppression and aggression.”

Ever since February, authorities have detected almost a dozen jihadist operations targeting the United States — or using it as a staging post for attacks elsewhere. In March, at least 20 men were reported to have returned home to fight with the Islamist group al-Shahab — recruited by a Somali-American cell operating out of Minneapolis. Four men were held in May for planting inactive explosives, provided by a police informant, outside synagogues in New York. The next month, seven North Carolina men were held for planning attacks in Israel and Pakistan.September saw the detection of three major plots. Inspired by Islamists at a Flushing mosque, and his imagination fired by the Indian televangelist Zakir Naik, Afghan-born and Pakistan-trained Najibullah Zazi is alleged to have been preparing to set off several improvised explosive devices. Jordanian Hosam Maher Smadi and Illinois resident Michael Finton were also held for attempting to set off car bombs which had been provided to them by undercover agents.

http://newageislam.com/the-autonomous-jihad-in-america/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/2126

Killing of apostates from Islam: Pakistan, Somalia and UK, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Killing of apostates from Islam: Pakistan, Somalia and UK

In Somalia another four converts from Islam have just been beheaded by radical Sunni Islamists who desire a 100 percent fanatical state. The four Christians were killed by the Al-Shabab on the grounds of "fitna." Fitna applies to creating religious discord and in the minds of Al-Shabab, all converts who leave Islam must be killed in accordance with the Koran and Hadiths.

Therefore, a natural liberty, religious freedom, which exists in the "free world" is being denied many and clearly radical Sunni Islamists are intent on Islamizing the world by killing all minorities within their Islamized states, for example in Afghanistan and Somalia.

On the one hand, we have radical Sunni Islamists beheading people or burning people alive; and on the other hand we have state sanctioned victimization of religious minorities and the persecution of apostates from Islam.

Given this, it is clear that the methodology of radical Sunni Islamists is more brutal with regards to beheading people or burning them alive. Yet the mentality of religious persecution exists within mainstream Islam because the majority of mainly Muslim nations have policies which infringe on religious liberty.

Not only this, the mindset of discrimination is rampant within religious communities and while the liberals enjoy lambasting their own respective cultures and appeasing Islam in the West; they remain silent about mass discrimination within the Muslim community towards non-Muslims and apostates.

http://newageislam.com/killing-of-apostates-from-islam--pakistan,-somalia-and-uk-/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1691

Distinguish more clearly between moderate, non-violent Islamists and terrorists, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Distinguish more clearly between moderate, non-violent Islamists and terrorists

Islamists, US policy and Arab democracy

John L Esposito

Al-Ahram Weekly, August 22, 2009

The continued detention of Abdel-Moneim Abu Fatouh, prominent professional, Muslim Brotherhood leader, and moderate voice for reform is a reminder of the need to distinguish more clearly between moderate (non-violent) Islamists and terrorists. US and European policymakers must pursue a diplomatic path of engagement and dialogue with moderate Islamists and with Arab and Muslim partners at the same time that they use a military strategy to capture and contain Muslim terrorists.

Islamist parties are an integral part of Muslim politics and societies and they are not going away. Since the late 20th century Islamic-oriented candidates and political parties in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia have opted for reform through ballots, not bullets. They have successfully contested and won municipal and parliamentary seats, held cabinet positions, and served in senior positions such as prime minister of Turkey and president of Indonesia. Elections since late 2001 in Pakistan, Turkey, Bahrain and Morocco, as well as in Palestine, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have reinforced the continued saliency of Islam in Muslim politics in the 21st century.

A critical challenge today is to distinguish between mainstream and extremist groups, secular and religious, and to work with democratically elected Islamists. US administrations and many European governments have often said that they distinguish between mainstream and extremist groups. However, more often that not, they have looked the other way when autocratic rulers in Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere have intimidated and suppressed mainstream Islamist groups or attempted to reverse their electoral successes.

http://newageislam.com/distinguish-more-clearly-between-moderate,-non-violent-islamists-and-terrorists-/islam-and-the-west/d/1804

Will 2009 BE KASHMIR’S YEAR OF DELIVERANCE?

Will 2009 BE KASHMIR’S YEAR OF DELIVERANCE?

Politics at the crossroads of past and present

Praveen Swami

PDP politicians chose not to confront the Islamists. Instead, the party lurched into a cycle of competitive chauvinism, in an effort to appropriate the Islamists’ causes and use state power to realise them. Hindu fundamentalists in Jammu, in turn, used this campaign to initiate their own communal programme, built around cow-protection and opposition to supposed ethnic-Kashmiri expansionism. In the summer, these tensions exploded in the form of protests for and against land-use rights to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board — with terrible consequences.

http://www.newageislam.com/will-2009-be-kashmir%E2%80%99s-year-of-deliverance?--/current-affairs/d/1089