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Pedro Gonçalves

Why Sharia Law Might Be Israel's Path to Peace | Foreign Policy - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...might_be_israels_path_to_peace

Israel Palestine Hamas Sharia

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 23 Jul 09 - No Cached
  • We argue that engagement with Hamas is essential, and possible. To understand how, it is necessary to take into account that many of Hamas's statements and actions are governed and limited by its understanding of Islamic religious law (sharia), a comprehensive code relevant to all aspects of life for believing Muslims, very much including politics. We maintain that Hamas cannot be understood without understanding the sharia background of many of its policies.
  • Hamas maintains that accepting Israel's legitimacy necessarily renounces the Palestinian narrative, which defines Palestine as Arab and Muslim, in contrast to the Jewish narrative, which defines the Land of Israel as Jewish by God's promise, by legal right, and by history. Can these two worldviews be reconciled? Absolutely not. Can Hamas and Israel co­exist peacefully? We believe they can. Reconciliation is much harder than coexistence.
  • Hamas has repeatedly offered to end its violent resistance against Israel by means of various sharia-based mechanisms, such as a hudna (time-limited truce) or a tahadiyya (cease-fire). It has also advocated the principle of "Palestinian legitimacy," whereby it would accept as binding the decision of the Palestinian people to accept peace with Israel -- even if Hamas, as a Muslim religious organization, could not reconcile that outcome with sharia and preserve its Muslim beliefs.
Argos Media

Extremist Tide Rises in Pakistan - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009041901731.html

Pakistan Sharia Swat Valley Taliban

shared by Argos Media on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A potentially troubling era dawned Sunday in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where a top Islamist militant leader, emboldened by a peace agreement with the federal government, laid out an ambitious plan to bring a "complete Islamic system" to the surrounding northwest region and the entire country.
  • Speaking to thousands of followers in an address aired live from Swat on national news channels, cleric Sufi Mohammed bluntly defied the constitution and federal judiciary, saying he would not allow any appeals to state courts under the system of sharia, or Islamic law, that will prevail there as a result of the peace accord signed by the president Tuesday.
  • "The Koran says that supporting an infidel system is a great sin," Mohammed said, referring to Pakistan's modern democratic institutions. He declared that in Swat, home to 1.5 million people, all "un-Islamic laws and customs will be abolished," and he suggested that the official imprimatur on the agreement would pave the way for sharia to be installed in other areas.
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  • The government agreed to Mohammed's demands in an effort to halt violent intimidation by Taliban forces that the army was unable to quell despite months of operations in the former tourist haven. In recent interviews, Swati leaders and refugees described armed men in black turbans whipping suspected thieves on the spot, cutting off the ears and noses of village elders who opposed them, and selling videos of police beheadings. "We really had no other choice. We had no power to crush the militants, and people were desperate for peace," said Jafar Shah, a Swati legislator. His Awami National Party, though historically secular, sponsored the sharia deal. "Now people are calling us Taliban without beards," he said ruefully, "but it was the only option available."
  • "The government made a big mistake to give these guys legal cover for their agenda. Now they are going to be battle-ready to struggle for the soul of Pakistan," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of security studies at Quaid-i-Azam university here. He predicted a further surge in the suicide bombings that have recently become an almost daily occurrence across the country.
  • Mohammed's dramatic speech echoed a rousing sermon in Islamabad on Friday by another radical cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who appeared at the Red Mosque in the capital after nearly two years in detention and urged several thousand chanting followers to launch a crusade for sharia nationwide.
  • Provincial and federal officials also hoped their show of good faith would halt further insurgent inroads and buy time for foreign aid programs to shore up the impoverished northwest against the Islamists' message of swift justice and social equality. Instead, the evidence suggests that the extremist forces have drawn the opposite lesson from their victory in Swat and are gearing up to carry their armed crusade for a punitive, misogynistic form of Islam into new areas. There have been numerous reports of Taliban fighters entering districts south and west of Swat, where they have brandished weapons, bombed and occupied buildings, arrested aid workers, and killed female activists.
Argos Media

Extremist Tide Rises in Pakistan - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009041901731_2.html

Pakistan Swat Valley Taliban Mingora Sharia

shared by Argos Media on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • In the northwestern town of Mardan, insurgents attacked girls schools, forced CD shops to close, ordered barbers not to shave beards and bombed the office of a nonprofit aid agency, killing a female worker. Taliban commanders accused the agency of "propagating obscenity." Taliban fighters occupied the Buner district for several days, closed a religious shrine and burned DVDs in the streets. They then toured the region in a convoy of trucks, even entering a secured army area while displaying heavy weapons.
  • "The inescapable reality is that another domino has toppled and the Taliban are a step closer to Islamabad," the Pakistan-based News International newspaper warned last week after the Buner takeover. The paper compared Pakistan to Vietnam: a weak and corrupt state being "nibbled away" by determined insurgents: "The Taliban have the upper hand, and they know it."
  • Surprisingly, there has been little official or public protest against the creeping tide of Islamist extremism. Analysts said this is partly because of fear of retaliation and partly because of strong religious sentiments that make Pakistanis reluctant to criticize fellow Muslims.
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  • Sharia in Pakistan, as in Afghanistan, exists in tandem with a modern legal code but does not supersede it. Sharia courts rule on certain religious and moral issues, while other cases are tried by regular courts. Mohammed, Aziz and other radicals espouse a more severe version like the one Taliban rulers imposed on Afghanistan in the 1990s, which segregates women and imposes harsh punishments.
  • Supporters of the Swat agreement pointed out that residents have been demanding sharia for years to replace the slow, corrupt justice system. But Swati leaders said that the local version of Islamic law was traditionally moderate and that in elections last year Swatis voted overwhelmingly for two secular parties.
  • This week, after the peace accord was endorsed, officials and pro-government news media described the atmosphere in Swat as relieved and heading back to normalcy. But several people who visited the Swati capital of Mingora this week said they saw worried faces, no women in the markets, and clusters of black-turbaned men watching everyone closely.
Argos Media

Taliban oust Pakistani authorities in Swat Valley sharia zone | World news | guardian.c... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...an-clinton-swat-valley-mingora

Pakistan US Hillary Clinton Jamiat Ulema e Islam

shared by Argos Media on 23 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Taliban fighters spilling out of the Swat Valley have swept across Buner, a district 60 miles from Islamabad, as Hillary Clinton warned the situation in Pakistan now poses a "mortal threat" to the security of the world.
  • The US secretary of state told Congress yesterday that Pakistan faced an "existential" threat from Islamist militants. "I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," she said. Any further deterioration in the situation "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world", she said.
  • In Buner, Taliban fighters occupied government buildings, ransacked the offices of aid agencies and ordered aid employees to leave. Fighters brandishing guns and rocket launchers patrolled villages, forcing beleaguered local police to retreat to their stations. Local courts have stopped functioning and judicial officials have gone on indefinite leave.
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  • The turmoil in Buner, a district of about 1 million people, does not pose an immediate threat to Islamabad, which lies across a mountain range and the river Indus. But the speed and aggression of the militant advance has stoked a sense of alarm across the country, even among normally conservative forces.
  • "If Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema e Islam party, told the national assembly yesterday.The Taliban could soon seize control of Tarbela Dam, a strategic reservoir, Rehman warned.
  • Blame for the turmoil has focused on a controversial peace deal the provincial government signed with militants in February. Hoping to defuse the insurgency, the Awami National party-led government acceded to demands for sharia law in Swat and seven surrounding districts, known collectively as Malakand Division.The changes were ratified by the national parliament last week with cross-party consensus. Since then, the Taliban have moved to establish much more than judicial control.
  • In Mingora, the commercial hub of Swat, the police retain a low-key presence, reduced to directing traffic. Most politicians have fled, many under death threats. Many residents said it was not clear who was in control of the town.
  • In Imam Dheri, the Taliban headquarters near Mingora, a Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, told the Guardian their goal was the establishment of an Islamic caliphate first in Pakistan and then across the Muslim world."Democracy is a system for European countries. It is not for Muslims," he said. "This is not just about justice. It should be in education, health, economics. Everything should be under sharia."
Argos Media

Pakistan paramilitary force routed as Taliban militants extend control towards Islamaba... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...stan-islamists-swat-sharia-law

Pakistan Taliban Mingora Swat Valley Buner Maulana Fazlur Rahman Jamiat Ulema e Islam

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • International alarm at the Talibanisation of parts of northern Pakistan near Islamabad was mounting last night after militants ambushed a convoy of soldiers deployed to prevent extremists taking over a district only 60 miles from the capital.
  • Snipers opened fire on police escorting four platoons of Frontier Corps paramilitary troops into Buner district, a day after militants overran government buildings and looted western aid offices. One policeman was killed and one injured, an army spokesman said.
  • Locals said the ambush had forced the Frontier Corps to retreat. "Now Buner is ruled by the Taliban," one resident told the Guardian by phone. "They go anywhere they want."
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  • Two weeks ago the Taliban occupied a Sufi shrine in Buner, accusing locals of using it for "un-Islamic" practices. On Wednesday they swept through the main town, Daggar. Gun-toting militants looted aid agency offices, stole western-funded vehicles and forced police to retreat into their stations.
  • On Wednesday the US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, accused President Asif Ali Zardari's government of "basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists". After an outcry from Pakistani officials, she modified her tone yesterday, conceding there was an "increasing awareness" of the threat within government circles.
  • The army spokesman, General Athar Abbas, said that western fears were "overblown" and called for patience in dealing with the militants. Taliban violence was swinging divided public opinion against the militants, he said. "We are giving them enough rope to hang themselves."
  • Certainly a new sense of urgency is gripping Pakistan's political class, where it has been fashionable to call the fight against the Taliban "America's war". The opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, urged the government to contain the militants within Swat.
  • A more surprising statement came from Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, who warned the national assembly on Wednesday: "If Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad."
  • But there is little sense yet of a concerted effort to push back the militants, who have exposed the fragility of the federation and resurrected fears that the country is heading towards break-up.
  • The Buner assault is likely to strain the controversial Swat peace accord. In exchange for peace, the provincial government, headed by the secular Awami National party, agreed in February to introduce sharia law in Swat and seven adjoining districts known as Malakand Division - an area of about 10,000 square miles that accounts for one third of the North West Frontier province. But since the deal, the Taliban have established control over much more than the judicial system.
  • In Mingora, the valley's commercial hub, police have been reduced to directing traffic and secular politicians have fled, many under death threats.
Pedro Gonçalves

Massacre in woods that brought war to Moscow's metro | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...assacre-woods-war-moscow-metro

Russia Ingushetia Dagestan Chechnya Caucasus

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Apr 10 - Cached
  • The misfortune of the four garlic pickers was to have unwittingly strayed into a "counter-insurgency operation" conducted by Russian forces in the densely wooded border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. The soldiers, apparently looking for militant rebels who are waging their own violent campaign against the Russian state, came across the unarmed group, brutally killing them amid the picturesque massif of low hills.Normally this atrocity on a cold day in February would have raised barely a ripple of attention had it not been for the terrible events in Moscow this week. In a video address on Thursday, Chechnya's chief insurgent leader, Doku Umarov, said Monday's suicide attacks on the Russian capital's metro were in revenge for the killings of the garlic pickers near the Ingush village of Arshaty. He claimed federal security service (FSB) commandos had used knives to mutilate their bodies of the dead boys.
  • Forty people died and more than 70 were injured when two suicide attackers from the North Caucasus set off their devices at stations outside the headquarters of the FSB and Park Kultury.
  • human rights groups say it is undeniable that the brutal actions of Russia's security forces have fuelled the insurgency raging across the North Caucasus region of Russia and the ethnic republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria. This largely invisible war has now reached the Kremlin's doorstep.
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  • The nature of the armed conflict in the North Caucasus has also mutated. From 1994 to 1996 Boris Yeltsin fought a war against mainly secular Chechen separatists who wanted – like the newly independent Georgians over the mountains – their own constitution and state. In 1999-2004 president Vladimir Putin fought a second Chechen war. The aim was to crush Chechen separatism.Now, however, the Kremlin is battling another kind of enemy. The new generation of insurgents have an explicitly Islamist goal: to create a radical pan-Caucasian emirate with sharia law, a bit like Afghanistan under the Taliban. In February Umarov vowed to "liberate" not only the North Caucasus and Krasnodar Krai but Astrakhan – on the Caspian Sea -and the Volga region as well.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Taleban announce key withdrawal - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8015949.stm

Pakistan Taliban Malakand Buner Maulana Fazlullah

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The Taleban say they are withdrawing from a Pakistani district where their consolidation of power this week has caused deep concern in the US. A Taleban spokesman said commander Maulana Fazlullah had issued the order for fighters to pull back from Buner, just 100km (62 miles) from Islamabad.
  • The Taleban have agreed a peace deal bringing Sharia law to some districts in return for ending their insurgency. The peace deal covers six districts of Malakand division, including the troubled Swat region, in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
  • The Taleban have almost full control of Swat and this week had strengthened operations in Buner.
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  • Administration officials in NWFP have confirmed that Taleban fighters have started to leave.
  • the BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says circumstances suggest the militants are now under pressure and that a national consensus is building among the public and political parties that they must be challenged with force.
  • Sympathy for the militant movement has been on the decline, our correspondent says, since the airing of footage showing a young girl being flogged as a punishment in Swat. Although the Taleban denied ordering the punishment, their public standing has plummeted.
  • The Taleban had been expected to lay down their arms under the peace deal and allow police and other officials to resume their duties. However, the Taleban had further consolidated their hold on Buner.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan Taleban talks 'halted' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8019966.stm

Swat Valley Pakistan Taliban Lower Dir Malakand North West Frontier Province Sufi Mohammed

shared by Argos Media on 27 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The Taleban's talks with the government in north-west Pakistan have been suspended amid army operations against militants, a Taleban negotiator says.
  • Pakistani troops and Taleban militants have clashed in Lower Dir in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), forcing hundreds of civilians to flee.
  • "We are demanding a suspension of the operation so that Sufi Muhammad is able to get out of his village."
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  • The clashes started when the government deployed troops in some areas of the district over the weekend.
  • The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says this was presumably to prevent an incursion by militants similar to the recent one in Buner district.
  • The Taleban spokesman in Swat, Muslim Khan, accused the government of violating the terms of the peace agreement in Swat. The Taleban warned of militant attacks in all parts of Malakand division - the group of six districts where the new Sharia law has been enforced - if the military operation in Dir was not halted.
  • The government and the military say they still want to abide by the terms of the Swat peace deal and consider it intact. However, they believe that the Taleban are yet to fulfil their part of the deal, which is to disarm and to concede administrative power to government departments.
  • In Buner, the presence of the Taleban continues in main towns despite an announcement on Friday that they would leave the area and go back to their bases in Swat. Troops have still not advanced beyond a border village.
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