Pakistan Discussion Thread

[Tibarn]

 

[Tibarn]

 

[zen]

200-500 cadets or future terrorists of the coward Pak army? 

[jalebi_bhai]

 

Mushy was supposed to debate with Subbu but he backed out

[sandeep]

 

 

So Uri attack was by Hafiz Saeed's organization.  But willfully blind Pakistanis will still deny responsibility.  When will Pakistanis like @Asim be man enough to face the bitter truth that their government is committing war crimes and terrorism in their name?  When will they stand up against such acts?  Indians have been man enough to accept and challenge their own government to improve things for Kashmiris.  But Pakistanis seem to lack in the mardaangi department.  They'd rather lecture India on secularism than stop 2-bit goondas from committing and celebrating terrorism.  

Edited October 25, 2016 by sandeep

[sandeep]

Omar Abdullah for all his faults, talks a lot of sense.  But problem is that political dialogue and solutions cannot happen under the threat of violence.  The flip side is, that in the absence of violence, Indian government resorts to doing nothing.   

[jalebi_bhai]

3 hours ago, sandeep said:

Omar Abdullah for all his faults, talks a lot of sense.   

The Abdullah's as well as Asaduddin Owaisi, despite their petty local politics, always defend the Republic of India in international fora. Owaisi has also brokered the release of Indian prisoners captive in Saudi Arabia. I know it's their duty to work for Indian interests but compare their behaviour with that of a donkey like Mani Shankar Aiyar, who goes on Pakistani TV and pleads for Pakistani help to remove NaMo. 

[sandeep]

WTF is this drama going on in the "Isloo"  Looks like Imran still wants to be "cup-taan" of Pakistan, to hell with law and democracy.  And the govt is banning right of assembly to stop Imran's chamchas from creating chaos, while terrorist organizations are allowed to openly hold huge rallies.  WTF kind of country do our neighbors live in.  No wonder they have to brainwash themselves with BS about evil India.  Reality is just a complete clusterfukk.  

[Vilander]

On 10/24/2016 at 5:26 PM, jalebi_bhai said:

 

Mushy was supposed to debate with Subbu but he backed out

Su Swamy is badass, like him or hate him but you gotta give it to him, he is badass.

On 10/25/2016 at 3:37 PM, jalebi_bhai said:

The Abdullah's as well as Asaduddin Owaisi, despite their petty local politics, always defend the Republic of India in international fora. Owaisi has also brokered the release of Indian prisoners captive in Saudi Arabia. I know it's their duty to work for Indian interests but compare their behaviour with that of a donkey like Mani Shankar Aiyar, who goes on Pakistani TV and pleads for Pakistani help to remove NaMo. 

Totally Owaisi was epic when he went to pakistan shut them up, i dont mind a strong right wing muslim Indian party. India first then its ok.

[Vilander]

On 10/19/2016 at 10:26 PM, Texan said:

If Pakistanis were really smart to understand this trend and how it has actually damaged them, they would reject such ideology. But, I doubt if they can even recognize what the root cause of their problems is. Convenient option for them is to just blame India for problems they themselves have created.

true, the problem is this is not good in the long term for us, imagine a totally unstable pakistan ( like Levant and Iraq) right next to us.

[mishra]

7 minutes ago, Vilander said:

true, the problem is this is not good in the long term for us, imagine a totally unstable pakistan ( like Levant and Iraq) right next to us.

Pakistan is a hopeless case. It won't take more than few month to destabilise people who hold such fanatic ideology. Its Americans which are keeping a leash on this ideolgical beast. 

But more they go closer to China, Americans will be left with no choice.

[jalebi_bhai]

21 hours ago, Vilander said:

Su Swamy is badass, like him or hate him but you gotta give it to him, he is badass.

Without a question. 

 

21 hours ago, Vilander said:

Totally Owaisi was epic when he went to pakistan shut them up, i dont mind a strong Nationalist muslim Indian party. India first then its ok.

 

[Tibarn]

 

[goose]

Forgive my ignorance but i keep reading about terrorists, militants engaged in attacks across LOC sheltered by Pak army gunfire. This distinction between terrorists and army men (and by the way how can anyone tell the difference?) seems totally bizarre!! 

[zen]

9 minutes ago, goose said:

Forgive my ignorance but i keep reading about terrorists, militants engaged in attacks across LOC sheltered by Pak army gunfire. This distinction between terrorists and army men (and by the way how can anyone tell the difference?) seems totally bizarre!! 

Pak army would engage from identified posts and with heavy artilary at times. Ind forces' attention would be divided allowing terrorists to sneak in (and also engage with army) from relatively hidden paths 

 

Also Pak army would be wearing the uniform

 

 

 

 

[zen]

http://www.vocativ.com/258199/how-the-media-vastly-underestimated-the-san-bernardino-shooters-wife/?utm_campaign=CK-Taboola&utm_campaign=CK-Taboola-ENG.W&utm_medium=cpc&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=taboola&utm_source=taboola

 

 

Edited October 30, 2016 by zen

[mishra]

Courtesy http://thediplomat.com/2016/10/pakistans-crackdown-on-terror-financing-all-for-show/

Quote

 

Pakistan's Crackdown on Terror Financing: All For Show?

Pakistan’s government appears to crack down on financing for proscribed groups, but will the policy make a difference?

In a major move, which for some is a quite familiar one, the State Bank of Pakistan directed all banks across the country to freeze the accounts of 2,021 individuals listed in the Fourth Schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Formulated in 1997, the Anti-Terrorism Act allows the government to list individuals such that they are required to seek police permission to enter an area, empowering law enforcement agencies to observe their movements, among other things.

“All banks, development finance institutions, and microfinance banks have been advised to take immediate action as per requirement of the law against individuals, whose names are included in the lists of fourth schedulers provided by the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA),” a State Bank of Pakistan source told Dawn.

The list is dominated by representatives and leaders of various sectarian outfits, including well-known names like Ahmed Ludhianvi of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), Aurangzeb Farooqi of ASWJ, Mullah Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid, and Ramzan Mengal of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Interestingly, however, there is no mention of any office-bearer of Kashmir-related groups like Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), or Hizbul Mujahideen (HuM).

In Pakistan, many see this move with suspicion, referring to similar steps in the past that turned out to be highly ineffective.

For example when, for the first time ever, Pervez Musharraf banned jihadi outfits fighting in Kashmir and Afghanistan, declaring his support for the U.S.-led war against terror. Even then, these groups changed their names and continued to operate like before.

Owais Tohid, a veteran journalist who covered these groups for a decade, reported the same in his December 2003 piece for Newsline Magazine. Titled “And the Jihad goes on,” the piece explored the ways through which the banned groups continued their activities.

“Prominent leaders like Masood Azhar, chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Maulana Fazl-ur Rehman Khalil, head of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen, issued statements in the Punjab, delivered addresses urging participants to come forward for jihad,” Tohid wrote.

In his now 13-year-old report, he discovered, “About 600 leaders and members of the banned groups have been asked to furnish surety bonds of good conduct, involving surety money of 100,000 rupees.”

He further reported that thousands of copies of jihadi newspapers and magazines were being sold on a daily basis.

Thirteen years on, Pakistan is still struggling to put effective curbs on the very same outfits.

In a 2015 article published by the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS), Safiya Aftab observed:

An important Counter Terrorism activity is denting the militant economy, through all possible ways: tracing the financial mechanisms of funding used by militants, neutralizing those sources, and preventing banned outfits from raising funds domestically or internationally.

She continued, “This element has received relatively little attention in Pakistan, for a variety of reasons like general lack of expertise in financial crime, and lack of appreciation of the intricacies of the militant economy.”

Amir Rana, the director of PIPS, believes that most of these groups generate funds through bank robberies, smuggling, and kidnapping for ransom. Commenting on why the State Bank of Pakistan’s move might not be effective, he says, “While the heads of many sectarian groups have been included in the list, it’s a given fact that their bank accounts wouldn’t have much of the money being generated through different means.”

“These groups hold several other accounts, through which large transactions are processed. Banning just the official accounts is not going to change anything.”

Senior journalist Azaz Syed, who works with Geo News, agrees that freezing the official bank accounts of selected individuals won’t change much. “Around 80 percent of their money comes through illegal means and it never reaches the bank accounts,” he says.

“This might just be a mere eyewash because most of their transactions are made in cash, hence there is no point freezing their bank accounts.”

Almeida further reported that DG ISI Rizwan Akhtar would now visit all four provinces accompanied by the National Security Advisor Naseer Khan Janjua to meet the apex committees, as well as ISI sector commanders.

The message of these meetings, one of which Almeida claimed already took place in Lahore, is that military-led intelligence agencies are not to interfere if law enforcement acts against militant groups that are banned or until now considered off-limits for civilian action.

After a suicide attack killed over hundred people on Easter eve this March, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered the immediate arrest of suspects on the Fourth Schedule list. However, this wasn’t followed up and the news died out.

Earlier in 2015, a month after the horrible Army Public School attack in Peshawar in late-2014 that killed scores of children, Pakistan announced the freezing of JuD bank accounts. The announcement coincided with the visit of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who appreciated the move.

A document acquired by Dawn confirmed the proscribing of Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, Harkat-ul-Mujahi­deen, Falah-i-Insaniat Foun­dation, Ummah Tameer-i-Nau, Haji Khairullah Hajji Sattar Money Exchange, Rahat Limited, Roshan Money Exchange, Al Akhtar Trust, Al Rashid Trust, the Haqqani network, and Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

However, in recent months, JuD’s activities have only increased, with its charity wing, Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF), expanding its “relief operations” to the rural areas of Sindh and Balochistan.

JuD is not the only group operating freely inside Pakistan, despite several claims by the government. In the month of Ramzan (Ramadan), Jaish-e-Mohammad’s charity wing, Al-Rehmat trust, openly collected donations outside mosques in Karachi, often in the presence of Pakistan Rangers personnel.

The Al-Rashid Trust, which is notoriously known for its terror network in Pakistan and Afghanistan, was also banned twice by the government. It changed its name to the Al-Ameen Trust and resumed its operations throughout the country. Even today, it’s operating freely under the name of the Maymar Trust.

Despite this history of deliberate inefficiency by the government, Fahd Hamayun, the program and research manager at Pakistan’s Jinnah Institute, believes the recent moves to be a good step forward. “This is a step in the right direction and should necessitate some level of parliamentary oversight to ensure effective implementation. Turning off the taps on terrorism financing is essential if the government is keen to demonstrate its commitment to the National Action Plan,” he says.

Criticizing the reluctance of the government to update the Fourth Schedule list, he adds, “So far the Interior Ministry’s reluctance to update its list of proscribed organizations is indicative of state lethargy in putting a blanket ban on all terror groups.”

In the end, this move will either turn out to just be for show or will actually show results – only time will tell what the government of Pakistan has planned to finally put an end to the operations of banned militant and sectarian groups in the country.

 

 

[Tibarn]

http://www.bbc.com/news/37962741

Quote

An explosion at a remote Sufi Muslim shrine in the Pakistani region of Balochistan has killed 52 people and injured more than 100, officials say.

Emergency services struggled to reach the Shah Noorani shrine in Kuzdar.

Worshippers were performing dhamal - a trance-like dance - when the bomb hit. So-called Islamic State says one of its suicide bombers carried it out.

Sufism, a tolerant, mystical practice of Islam, has millions of followers in Pakistan but is opposed by extremists.

The shrine attracts Sufi devotees from all over the country, as well as neighbouring Iran.

Death toll up to 90

[jalebi_bhai]

8 hours ago, Tibarn said:

http://www.bbc.com/news/37962741

Death toll up to 90

Which group has claimed the attack?

Edited November 13, 2016 by jalebi_bhai

[Tibarn]

11 hours ago, jalebi_bhai said:

Which group has claimed the attack?

Apparently ISIS