Forty-eight dead, 150 injured in Karachi's Shia area bomb attack
- Thread starter janon
- Start date
somebozo
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2010
- Messages
- 18,872
- Reaction score
- -4
- Country
- Location
Silencing critical thinking by labeling anti-this and anti-that has led us to the social fragmentation we suffering from today. Ideological "terrorist" are far more dangerous than armed men of SSP, AWSJ and LeJ. Because while they create limited damage with bullets, the mental indoctrination by ideological terrorist reaches far more young minds and creates far more lethal foot soldiers than few armed men of LeJ and AWSJ!
Had terrorism been curbed on ideological front during its infancy, Pakistan would not see a day today as rapidly failing state.
Arabs are neither saints nor god sent and as with any free society, I have the right to criticize their ills as much as I wish!
Repeating the same point over and over could be annoying but @muse has a point. He is pointing at the deep fractures present in our society created over several decades and the hammer happens to be in completely different part of the world!
Last edited by a moderator:
somebozo
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2010
- Messages
- 18,872
- Reaction score
- -4
- Country
- Location
Quran as a Constitution
Quran as Science
Quran as the future
Quran as the concentrate of all science mankind every needs to know.
Clergy + Imperialism + easy wealth creates a dangerous mix with propagates all of the above deviant and idiotic thoughts. I have seen it all through my own eyes!
Still if your friend actually traveled to KSA last year, let me assert this with confidence that he is simply B*llshitting!
Numerous forces inside Pakistan are trying to turn a republic into a theocratic state like Iran or Arabia and let me state is bluntly that military establishment is the biggest traitor to the nation in this regards. They either refuse to take solid steps or actually co-operate with the jeehadist scum!
I have lived through the era of Fahd in Saudi Arabia and have witnessed the entire religious fanaticism fiasco as well!
I despise people who take religion without critical thinking and historic research!
EyelessInGaza
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2009
- Messages
- 1,378
- Reaction score
- 0
Are there any special courts/ laws in Pakistan to try and punish the perpetrators of such activities? I ask because it seems that the current judicial system seems to be unable to cope, to the point that individuals within agencies (police, judiciary, etc) seem to be threatened and targeted by the terrorists.
Extra judicial sentencing/ executions may be an overkill because of the possibility of gross misuse (although at this stage some may be willing to pay even that price). But a system that catches the perps, convicts them and carries out the sentence is an absolute pre-requisite to a long term solution.
Below is all off topic.
I will give brief answers - Kali Bari, Dehi and the one in the City palace in Jaipur near the Hawa Mahal (forget the name). Disgusting behaviour as in worshippers being judged and treated on the size of their donations and poor people getting short shrift. I also know how the Trust system works; that does not prevent what goes on at the ground level.
I started this OT train of thought but this is now way off topic and my this is my final response on this thread. You can start another thread if you want. I will be happy to elaborate there.
Extra judicial sentencing/ executions may be an overkill because of the possibility of gross misuse (although at this stage some may be willing to pay even that price). But a system that catches the perps, convicts them and carries out the sentence is an absolute pre-requisite to a long term solution.
Below is all off topic.
I will give brief answers - Kali Bari, Dehi and the one in the City palace in Jaipur near the Hawa Mahal (forget the name). Disgusting behaviour as in worshippers being judged and treated on the size of their donations and poor people getting short shrift. I also know how the Trust system works; that does not prevent what goes on at the ground level.
I started this OT train of thought but this is now way off topic and my this is my final response on this thread. You can start another thread if you want. I will be happy to elaborate there.
Contrarian
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2006
- Messages
- 11,571
- Reaction score
- 4
They are discussing points with reason and logic.
They are not simply blaming away the issues or using a foul language.
Ultimately the purpose of this forum is exactly this - a discussion which uses intelligence and logic. These two gentlemen are holding the exact same standards.
muse
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2006
- Messages
- 13,006
- Reaction score
- 0
We have amongst us, people who seek to to always put a lid on critical thinking, on criticism itself -- Why? Do these people not understand that criticism and critical thought will not, can not, be stopped - they say that pointing out a particular ideology is to "derail" threads, what they mean is that they do not like the criticism, and its their right to like or not like it, to think it reasonable or not, but they are better served if they get used to dealing with criticism in a constructive manner - you bunch know who you are and so do we - shape up, pay attention:
While some Saudi youth question the ideology, Pakistanis who pimp Wahabism, continue to play more Catholic than the Pope:
Saudi Youth “question” Wahabism
by Caryle Murphy
Source: al-monitor.com
On March 30, 2012, a little-noticed but remarkable document from young Saudis was posted online.
Beneath its cumbersome title — “Statement of Saudi Youth Regarding the Guarantee of Freedoms and Ethics of Diversity” — it challenged a central tenet of the kingdom’s ultraconservative religious establishment: That it has the right to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on all Saudis.
“No one can claim monopoly of truth or righteousness in the name of Islamic law (Shariah),” declared the statement, many of whose 2,600 signatories were in their 20s. “We are young citizens who seek to create a … community that follows the example of the prophet, peace be upon him, under pluralism of thought … [and] we reject this patriarchal guardianship which forbids us from practicing our God-given right to think and explore for ourselves, as we can listen and judge.”
The statement underscored the religious ferment brewing in the kingdom, especially among young people. Official religious orthodoxy has ruptured, religious attitudes are more fluid and diverse, and there is greater questioning of long-held assumptions.
How this youthful religious exploration plays out will be key to the kingdom’s governance in the years ahead because of the Saudi government’s close alliance with a clerical establishment that sees its primary charge as upholding — and spreading — the austere, anti-intellectual and inflexible version of Salafi Islam known as Wahhabism.
Young Saudis overwhelmingly want the kingdom’s commitment to Islam to remain firm and in their personal lives they remain devout, observant followers of their faith.
But increasingly, they demonstrate less willingness to accept their religious heritage without re-examination, as their parents did. They are more willing to question a fatwa or ignore it; some are daring to openly discuss taboo subjects like atheism. Increasingly too, they favor a religious practice that is more voluntary, less enforced by the state, and more respectful of differences among Muslims.
Portending a crisis of religious authority in Saudi Arabia, young people complain that state-employed clerics are too negative, always stressing what’s forbidden, and that they focus too much on trivial matters without addressing the problems of youth and morally perplexing issues of modern life.
“Before, if anyone talked about religious [things], I listened,” said a 25-year-old high school teacher in the religiously conservative town of Buraida, north of Riyadh. “But now, even if you are a religious man, I don’t trust you because you always talk about things that are not very important for society. Sometimes society has a lot of problems and you are silent. I don’t want that.”
A 28-year-old from Asir studying for his doctorate abroad declared in an interview: “I do not trust Saudi [religious] scholars. Ones from Kuwait and Egypt are more open-minded, they are telling the truth. Ours are not telling the truth. They lost their credibility.”
Disillusioned with official sheikhs, young Saudis are searching elsewhere, even abroad, for spiritual guidance. Two of the most popular religious figures among young Saudis do not hold official positions. Like most Saudi clerics they are accessible on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as their own websites.
Salman Al Audah is a long-time critic of the government and his praise of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt brought sanctions from the Saudi government: He was banned from traveling abroad and his popular television show was canceled. By contrast, Mohammed Al Arifi, a professor at Riyadh’s King Saud University, supports the government unreservedly. Sometimes called the “Tom Cruise of Wahhabism” because Saudi women regard him as handsome, he is less scholarly than Al Audah, using an earthy humor to attract a youthful audience.
Some young Saudis are going even further in a search for new ways to interpret Islam. For the past three years, a small group has met outside the kingdom in neighboring states to discuss such matters at an annual conference called Ennahda ["Renaissance"] Forum.
“We want to talk about how to change. … So we created a forum to just talk and share ideas with a high ceiling of freedom of speech,” said Mustafa Al Hasan, 36, an assistant professor of Qur’anic exegesis at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran and one of the Forum’s organizers.
In an interview, Al Hasan said that between the annual conference people are meeting in small, informal discussion groups that don’t follow any particular sheikh, which he called a new development in the kingdom’s religious landscape. Participants are mainly 18 to 30 years old, he added, and insist on one thing: no violence.
“They don’t trust the old form of Islam, the old clerics,” Al Hasan said. “They are against the old and not yet to the new. They are thinking.”
Unlike in the past, youths today are not mainly concerned with what Islam prescribes about how to dress, how to wear their hair or how to deal with the opposite gender, Al Hasan said. Rather, their “main concern now is citizenship, freedom, human rights. … We want to have these ideas connected to Islamic thinking.”
These trends are likely to grow for several reasons, including easy access to the Internet and exposure to other cultures during study overseas. Some ultraconservative clerics, fearful that young Saudis are straying from the Wahhabi tradition, have strenuously objected to the government’s overseas education program, which currently supports 145,000 Saudi students in 30 countries, about half of them in the United States.
Young Saudis also are being affected by the intensified debate about Islam’s role in public life sparked by the Arab Awakening and the new preeminence of Islamist political parties, particularly in Egypt. They of course come to this debate from a different starting place than their Tunisian or Egyptian peers, who reached adulthood under secular-oriented states. For Saudis, the dilemma is not so much Islam’s leading role in governance and public life — which most are not challenging — but rather the enforced dominance of one sect, that is, Wahhabism.
The government is sensitive to these religious trends and has already made it clear that it won’t tolerate much theological dissent by arresting a handful of Saudis whose tweets about religious topics were deemed blasphemous. Clerics, both inside and outside the government, are also nervous as they see their influence waning.
“Among young people and the generations of tomorrow, I think religious people won’t have that much power over them,” said Muhammad Al Ojaimi, a 30-year-old Islamist political activist who works with Saudi youth and was instrumental in drafting the online statement.
“The flaws of being governed by religious principles are beginning to show now, Al Ojaimi added. “It’s not really the right way to govern people.… It’s just starting to [be accepted] that people should be governed not by religion but by laws in general, disregarding whatever religion has to do with them.”
While some Saudi youth question the ideology, Pakistanis who pimp Wahabism, continue to play more Catholic than the Pope:
Saudi Youth “question” Wahabism
by Caryle Murphy
Source: al-monitor.com
On March 30, 2012, a little-noticed but remarkable document from young Saudis was posted online.
Beneath its cumbersome title — “Statement of Saudi Youth Regarding the Guarantee of Freedoms and Ethics of Diversity” — it challenged a central tenet of the kingdom’s ultraconservative religious establishment: That it has the right to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on all Saudis.
“No one can claim monopoly of truth or righteousness in the name of Islamic law (Shariah),” declared the statement, many of whose 2,600 signatories were in their 20s. “We are young citizens who seek to create a … community that follows the example of the prophet, peace be upon him, under pluralism of thought … [and] we reject this patriarchal guardianship which forbids us from practicing our God-given right to think and explore for ourselves, as we can listen and judge.”
The statement underscored the religious ferment brewing in the kingdom, especially among young people. Official religious orthodoxy has ruptured, religious attitudes are more fluid and diverse, and there is greater questioning of long-held assumptions.
How this youthful religious exploration plays out will be key to the kingdom’s governance in the years ahead because of the Saudi government’s close alliance with a clerical establishment that sees its primary charge as upholding — and spreading — the austere, anti-intellectual and inflexible version of Salafi Islam known as Wahhabism.
Young Saudis overwhelmingly want the kingdom’s commitment to Islam to remain firm and in their personal lives they remain devout, observant followers of their faith.
But increasingly, they demonstrate less willingness to accept their religious heritage without re-examination, as their parents did. They are more willing to question a fatwa or ignore it; some are daring to openly discuss taboo subjects like atheism. Increasingly too, they favor a religious practice that is more voluntary, less enforced by the state, and more respectful of differences among Muslims.
Portending a crisis of religious authority in Saudi Arabia, young people complain that state-employed clerics are too negative, always stressing what’s forbidden, and that they focus too much on trivial matters without addressing the problems of youth and morally perplexing issues of modern life.
“Before, if anyone talked about religious [things], I listened,” said a 25-year-old high school teacher in the religiously conservative town of Buraida, north of Riyadh. “But now, even if you are a religious man, I don’t trust you because you always talk about things that are not very important for society. Sometimes society has a lot of problems and you are silent. I don’t want that.”
A 28-year-old from Asir studying for his doctorate abroad declared in an interview: “I do not trust Saudi [religious] scholars. Ones from Kuwait and Egypt are more open-minded, they are telling the truth. Ours are not telling the truth. They lost their credibility.”
Disillusioned with official sheikhs, young Saudis are searching elsewhere, even abroad, for spiritual guidance. Two of the most popular religious figures among young Saudis do not hold official positions. Like most Saudi clerics they are accessible on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as their own websites.
Salman Al Audah is a long-time critic of the government and his praise of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt brought sanctions from the Saudi government: He was banned from traveling abroad and his popular television show was canceled. By contrast, Mohammed Al Arifi, a professor at Riyadh’s King Saud University, supports the government unreservedly. Sometimes called the “Tom Cruise of Wahhabism” because Saudi women regard him as handsome, he is less scholarly than Al Audah, using an earthy humor to attract a youthful audience.
Some young Saudis are going even further in a search for new ways to interpret Islam. For the past three years, a small group has met outside the kingdom in neighboring states to discuss such matters at an annual conference called Ennahda ["Renaissance"] Forum.
“We want to talk about how to change. … So we created a forum to just talk and share ideas with a high ceiling of freedom of speech,” said Mustafa Al Hasan, 36, an assistant professor of Qur’anic exegesis at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran and one of the Forum’s organizers.
In an interview, Al Hasan said that between the annual conference people are meeting in small, informal discussion groups that don’t follow any particular sheikh, which he called a new development in the kingdom’s religious landscape. Participants are mainly 18 to 30 years old, he added, and insist on one thing: no violence.
“They don’t trust the old form of Islam, the old clerics,” Al Hasan said. “They are against the old and not yet to the new. They are thinking.”
Unlike in the past, youths today are not mainly concerned with what Islam prescribes about how to dress, how to wear their hair or how to deal with the opposite gender, Al Hasan said. Rather, their “main concern now is citizenship, freedom, human rights. … We want to have these ideas connected to Islamic thinking.”
These trends are likely to grow for several reasons, including easy access to the Internet and exposure to other cultures during study overseas. Some ultraconservative clerics, fearful that young Saudis are straying from the Wahhabi tradition, have strenuously objected to the government’s overseas education program, which currently supports 145,000 Saudi students in 30 countries, about half of them in the United States.
Young Saudis also are being affected by the intensified debate about Islam’s role in public life sparked by the Arab Awakening and the new preeminence of Islamist political parties, particularly in Egypt. They of course come to this debate from a different starting place than their Tunisian or Egyptian peers, who reached adulthood under secular-oriented states. For Saudis, the dilemma is not so much Islam’s leading role in governance and public life — which most are not challenging — but rather the enforced dominance of one sect, that is, Wahhabism.
The government is sensitive to these religious trends and has already made it clear that it won’t tolerate much theological dissent by arresting a handful of Saudis whose tweets about religious topics were deemed blasphemous. Clerics, both inside and outside the government, are also nervous as they see their influence waning.
“Among young people and the generations of tomorrow, I think religious people won’t have that much power over them,” said Muhammad Al Ojaimi, a 30-year-old Islamist political activist who works with Saudi youth and was instrumental in drafting the online statement.
“The flaws of being governed by religious principles are beginning to show now, Al Ojaimi added. “It’s not really the right way to govern people.… It’s just starting to [be accepted] that people should be governed not by religion but by laws in general, disregarding whatever religion has to do with them.”
muse
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2006
- Messages
- 13,006
- Reaction score
- 0
We were not busy attending a wedding during Abbas Town blast: CM Sindh
March 7, 2013
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Thursday rejected the notion that government officials and police were busy at a dinner rather than tending to victims of the twin bombings in Abbas Town on March 3, 2013, Express News reported.
Shah said that told the Sindh Assembly on Thursday that the blast took place at 7pm while Sharmila Farooqui’s event was scheduled for 9pm.
“We reached the blast site 40 minutes after the incident.”
The minister also told the assembly that the government is taking the incident seriously and an investigation is being carried out. “Some people have admitted to it as well, but we won’t reveal their names now because then they will be released tomorrow,” he added.
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Sharmila Farooqi received widespread public criticism after it was reported that large contingents of police personnel in the city were deployed at her engagement-related celebrations at the time of the blast. Media reports and the public had questioned why security forces were not present hours after twin blasts occurred.
Farooqi had termed the accusations “ridiculous”.
March 7, 2013
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Thursday rejected the notion that government officials and police were busy at a dinner rather than tending to victims of the twin bombings in Abbas Town on March 3, 2013, Express News reported.
Shah said that told the Sindh Assembly on Thursday that the blast took place at 7pm while Sharmila Farooqui’s event was scheduled for 9pm.
“We reached the blast site 40 minutes after the incident.”
The minister also told the assembly that the government is taking the incident seriously and an investigation is being carried out. “Some people have admitted to it as well, but we won’t reveal their names now because then they will be released tomorrow,” he added.
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Sharmila Farooqi received widespread public criticism after it was reported that large contingents of police personnel in the city were deployed at her engagement-related celebrations at the time of the blast. Media reports and the public had questioned why security forces were not present hours after twin blasts occurred.
Farooqi had termed the accusations “ridiculous”.
Bubblegum Crisis
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2012
- Messages
- 2,612
- Reaction score
- 5
- Country
- Location
http://www.defence.pk/forums/turkey...h-s-visit-ankara-his-tears-8.html#post4003502
Why in hell Mosa got banned?
Like that you stay only all together.
This is what some of you wanted from the beginning. Bravo! You reached your goal.
Perhaps now and forever, you will be without us.
Note: Thank you very much @ Armstrong
Last edited by a moderator:
muse
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2006
- Messages
- 13,006
- Reaction score
- 0
Abbas Town bombing culprits arrested in Karachi, says police
DAWN.COM
DIG South Shahid Hayat addresses a press conference about arrested TTP terrorists involved in Abbas Town blast at Police Head Office in Karachi on Thursday. Photo by APP
KARACHI: Karachi police claim to have arrested six Pakistani Taliban militants involved in the Abbas Town blasts which killed more than 50 earlier in the month, DawnNews reported.
Police said the suspects were arrested on a tip-off from spy agencies and a large quantity of explosives was recovered from them.
Speaking to media representatives on Thursday, senior police official Shahid Hayat said police first took into custody two members of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Khairdeen and Ishaq, after an encounter in Karachis Sea View area.
Two pistols and 100 kilos of explosives were recovered from their possession, said Hayat.
Both suspects made intriguing revelations upon which, Hayat said, police raided Khuda ki Basti in Surjani Town and nabbed four of their accomplices.
Police further claim to have recovered around 250 kilos of explosives from the possession of the four, who were identified as Irfan, Inamullah, Bashirullah and Aalam Sher Mehsud.
He claimed the arrested belong to the TTP and were involved in the Abbas Town blasts which destroyed several apartments and shops and also injured around 200 people on March 3. TTPs spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan however had denied involvement of his organisation in the incident.
Earlier in the day, another commander of the TTP Qari Bilal was killed in a shootout with security forces in the citys Manghopir area.
According to police officials, Qari Bilal was involved in the murder of Parveen Rehman, a social worker who was gunned down in Karachi on Wednesday.
Police, along with Rangers forces, are carrying out targeted operations against law breakers and militants in the aftermath of renewed wave of violence in Karachi, the countrys financial hub which is plagued by political and sectarian violence and targeted killings.
DAWN.COM
DIG South Shahid Hayat addresses a press conference about arrested TTP terrorists involved in Abbas Town blast at Police Head Office in Karachi on Thursday. Photo by APP
KARACHI: Karachi police claim to have arrested six Pakistani Taliban militants involved in the Abbas Town blasts which killed more than 50 earlier in the month, DawnNews reported.
Police said the suspects were arrested on a tip-off from spy agencies and a large quantity of explosives was recovered from them.
Speaking to media representatives on Thursday, senior police official Shahid Hayat said police first took into custody two members of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Khairdeen and Ishaq, after an encounter in Karachis Sea View area.
Two pistols and 100 kilos of explosives were recovered from their possession, said Hayat.
Both suspects made intriguing revelations upon which, Hayat said, police raided Khuda ki Basti in Surjani Town and nabbed four of their accomplices.
Police further claim to have recovered around 250 kilos of explosives from the possession of the four, who were identified as Irfan, Inamullah, Bashirullah and Aalam Sher Mehsud.
He claimed the arrested belong to the TTP and were involved in the Abbas Town blasts which destroyed several apartments and shops and also injured around 200 people on March 3. TTPs spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan however had denied involvement of his organisation in the incident.
Earlier in the day, another commander of the TTP Qari Bilal was killed in a shootout with security forces in the citys Manghopir area.
According to police officials, Qari Bilal was involved in the murder of Parveen Rehman, a social worker who was gunned down in Karachi on Wednesday.
Police, along with Rangers forces, are carrying out targeted operations against law breakers and militants in the aftermath of renewed wave of violence in Karachi, the countrys financial hub which is plagued by political and sectarian violence and targeted killings.
Amaa'n
STAFF
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2012
- Messages
- 10,660
- Reaction score
- 149
- Country
- Location
Abbas Town bombing culprits arrested in Karachi, says police
DAWN.COM
DIG South Shahid Hayat addresses a press conference about arrested TTP terrorists involved in Abbas Town blast at Police Head Office in Karachi on Thursday. Photo by APP
KARACHI: Karachi police claim to have arrested six Pakistani Taliban militants involved in the Abbas Town blasts which killed more than 50 earlier in the month, DawnNews reported.
Police said the suspects were arrested on a tip-off from spy agencies and a large quantity of explosives was recovered from them.
Speaking to media representatives on Thursday, senior police official Shahid Hayat said police first took into custody two members of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Khairdeen and Ishaq, after an encounter in Karachis Sea View area.
Two pistols and 100 kilos of explosives were recovered from their possession, said Hayat.
Both suspects made intriguing revelations upon which, Hayat said, police raided Khuda ki Basti in Surjani Town and nabbed four of their accomplices.
Police further claim to have recovered around 250 kilos of explosives from the possession of the four, who were identified as Irfan, Inamullah, Bashirullah and Aalam Sher Mehsud.
He claimed the arrested belong to the TTP and were involved in the Abbas Town blasts which destroyed several apartments and shops and also injured around 200 people on March 3. TTPs spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan however had denied involvement of his organisation in the incident.
Earlier in the day, another commander of the TTP Qari Bilal was killed in a shootout with security forces in the citys Manghopir area.
According to police officials, Qari Bilal was involved in the murder of Parveen Rehman, a social worker who was gunned down in Karachi on Wednesday.
Police, along with Rangers forces, are carrying out targeted operations against law breakers and militants in the aftermath of renewed wave of violence in Karachi, the countrys financial hub which is plagued by political and sectarian violence and targeted killings.
Had they done this befor50 lives would have benn saved
muse
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2006
- Messages
- 13,006
- Reaction score
- 0
Indeed - and you will note that the tip off for the original arrests, came from "spy agencies" - phirbi, khaair - Actually, I'm a bit surprised, let me explain, I would have thought that this incident would have provided LEA the perfect opportunity to clean up Karachi as a whole - in other words, they would clean up the armed wings of political parties while investigating this case, ad the Balouchi gangster, and the Sohrab Goth TTP, and the Bhatta khor -- but they may have other calculations
