JIRGA episode on TTP origins with Retired officers

[EjazR]

Does anyone have links to the full episode?

 

[EjazR]

Here is the full episode. Very insightful.

Full JIRGA episode 22nd October 2009

(mods apologise for other forum links but this is where I found the full episode. If this is still unacceptable, please delete the post)

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Excellent interview - exposes the real salafi-inspired agenda of the pakistani taliban that started taking root long before 9/11 and the US invasion of Afghanistan!!

 

[EjazR]

Excellent interview - exposes the real salafi-inspired agenda of the pakistani taliban that started taking root long before 9/11 and the US invasion of Afghanistan!!

Although I don't agree with many things about salafis, the agenda discussed here doesn't have anything to do with them.

Its an Al-Qaeda inspired ideology and that's all there is to it.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Although I don't agree with many things about salafis, the agenda discussed here doesn't have anything to do with them.

Its an Al-Qaeda inspired ideology and that's all there is to it.

Don't fool yourself - Al Qaeda is a Salafi-indoctrinated entity - Bin Laden did'nt magically conjure up the ideology by himself.

What is being discussed here is TTP and their Salafi practices - it was the Salafi network and NOT Al Qaeda that set up the madrassas where these scumbugs got brainwashed.

Given the common ideological indoctrination, it is but natural for TTP to operationally collaborate with Al Qaeda.

 

[EjazR]

Please check out this thread as it may help you clear some misconceptions. http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...884-counter-ideology-wahhabis.html#post521346

Osama Bin Laden and his AQ colleagues have declared that all the salafi scholars in Saudi Arabia and should be killed. And the same scholars have declared OBL as deviant to be executed. Why do you think OBL ran away from Saudi Arabia? If he does get caught by Saudis he would most likley be executed.

The madrassas were set up as training grounds during Zia era by Saudi and western money for their own anti-soviet agenda and later for kashmir. Afterward, they were used by AQ to further their own agenda. Its important to know who the enemy is. If we target the wrong person, then success will be more difficult and elusive

 

[TalibanSwatter]

DAWN News

On August 5 when a US drone fired a missile at a house in South Waziristan, my source in the Taliban-infested area informed me that TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud had been killed instantly.

The missile strike took out its prized target but also set off rumours — some that he had been killed and others, attributed mainly to the Taliban, that he had not been eliminated — until his successor was announced.

However, there were others who were worried about the Taliban phenomenon with regard to the growing differences among the jihadists. Who would replace Baitullah? What would be their future course of action? There were many contenders: Qari Hussain, Hakimullah, Maulana Waliur Rehman, Noor Saeed, Azmatullah and Raees Khan.

The choice was really hard for the Taliban. Tribal affinities and the Salafi factor were at the centre of post-Baitullah power politics in Waziristan, which prevented the 43-member Taliban shura from naming a new chief. The delay also showed that Baitullah had never nominated a successor.

The top three contenders Hakimullah, Qari Hussain and Azam Tariq belong to the Balolzai branch of the Mehsud tribe, whereas Maulana Waliur Rehman, Azmatullah and Noor Saeed come from the Manzai branch. Historically, the Manzai sub-tribe has been in the forefront of power politics in Mehsud territory and has provided both manpower and leadership to the Taliban.

The Manzai finally lost to the Balolzai when it came to the TTP succession. Hakimullah sidelined the rest and the Taliban shura was left with no option but to choose between him and Maulana Waliur Rehman. They crowned Hakimullah, while Maulana Waliur Rehman was made ameer of South Waziristan. Azam Tariq was nominated as spokesman.

Will it be possible for the TTP to sustain its mainstream leadership in Waziristan? Or will the Salafi school stake its claim? The influence of the militant Ashaat Tauheed wa Sunnah, JUI-F and the outlawed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan is also a factor.

The Taliban have deep-rooted differences: Faqir Mohammad, TTP chief in Bajaur, had earlier announced that Hakimullah would be the new leader whereas NWFP MP Mufti Kifayatullah of the JUI-F told the media that Maulana Waliur Rehman had been nominated TTP chief.

The Taliban in Khyber Agency, Bajaur, Orakzai and Swat are influenced by the Salafi school of thought. In Orakzai Agency, where the Taliban have challenged Shia militants on their turf, the Salafi -influenced Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has swelled the ranks of the TTP giving it a sectarian overtone, which is why Azam Tariq, with clear affiliations to the sectarian outfit, has been appointed as TTP’s central spokesman. The Salafi movement has overshadowed the Taliban from Swat to Orakzai except for Waziristan where the JUI-F is still calling the shots.What is the picture that emerges?

Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir had, in March 2009, formed a 13-member council called Shura-i-Ittihadul Mujahideen. The shura received a death-blow on August 15 when 17 associates of Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur were gunned down in the Mehsud-dominated Salae Roghae area of the Ladha sub-division. The Nazir group later demanded that the Baitullah group hand over eight men, including Uzbeks and Mehsuds, to it for their complicity. Thus the Shura-i-Ittihadul Mujahideen fell apart.

Room to breathe for the Hakimullah-led TTP has considerably lessened with the presence of the Abdullah group in the Mehsud area, Turkistan Bitani in the FR Tank area, Maulvi Nazir in the Wazir-dominated area and Hafiz Gul Bahadar in North Waziristan.

Another predicament for the TTP is a new government strategy. As the NWFP governor announced in June that a tribal jirga had failed to deliver, the political administration pressed tribal elders to form lashkars against the Taliban. The political administration with the help of intelligence agencies picked up tribesmen from as far off as Karachi using the collective responsibility clause of the FCR to tell them ‘either you are with us or against us’.

They were also told they could either financially support the raising of a lashkar or participate in one and that, in keeping with tribal custom, a third party would take responsibility for the ‘damage’. The government already has links with the Abdullah Mehsud group — comprising mainly the Shamenkhel tribe and aided by the Balolzai Mehsud — in this regard. An official, seeking anonymity, said that the groundwork for the lashkars had been laid and that the two main ones would start their onslaught after Eid — one mobilised in the vicinity of the border town of Makin which is a Baitullah stronghold and the other near Kotkai, both in South Waziristan.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Why do you think OBL ran away from Saudi Arabia? If he does get caught by Saudis he would most likley be executed.

The madrassas were set up as training grounds during Zia era by Saudi and western money for their own anti-soviet agenda and later for kashmir. Afterward, they were used by AQ to further their own agenda. Its important to know who the enemy is. If we target the wrong person, then success will be more difficult and elusive

OBL is not welcome in Saudi because he threatens the royal family and its government-appointed clerics. For the longest time, the Sauds supported their Salafi allies in exporting their fascist tribal ideology around the world.

OBL is simply the celebrity poster boy for the Salafi Jihad Movement.

The relationship between the Sauds and Salafis is not too different from the PA-Taliban dynamic. For decades, the Sauds nurtured the salafi monster, before it turned around and started biting its master.

As most people know, there is an extensive Salafi network active in the Gulf busy funding salafi jihadists including the TTP thugs and their political stooges (Qazi Hussain types) in our backyard.

 

[EjazR]

OBL is not welcome in Saudi because he threatens the royal family and its government-appointed clerics. For the longest time, the Sauds supported their Salafi allies in exporting their fascist tribal ideology around the world.

OBL is simply the celebrity poster boy for the Salafi Jihad Movement.

The relationship between the Sauds and Salafis is not too different from the PA-Taliban dynamic. For decades, the Sauds nurtured the salafi monster, before it turned around and started biting its master.

As most people know, there is an extensive Salafi network active in the Gulf busy funding salafi jihadists including the TTP thugs and their political stooges (Qazi Hussain types) in our backyard.

My friend, like I said there are certainly differences of opinion with Salafis. The prominent of which is that for example Deobandis believe in Tasawwuf (sufistic/mystical nature of Islam) while Salafis deny its importance. There are many other differences.

But to say that Salafis will support suicide bombings or terrorism is wrong. Their scholars have given clear cut fatwas against suicide bombings even in the cause of Jihad, so how are AQ and TTP justifying these suicide bombings? I hope you do go through the earlier thread and study what salafi scholars say about TTP and AQ.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

But to say that Salafis will support suicide bombings or terrorism is wrong. Their scholars have given clear cut fatwas against suicide bombings even in the cause of Jihad,.

The reality is quite different - the few fatwas given by salafi clerics on the government payroll are considered to be a joke by the Salafis. And that is why these government-backed clerics keep getting threats from the mainstream salafi jihad movement.

The Sauds are reaping what they sowed. They never had any issues with suicide bombings and terrorism until their own cities got attacked - it will be hard to reverse the rampant Salafi thinking in their midst, considering they have spent decades promoting it.

 

[EjazR]

The suicide bombing fatwa was given referring to the Palestinian case and not issued recently. However, the AQ excuse of using takfir for anyone who opposes there perverted point of view is well known.

I agree with you that the Saudi security establishment for their own security and political purposes used these extremists and even promoted them. This was also covertly supported by Western countries and Pakistan security establishment as well for geo-politcal reasons. This is how they got so sophisticated. How did they learn bomb making, and commando techniques? Where di they get training to use AK47s, rocket launchers and mine making? These were all taught by shady intelligence organizations initially which were furhter improved on by AQ type groups.

The might belong to the salafi school of thought but to say that salafi school of thought says kill civilians e.t.c is wrong. Its just like they claim to be muslims, but whatever they do has nothing to do with Islam at all.

That is all that I am saying. I can understand non-muslims making such statements as they might not no specific details about Islam, but as muslims we should do a proper study before we make blanket statements.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

The suicide bombing fatwa was given referring to the Palestinian case and not issued recently. However, the AQ excuse of using takfir for anyone who opposes there perverted point of view is well known.

I agree with you that the Saudi security establishment for their own security and political purposes used these extremists and even promoted them. This was also covertly supported by Western countries and Pakistan security establishment as well for geo-politcal reasons. This is how they got so sophisticated. How did they learn bomb making, and commando techniques?

The might belong to the salafi school of thought but to say that salafi school of thought says kill civilians e.t.c is wrong. Its just like they claim to be muslims, but whatever they do has nothing to do with Islam at all.

I agree with your point about the role of the pakistani establishment, the US and Saudi.

However, the Salafi school is intrinsically a fascist ideology based on supremacist and misogynistic beliefs, and a complete disregard for centuries of islamic jurusprudence.

Unfortunately, the doctrine has very little to do with Islam. It was concocted by Abdul Wahab in the 18th century and further refined by his followers into the insidious form it occupies today.

I will post a couple of articles that will shed some light on the history of the Salafis and their origins.

 

[EjazR]

^^ I would suggest you check out this website http://www.thewahhabimyth.com/

I'm sure you will be able to find 100s of anti-salafi articles on the net. But if you really want to understand a religion, ideology e.t.c. you have to study it form THEIR point of view.

For example, even though there are many things correct in the above website, their section on "What is sufism" is quite wrong as they don't try to understand what sufism or tasawwuf is about.

Like I have said before there are many things I disagree with among Salafis. But I can't agree when someone says that Salafis encourage suicide bombings or terrorism. That's all

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Khaled Abou El Fadl (UCLA Professor of Islamic Law and one of the leading authorities on this topic)

The foundations of Wahhabi theology were put in place by the eighteenth-century evangelist Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab in the Arabian Peninsula. With a puritanical zeal, 'Abd al-Wahhab sought to rid Islam of so-called corruptions that he believed had crept into the religion. Wahhabism resisted the indeterminacy of the modern age by escaping to a strict literalism in which the text became the sole source of legitimacy. In this context, Wahhabism exhibited extreme hostility to intellectualism, mysticism and any sectarian divisions within Islam. The Wahhabi creed also considered any form of moral thought that was not entirely dependent on the text as a form of self-idolatry, and treated humanistic fields of knowledge, especially philosophy, as "the sciences of the devil." According to the Wahhabi creed, it was imperative to return to a presumed pristine, simple and straightforward Islam, which could be entirely reclaimed by literal implementation of the commands of the Prophet, and by strict adherence to correct ritual practice. Importantly, Wahhabism rejected any attempt to interpret the divine law from a historical, contextual perspective, and treated the vast majority of Islamic history as a corruption of the true and authentic Islam. The classical jurisprudential tradition was considered at best to be mere sophistry. Wahhabism became very intolerant of the long-established Islamic practice of considering a variety of schools of thought to be equally orthodox. Orthodoxy was narrowly defined, and 'Abd al-Wahhab himself was fond of creating long lists of beliefs and acts which he considered hypocritical, the adoption or commission of which immediately rendered a Muslim an unbeliever.

In the late eighteenth century, the Al Sa'ud family united with the Wahhabi movement and rebelled against Ottoman rule in Arabia. Egyptian forces quashed this rebellion in 1818. Nevertheless, Wahhabi ideology was resuscitated in the early twentieth century under the leadership of 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Sa'ud who allied himself with the tribes of Najd, in the beginnings of what would become Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi rebellions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were very bloody because the Wahhabis indiscriminately slaughtered and terrorized Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Mainstream jurists writing at the time, such as the Hanafi Ibn 'Abidin and the Maliki al-Sawi, described the Wahhabis as a fanatic fringe group.(3)
Wahhabism Ascendant
Nevertheless, Wahhabism survived and, in fact, thrived in contemporary Islam for several reasons. By treating Muslim Ottoman rule as a foreign occupying power, Wahhabism set a powerful precedent for notions of Arab self-determination and autonomy. In advocating a return to the pristine and pure origins of Islam, Wahhabism rejected the cumulative weight of historical baggage. This idea was intuitively liberating for Muslim reformers since it meant the rebirth of ijtihad, or the return to de novo examination and determination of legal issues unencumbered by the accretions of precedents and inherited doctrines. Most importantly, the discovery and exploitation of oil provided Saudi Arabia with high liquidity. Especially after 1975, with the sharp rise in oil prices, Saudi Arabia aggressively promoted Wahhabi thought around the Muslim world. Even a cursory examination of predominant ideas and practices reveals the widespread influence of Wahhabi thought on the Muslim world today.

But Wahhabism did not spread in the modern Muslim world under its own banner. Even the term "Wahhabism" is considered derogatory by its adherents, since Wahhabis prefer to see themselves as the representatives of Islamic orthodoxy. To them, Wahhabism is not a school of thought within Islam, but is Islam. The fact that Wahhabism rejected a label gave it a diffuse quality, making many of its doctrines and methodologies eminently transferable. Wahhabi thought exercised its greatest influence not under its own label, but under the rubric of Salafism. In their literature, Wahhabi/Salafi clerics have consistently described themselves as Salafis, and not Wahhabis.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Sounds a lot like the TTP thugs to me....

USCIRF

http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.co...eandeffect.pdf

A few excerpts:

Saudi Arabia is currently under a totalitarian regime, but one that is somewhat unique in that it is bifurcated. On the one hand, the government operates as a monarchy under the rule of King Abdulah and his peers in the Saudi royal family. On the other hand, the day-to-day lives of the people are governed as a theocracy run by the ulema, the council of Wahhabi religious leaders which has de facto control over many of the basic social institutions of the Kingdom. Along with the nation’s religious institutions, which include the holiest sites in Islam – the Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina – the religious authorities also control the justice system. They appoint both the judiciary and the religious police, and impose a strict form of 'Sharia' (Islamic law).

Most importantly, it is the religious authorities who dictate the curriculum of the Kingdom’s education system. Each of these social institutions revolves around the official state religion, what is generally referred to in the West as “Wahhabi” Islam.

The USCIRF confirmed this, finding that, “The Saudi education system indoctrinates all students in the government’s favored interpretation of Islam, regardless of the convictions of the children or their parents.”: All students are taught religion beginning in primary school. The curriculum is exclusively based on Wahhabism. Shi’a and other Muslim doctrines are condemned, from the beginning of the child’s education, as heretical and sinful. . . . In 2001, four Shi’a high school students in Najran, aged 16 and 17, were arrested after a fight with a Wahhabi instructor who insulted their faith: They received two to four years in jail and 500 to 800 lashes.

In fact, the control of the Wahhabi/Salafi religious authorities extends far beyond issues of religious education and the mass media, to the very fabric of the society as a whole. Predictably, this has led to an endemic atmosphere of oppression, one which was observed first-hand by Lawrence Wright. He reports that the problem became especially severe after Islamic radicals seized control of the Holy Mosque of Mecca in 1979. In order to appease the extremists, the Saudi royal family ceded even more authority to the Salafi ulema.

Wright recounted:
Salafi clerics, with their fear of outside influences, waged war on art and the pleasures of the intellect. Music was the first victim. Umm Kulthum and Fairouz, the songbirds of the Arab world, disappeared from the Saudi television stations. A magnificent concert hall in Riyadh was completed in 1989, but no performance has ever been held there. The Islamic courts have even banned the music played when a telephone call is placed on hold. There had been some movie theatres, but they were all shut down.

What is true for Saudi men is doubly so for women in the Kingdom. Trapped underneath stifling black robes and veils, and forbidden from leaving their home without a male chaperone, they are systematically denied even the most basic freedoms.

In addition to imposing Sharia law and appointing the judiciary, the religious authorities also employ their own police force to compel obedience to Wahhabi religious mandates. Officially, the religious police are known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and
Prevention of Vice. But colloquially, they are known throughout Saudi Arabia as the mutawaa.

The USCIRF reports:
The mutawaa is intrusive. They arbitrarily raid private homes and exercise broadly defined, vague powers, including the ability to use physical force and detain individuals without due process. . . . the mutawaa harass and beat women for not complying with the dress code; detain men for appearing in public places with women who are not relatives; harass and detain female foreign workers arbitrarily; shear men’s hair if it is determined to violate imposed standards;detain without charge Saudis and non-Saudis for long periods of time; and flog and beat both Saudis and non-Saudis.