With all due respect I have a problem with your post. Of course you have spoken your mind and now I will speak my mind. Now if you are saying that these terrorists consider you infidels, you should condemm them, and believe me I will also condemm them. It is indeed a shameful event when innocent people are killed. I am pretty sure we can agree on this part.
In the first part it seems to me you are very upset at the bombing, and for good reason you should be. Now we all have condemmed these acts, regaurdless of sect. It is true that their is a lot of bad blood between the two sects but we must finds ways to mend these differences. Now these people who commit such acts in my view belong to no religion, thus they should not be tied to any religion.
In the second part you are taking shots at the ISI. Now these allegations that you have put on the ISI might be true and might not be, we can only guess, but nonetheless I will also give my opinion on the ISI. I doubt that the ISI is trying to destablize Pakistan. The ISI like any other agency works to destablize other countries not their own. And what good would the ISI gain from destablizing Pakistan. Now this is my opinion, if you have evidence that the ISI is indeed behind the destablization of Pakistan I think you should share. You should give credible evidence that the ISI is the problem.
Iam blaming no sect here i clearly pointed out 2 things in Red that would be unthinkable for a Muslim (Suicide) And attacking a (Mosque).
I dont no why are u asking me for a proof between ISI and Al qaeda terrorist Thats not exactly a best kept secret.
Zia filled up the agency with His friends and well wishers iam sure you are aware of that.Zia hand picked NAwaz during his times shias paid the heaviest price.
The Taliban-Bin Laden-
ISI Connection
How did Osama bin Laden and his followers take over an entire country? The answer lies in the ties with the Taliban and Pakistan's intelligence Agency.
By Arnie Schifferdecker
In the fallout from the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Osama bin Laden has become a household name, as have his protectors, Afghanistan's Taliban. A third force gaining notoriety is the Taliban's mentor and sometime collaborator with bin Laden: Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. Sweeping into Kabul in 1996, the fundamentalist Taliban militia had significant help from the ISI and Pakistani religious parties. Other Afghan factions were ousted from the capital as unreliable allies. The Taliban quickly banned TV as "un-Islamic," outlawed music cassettes, beard-trimming and card games, closed most schools, forced women to wear a head-to-toe enveloping garment (chadri) and forbade them to work outside the home. Soon a new exodus of refugees surged into Pakistan and Iran.
Given bin Laden's base of operations, it was surprising that none of the suicidal terrorist-hijackers who attacked New York and Washington was Afghan. How did bin Laden and his al-Qaida followers manage to hijack a whole country as a base for their deadly operations? The "how" is not difficult to trace. It is the "why" that haunts us. What prompted those terrorists to attack and kill nearly 5,000 innocent Americans and foreigners, including more than 300 Muslims, in the attacks on the U.S? And why did the Taliban and Pakistan support them?
Life Under the Taliban
Arriving in Kabul in 1997 as an advisor to the United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan, I saw how the Taliban, who had come to power a year earlier on promises to end the Afghan civil war, had by then imposed their draconian rules on a cowed populace. Who were these mostly young fighters who had come from villages in southern Afghanistan and religious schools (Talib = religious student; plural, Taliban) across the border in Pakistan?
First, I was shocked at the sheer devastation. Two-thirds of the beautiful city I had lived and worked in 25 years earlier as an FSO was totally destroyed. Think of the images of the Berlin landscape after World War II -- that was most of Kabul. The house I had lived in while assigned to the U.S. embassy was still standing but was no longer a home; now it was occupied by the Taliban intelligence bureau (Istihbarat). Schools were closed and beggars, including young children and a few women -- actually war widows -- waited outside stores to plead for coins from passers-by. That was also new.
The city was under the iron rule of the Taliban's religious police, who seemed to think their main job was to beat women daring to venture from their homes without a male family member escort, or to forcibly close shops during the call to prayer and herd their keepers to the mosque. Kabul still had small numbers of Shi'a Muslims, distinct from the dominant Sunni Islam of the Taliban, and a few non-Muslim Hindu merchants and money-changers. In short order, the Taliban shut down Shi'a mosques, banning their distinctive liturgy and practices, then turned to harassing Afghan Hindus, taking over their businesses and forcing them to wear a distinctive mark on their clothing, much as the Nazis had done to identify Jews in prewar Europe. And this was only the beginning of their version of the Taliban's ideal Islamic state.
I soon met the leaders of the Taliban "government," both in Kabul and in Kandahar, the seat of the Supreme Shura (council) 300 miles to the south, led by Emir Mullah Omar. Unfortunately, despite their professed religious devotion, the Pushtun Taliban leaders showed little interest in governing, taking care of people or rebuilding their country's public services. They left to the U.N. and international charitable organizations the tasks of providing food and medical care to indigent Afghans, rebuilding housing and the dangerous work of removing more than 10 million anti-personnel mines left by the departing Russian troops.
It was soon obvious to me and my UNSMA colleagues that while the Taliban claimed to be seeking only their version of peace, they were uninterested in a ceasefire or negotiations. In three negotiating sessions chaired by UNSMA among the warring Afghan factions in 1997-98, the Taliban made clear they would stop fighting only when they had conquered all of the country -- and taken the surrender of the non-Pushtun ethnic groups under the opposition Northern Alliance.
Not so clear at the time was the Taliban's involvement in another mission. Everyone knew that the militia's leaders in the Pushtun-dominated south were maintaining close contact with Pakistani intelligence operatives, some of whom had resided for long periods in Afghanistan. Despite regular Pakistani denials that they had created or were supporting the Taliban militarily, sightings were common of arms, ammunition and vehicles moving from Pakistan across the porous common border to Taliban strongholds. So-called volunteers from Pakistani government sponsored religious schools (madrasas) provided a steady stream of Taliban manpower -- in some cases, cannon fodder -- for the battles raging in the north during the summer dry season. Even uniformed Pakistani military trainers were seen in Afghanistan, particularly at Rishkor, a military base outside Kabul. Opposition Northern Alliance commanders frequently paraded captured young Pakistani -- and sometimes Arab--prisoners for visitors, holding them for periodic prisoner exchanges arranged by the International Red Cross.
An Unholy Trinity
Ties between Pushtun commanders and Pakistani ISI operatives had continued without a break since the departure of Soviet troops in 1989. With the rise of the Taliban in 1994, these links included contacts with scores of Arabs and other Muslim nationals who had either remained in Afghanistan after helping their Afghan brothers defeat the Russians, or returned from abroad when civil war broke out among the Afghans after 1992. Among those returning was Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, who had fought against the Russians and generously helped finance the holy war (jihad) out of his own personal fortune. In 1996 he returned to Afghanistan from Sudan, forced to leave that country under U.S. pressure. The motivations for these ongoing connections among the Taliban, ISI and bin Laden made for an interesting case of "I scratch your back if you scratch mine"-- or, as I prefer to view it, an "unholy trinity."
By 1996, small Arab groups in Afghanistan had linked up with the warring Taliban, cemented ties with Pakistani religious radicals, particularly groups associated with the Jamiat-e-ulema-Islam, a political party closely allied with the ISI. The purpose for Pakistan was to unleash an uprising against Indian-occupied Kashmir, long contested by the two subcontinent rivals. Guerrillas for Kashmir were recruited from the same talent pool of JUI seminaries supplying young fighters for the Taliban against the Northern Alliance.
To avoid Indian detection, the ISI conducted much of the training for its Kashmir campaign in Afghanistan, with the cooperation of the Taliban. In turn, several camps were placed under bin Laden's control for the use of the terrorist network he was creating for his own longer term goals: to force the United States out of the Middle East, in particular Saudi Arabia, home of the Islamic shrines in Mecca and Medina. It was those bin Laden camps that the U.S. hit with cruise missiles in 1998, in an effort to destroy the Saudi radical and his terrorist allies after they had been linked to the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Unfortunately, the camps were virtually empty when the missiles hit, although a dozen Pakistani nationals were killed.
Traveling frequently on the U.N. flight to Kandahar, my colleagues and I sometimes noted Taliban fighters waiting for transport to the war front in the North via Kandahar International Airport (built, incidentally, by the U.S.). But the fighters were not always young Pushtun recruits. Among them were non-Afghans, presumably Arab nationals in Afghan dress. Usually non-Afghans around Kandahar tended to stay away from public areas where they might be spotted by foreigners. But occasionally we noticed small groups of two or three Arabs near Taliban headquarters while we waited to meet with their leaders. Only later did we realize these probably were members of Osama bin Laden's Arab Brigade.
In hindsight, these arrangements among the Taliban, Pakistan and bin Laden were a perfect fit: the ISI was using its Afghan connection to wage a Pakistani guerrilla war in Kashmir against India. In return, the Taliban gained volunteers from Pakistani madrassas, as well as weapons and ammunition, in their quest to extend their obscurantist Islamic beliefs over all of Afghanistan. And bin Laden's al-Qaida network had quietly gained a base to train its forces for cowardly attacks against peaceful civilians in my country: a deadly collaboration, meticulously planned and executed with elegant timing and simplicity.
Why Did They Do It?
Even more than knowing how terrorists, in the name of Islam (which means peaceful surrender) can stage a suicidal attack against innocent Americans, we need to understand why. This is a much more difficult challenge and simplistic explanations will not suffice.
We know there are more than 1.2 billion Muslims in the world and that Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion. Islamic scholar Karen Armstrong notes that when Islam rose in the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century A.D., the area was in the midst of vicious intertribal warfare. The Prophet Mohammed had to avoid several assassination attempts in order to bring peace (salaam) to this chaos, and although he had to wage a war to survive, he brought complete order and peace to war-torn Arabia.
Despite the revelation of the Koran to Mohammed in the context of conflict, its many passages about warfare are balanced by exhortations to Muslims to be peaceful whenever possible. Extremists like Osama bin Laden are fond of quoting Koranic injunctions like "slay enemies wherever you find them." But according to Armstrong, such a reading is highly selective. Warlike verses are always balanced by peaceful prescriptions, such as "If they let you be and do not make war on you and offer you peace, God does not allow you to harm them." She concludes that the weight of the Koran allows war only in self-defense.
The primary meaning of "jihad," usually translated as holy war, is "struggle." In an article for Time Asia, Armstrong quotes the Prophet as telling his comrades as they go home from battle that they are "returning from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad; i.e., the more urgent task of removing evil from one's own heart and the larger society. Muslim scholars frequently point out the latter as the primary meaning of "jihad"-- a struggle against one's own sinful nature. There are similar concepts in Christianity and Judaism.
So how to explain Arab suicide bombings in Israel or the bin Laden-inspired suicidal hijackings and massacres of innocent civilians in New York and Washington? Islamic scholars agree that acts of suicide are not sanctioned or endorsed by the Koran, whatever bin Laden's fanatics may claim. Moreover, these experts maintain that the killing of innocents violates specific Islamic precepts.
In seeking to explain the enmity against the U.S., some observers point to the rise of secularism and liberalism, which has aroused extremists in Christianity and Judaism as well as Islam to drastic actions. Fundamentalists in each of these religions have turned to violent means to express disapproval of liberal trends, or of acts they do not condone. Note, for example, the bombing of hospitals that provide legal abortions in the U.S. Extremists may imagine they are fighting a battle for survival and feel justified in ignoring the more compassionate principles of their faith. Armstrong notes that in their search for decisive action, religious extremists selectively zero in on a single passage in their scriptures to justify aggressive actions, ignoring the broader humanist context and traditions of their religion.
U.S. Policy in the Spotlight
Over the past weeks, moderate Muslims have spoken out strongly against the terrorism of Osama bin Laden and his network. Afghans driven out of their country now living abroad have joined other moderate Muslims in condemning the bin Laden attacks as un-Islamic, criminal acts. So how, we wonder, could 19 young men -- most from privileged or middle class backgrounds -- be recruited and willingly duped into a suicidal mass murder plot on the scale of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings? Some have blamed it on envy of the U.S., feelings of helplessness in their own corrupt societies, or to "arrogance" attributed to American foreign policy. None of these seem to be satisfactory explanations for the murderous Sept. 11 attacks.
Still, one aspect of American foreign policy likely played a key role in clinching the decision of extremists to take action against us: U.S. policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It should be noted that there is no proof, other than bin Laden propaganda, that U.S. support for Israel played a role in the attacks on New York and Washington. After all, U.S. administrations since Carter have successfully mediated Israel's pullbacks from the Sinai, and partial withdrawals from Gaza and the West Bank. As a result of U.S. efforts, Egypt and Jordan have signed peace agreements with Israel while other moderate Arab and Muslim nations have developed trade and other normal ties.
Yet a number of militant or conservative Arab states, such as Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, have refrained from normalizing relations with Israel. On the contrary, vicious anti-Israel (and anti-U.S.) propaganda continues to pour from many independent as well as government-controlled Arab media outlets in those countries. Egypt, which has diplomatic relations with Israel, regularly allows its controlled press organs to attack Israeli policies, particularly in the occupied Palestinian territories. Careful study of these attacks shows increasing anti-American sentiment. America is blamed for failing to condemn Israel for expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. Israel's use of American military equipment and ammunition against Palestinian street protesters -- often fatally -- is widely reported throughout the Muslim world, resulting in close identification of U.S. policy with the Sharon government.
The Bush administration has become the target of Arab and Islamic opprobrium for failing to continue its predecessor's role as Arab-Israeli mediator -- and thus, by extension, tacitly approving Israel's continued settlements and military occupation of Palestinian land. While Israel blames Palestinian Authority leader Arafat for failing to stop attacks on Israelis in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Arab media cite "cruel, unjust Israeli actions," including the killing of stone-throwing children, the blockading of Palestinian villages and harassment by militant Jewish settlers plunked down in the midst of Palestinian territory.
If the fault for this deplorable situation is debatable between Israel's Sharon and the PLO's Arafat, for the Muslim world there is no question: Israel, supported by the U.S., is the aggressor. And in the Muslim mind, most of the responsibility lies with its supporter, which happens to be a superpower.
It would be a serious error to oversimplify the causes of the Sept. 11 attacks. Equally, it would be wrong to see Osama bin Laden as an authentic representative of his religion. While there were scattered celebrations in the Islamic world, most Muslims abhorred the hijackers' actions and publicly deplored the loss of innocents from dozens of countries, which included many Muslims.
In our anger, Americans justifiably seek revenge for the terrible wrong committed against us. A surge of patriotism not seen since World War II supports the strongest possible military responses and preventive measures. Yet while there can be no moral equivalency between suicide attacks and the possible underlying grievances of the attackers, we need to realize that terrorism does not occur in a vacuum. If we can take the time to listen to moderate Muslims and friendly governments around the world, we might find ways to neutralize the terrorists without firing another shot or compromising our principles. Moreover, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror, we should encourage the worldwide community of Muslim believers (Umma), to search their hearts and minds for reasons why, in the name of a religion that professes peace, a group could so brutally hijack their faith.
Arnie Schifferdecker is a retired FSO who served as a political officer in Kabul, Lahore, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Rabat and Washington. He returned to Kabul in 1997-98 as an advisor to the United Nations Special Mission in Afghanistan. A member of the Journal's Editorial Board, he is currently a consultant with the Department of State in Washington, D.C.
