The trail of terror continues with cricketers as the latest target. The Mumbai and Lahore attacks, public executions and the murder of over a thousand civilians in the Swat valley by Taliban style terrorists are horrifying examples of atrocities committed by militant groups thriving on political Islam. Global Muslim communities require urgent measures in condemning the agenda of political Islam that distorts religious scriptures to legitimise violence. This ideology of Islamism is threatening to replace a moderate and spiritual Islam, leading to the destruction of society, particularly oppressing women and minorities. Muslims have a moral responsibility to engage in the social, political and economic development of the societies they live in. Global Muslim societies would do well in following the exceptional efforts of the Indian clerics in denouncing terrorism and de linking it with Islam. Sincere moral outrage needs to be expressed at Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, political kidnappings and assassinations, militancy in Kashmir, Shia Sunni killings in Iraq and Pakistan, fatwas that condone suicide bombings in the Israel Palestine conflict and other such atrocities that effect innocent lives. Muslims require the consensus of the international in combating extremism but our credibility is lost when we demonstrate selective outrage as in the aftermath of the Danish cartoons. Political Islam draws its lifeblood from the ideology of fighting the oppressor, but has clearly become the oppressor. Even though some Islamist groups have renounced violence and accepted the principles of democracy, marginally improved their stand on women and minority rights, they remain socially conservative. In Jordan, the Islamist party does not support the rights of women to file for divorce. In Kuwait the Islamists fought against the right of women to vote. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood will not allow a woman or a person from a minority community to become head of state. Unfortunately, militant Islamist groups thrive in the political vacuum created by oppressive regimes in most Islamic countries. Muslims must stop blaming the problem of extremism on catastrophic foreign policies for two wrongs simply do not make a right. Islamism is primarily a Muslim problem, threatening both Muslim and non- Muslim societies. We need to acknowledge there is a problem of theology when extremists talk of going straight to heaven after taking innocent lives. The roots of all modern militant Islamic movements can be traced to one man called Abdul Wahab from Nejd in the Arabian Peninsula. He set out to ‘purify’ Islam, believing that Muslims had drifted away from true religion. Wahab’s followers destroyed many sacred sites he considered idols. Attacking the arts for being frivolous and dangerous, Wahab sanctioned the rape; murder and plunder of those who refused to follow his injunctions. He was considered a heretic by most, for Makkah and Madinah were then centres of contemplative Islam, inhabited by Sufis from all over the world. In 1774-5 Wahab negotiated a deal with the then nomadic tribe of Saud, forebears of the current royal family in exchange for support in their quest for political domination. Most Saudi’s reject the name Wahabbi; they either call themselves Muwahuddin- Unitarians- or Salafi, refering to salaf, the venerated companions of the Prophet. In this blinkered view, no other version of religious truth can exist. This new face of Islam has nothing to do with Sufis, music, poetry, miracles or the countless devotional customs of Muslim cultures across the world. Under the patronage of the Saudi Arabia, Wahabism went from strength to strength. Abul Ala Mawdudi, a journalist who translated the Quran outside the paradigms of classical propagated the Wahabi ideology. He founded the political party Jamaat e Islami in Pakistan, making jihad central to Islamic discourse. Addressing non-Muslims as infidels, he grouped Muslims into ‘partial’ and ‘true’ Muslims. Mawdudi’s ideas of Islam as a revolutionary doctrine to take over governments and overturn the whole universal order deeply influenced Syed Qutub of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. These groups have been motivated by political upheavals and the rejection of traditional scholars. Syed Qutub’s brother happened to be among the teachers of Osama bin Laden. The extremism now found in Makkah and Madinah, the heartland of Islam, is the Wahabi ideology that the Saudis have spent millions in promoting through their outreach programs. There is no tolerance for Shias, Sunni Sufis or other Muslim traditions, leave alone non -Muslims. Unfortunately, there is no collective Muslim protest against the Saudi regime for bulldozing graveyards, destroying cultural and religious heritage in the holy cities, imposing a certain sexual segregation of the sexes inside the Prophets mosque at Madinah, radical sermons, or the distribution of radical literature outside Saudi mosques, many of them issuing calls for death to whoever they view as infidels or innovators of Islam. The problem of Muslim extremism began in the Muslim world and the responsibility of resolving it lies with us. The inability to present a picture of Islam as a peaceful religion is a collective failure of global Muslim communities. We could begin with increasing the decibel in condemning violence, sectarianism, standing up for the rights of women, stop demonising the other as kufaar (infidels) and show increased support for democratic movements in Muslim countries. It is time for the devout, silent peace-loving Muslim majority to speak for Islam. Let us become louder than the radical voices that claim to represent us. Sadia Dehlvi is a Delhi based writer and author of the forthcoming book, “Sufism: The Heart of Islam” published by HarperCollins India. Source: Indian Muslims
 Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent March 06
CRICKET is akin to a religion in Pakistan, which might explain why it is so loathed by Islamic extremists there.
While few believe Tuesday's terror strike on the Sri Lankan team was designed as a specific attack on the sport of cricket, the ambush has highlighted one of the more peculiar preoccupations of Islamic extremists.
Following the Indian cricket tour of Pakistan in 2004 -- the first in a decade -- the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group in Pakistan issued what amounted to a fatwa against the sport.
"The British gave Muslims the bat, snatched the sword and said to them: 'You take this bat and play cricket. Give us your sword. With its help we will kill you and rape your women'," the LET magazine Zarb-e-Toiba said in its April 2004 edition.
The magazine article commented: "It is sad that Pakistanis are committing suicide after losing cricket matches to India. But they are not sacrificing their lives to protect the honour of the raped Kashmiri women. To watch a cricket match we would take a day off work. But for jihad, we have not time!"
More fitting for a mujahid (or holy fighter), the magazine said, were the sports of archery, horseriding and swimming.
"The above are not just sports but exercises for jihad," Zarb-e-Toiba told its readers.
"Cricket is an evil and sinful sport. Under the intoxication of cricket, Pakistanis have forgotten that these Hindu players come from the same nation that raped our mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and daughters-in-law."
The Punjab-based LET is a prime suspect for the Lahore attack, with analysts suggesting it could be motivated by a desire to retaliate for the recent arrests of six top operatives linked to November's Mumbai terror strike.
The other major suspect for the ambush, the Tehrik-e-Taliban -- which has waged a bloody campaign for control of the northwestern tribal areas and Swat Valley -- has also made clear its distaste for flannelled fools.
Just days before Tuesday's attack, Sufi Mohammad, the Taliban-linked cleric who brokered the dubious peace deal between militants in the Swat Valley and the Islamabad Government in return for the imposition of sharia law, condemned cricket as a distraction that needed to be curbed.
But cricket is not universally condemned among Islamists. During its years in power, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan applied -- unsuccessfully -- for membership of the International Cricket Council. The sport was played in Afghanistan during that time, although with a distinct Talibani flavour. Players were forbidden from wearing short-sleeved shirts, and crowd participation of any sort was banned, as were women spectators.
Several of Pakistan's national cricket team are devout Muslims.
But there is a growing movement against the sport among Pakistan's increasingly powerful Islamist militants now waging war within Pakistan for the overthrow of the civilian Government.
The Hindu newspaper noted yesterday that the weekly radical Islamist magazine al-Qalam last year attacked Pakistan's plans to reform its religious schools, or madrassas, which included plans for an inter-schools cricket tournament it branded as "evil".
"We, the ulema (arbiters of sharia law) of the Deoband school, will have nothing to do with this tournament," al-Qalam's editors wrote in April last year, saying the West was "promoting obscenity" in Pakistan's schools. Source: The Australian
March 05
Pakistan must fight the enemy within following the latest terror attack, warns Ramesh Thakur
WHEN terrorists struck Mumbai on November 26 last year, the English cricket team was touring India.
It went back home but returned just a little later to complete a curtailed tour in a show of determination to deny terrorists the satisfaction of victory. But the Indian Government cancelled the planned Indian cricket tour of Pakistan for January this year.
Pakistan successfully appealed to Sri Lanka to replace India. The Sri Lankan team was rewarded on Tuesday by being attacked in a surreal replay of Mumbai by a group of about a dozen well-trained, disciplined, heavily armed young men executing an audacious, carefully planned mission with commando-style precision and toughness. Six policemen and two civilians are dead, including the bus driver whose heroics prevented the entire Sri Lankan team from being massacred.
The implications are many and far-reaching. Some can yet be positive.
This may be the first time since the Munich Olympics in 1972 that sportspeople have been targeted directly by terrorists.
Pakistanis believed that because of the game's passionate popularity, terrorists would not risk a public backlash by attacking cricketers. In fact they have attacked the team that came to show solidarity when arch-enemy India withdrew. This is the end of innocence for the most genteel of games.
Second, it should disabuse innocent foreigners of the notion that the terrorists infesting Pakistan have Kashmir as their agenda.
Mumbai last year already proved that the terrorist leaders mean what they say when they lump together Hindus, Christians and Jews as common enemies of Islam. Indeed, a Los Angeles Times story suggested that a primary aim of the Mumbai attacks was to disrupt the growing relationship between India and Israel.
Third, it should help to convince the Pakistani establishment that the jihadist monster it has spawned is now its own biggest security threat.
An irritant for India is proving to be fatal for Pakistan, destroying it from within. To the anguish of many, the Government recently surrendered control of the lovely Swat Valley, a mere 160km from Islamabad, to Islamists whose agenda had been roundly repudiated by voters in recent elections. As the extremists regroup in the notorious Afghanistan-Pakistan border badlands and strike with growing daring and impunity on both sides, a gathering war-weariness in NATO is encouraging negotiations with "good" Taliban as a means of containing "bad" al-Qa'ida. This could prove a dangerous self-delusion.
Fourth, it should drive home to all South Asian leaders the folly of believing that their neighbour's terrorist is their own freedom fighter. Indira Gandhi played that game domestically with the Sikhs and her son Rajiv played it with Sri Lanka: both paid with their lives, felled by the bullets and bombs of the monsters they had created.
Related to this, fifth, the region's governments must co-operate in their intelligence, law enforcement and political remedies to the common scourge of terrorism. Its infrastructure of madrassas, recruitment centres, financial networks and training camps must be uprooted across South Asia. India can be the solution to Pakistan's nightmare of militancy, but not until such time as New Delhi is convinced of Islamabad's good faith, which to date has been conspicuously lacking.
The Pakistan Government has been in denial, obfuscation and diversion mode with regard to the Pakistani origins of the Mumbai attacks and possible complicity of Inter-Services Intelligence agents, rogue or not.
Conversely, it is disheartening to read that India's home and foreign ministers were quick to say "I told you so" instead of letting the rebuke lie implicit while offering unconditional solace, sympathy and support to a nation in shock. A little neighbourly magnanimity can go a long way in times of national peril. The Indian team, playing in New Zealand, wore black armbands in sympathy when news of Lahore came through.
Building on anti-terrorism co-operation, South Asians also could look to foster common institutions such as regional human rights commissions (they should avoid Canadian-type Frankensteins that mock the rights they should protect), press councils, a common peacekeeping doctrine for UN deployment, joint tourism promotion, combined protection from abuse of nationals working as labourers and domestic help in the Middle East.
With greater cross-border flow of goods, services and people, even the Kashmir dividing line could be made irrelevant in practice without confronting the thorny issue of sovereignty. Special envoys of former president Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reportedly had worked out such a deal after several rounds of secret discussions. Courage deserted one or both, Musharraf is out of power and now Singh faces elections in April-May. However, the deal could be resurrected after May.
Ramesh Thakur is founding director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Ontario and adjunct professor at Griffith University, Queensland. Source: The Australian
 Sri Lankan cricket teamAmanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent and Peter Kogoy | March 04
PAKISTANI President Asif Ali Zardari has strongly condemned yesterday's terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, as authorities scramble to find the gunmen responsible.
The suspected Islamic terrorists opened a new front by launching an attack on the cricket squad’s bus, wounding eight team members and killing at least eight people, six of them police
It had plunged Pakistan into a "state of war," Rehman Malik, the Prime Minister's interior adviser, said. "Be patient, we will flush all these terrorists out of the country.”
The attack, in Pakistan's most cosmopolitan city, bore all the hallmarks of the terror group responsible for November's deadly Mumbai attacks.
Punjabi Governor Salman Tahseer said the 12 masked and heavily armed gunmen who attacked the cricket convoy as it approached the Gaddafi stadium were not ordinary terrorists, but highly trained.
While last night no group had claimed responsibility for the attack, Mr Tahseer said the terrorists appeared to follow the same modus operandi as the Mumbai gunmen, who have been linked to the Pakistani Islamic terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba.
"I want to say it's the same pattern, the same terrorists who attacked Mumbai," Mr Tahseer said.
The terrorists, travelling by rickshaw and taxi and armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rocket launchers and grenades, attacked the Sri Lankan team's bus about 9am (3pm AEDT) as it headed into the stadium for the third day of the final Test match of the series.
All 12 terrorists managed to escape, but four armed suspects were arrested late yesterday by police after a manhunt was launched in the city. Lahore police also defused two car bombs yesterday and found a stash of weapons in the city.
"The plan was apparently to kill the Sri Lankan team but the police came in the way and forced the attackers to run away," police chief Habib-ur Rehman said.
Sri Lanka's captain Mahela Jayawardene, who received minor shrapnel wounds in the attack, said officials and players dropped to the floor as one of the attackers fired a rocket launcher at the bus. It missed its target.
"The gunmen targeted the wheels of the bus first, and then the bus. We all dived to the floor to take cover," Jayawardene said.
As well as opening fire on the bus, the terrorists lobbed grenades before engaging in a 25-minute shootout with police. TV footage showed gunmen, carrying backpacks, firing at the convoy. A police official said two civilians and six policemen guarding the players were killed in the attack.
Vice-captain Kumar Sangakkara, who had shrapnel removed from his shoulder, said last night the entire touring squad was safe.
"There are a few injuries, but everyone is safe and all the players are out of danger," Sangakkara told the Indian news channel CNN-IBN from Lahore.
"We are shocked, but apart from that everyone is OK.
"It's very unfortunate that this has happened. I don't regret coming here to play cricket because that's what we have been doing all our lives.
"That is our profession. But all we want to do now is to go back home to our families, get back home and be safe."
Mr Zardari strongly condemned the violence and ordered an inquiry, while Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse called the incident a “cowardly terrorist attack”.
US President Barack Obama said he was “deeply concerned” about the latest violence to hit Washington's “war on terror” ally, while British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned the incident “unreservedly”.
The Pakistan Cricket Board said the attack was “beyond (its) control,” adding that it was “deeply shocked” by the incident.
Despite heightened security for the visiting team, the bus was not bulletproof and the route to the stadium was open to traffic.
As well as Jayawardene and Sangakkara, five other players were wounded, including opening batsmen Tharanga Paranavitana and Thilan Samaraweera.
Paranavitana had shrapnel removed from his chest and Samaraweera -- who this week became only the seventh batsmen to notch a double hundred in consecutive tests -- was operated on for a gunshot wound to the thigh.
Also wounded were Ajantha Mendis (shrapnel in neck and scalp), Suranka Lakmal and Chaminda Vaas. British assistant coach Paul Farbrace was also wounded. Australian-born head coach Trevor Bayliss was unhurt.
Two Pakistani air force helicopters evacuated the Sri Lankan team from the stadium to an air base, from where they were to be flown home by charter aircraft.
Sixteen members of the touring party ran towards the military aircraft on the pitch under the guard of security officials.
Samaraweera and Paranavitana were carried on stretchers to a helicopter that also evacuated from the stadium Jayawardene and manager Brenden Kurrupu.
Mr Bayliss's wife, Julie, told The Australian her husband was lucky to have escaped the attack.
"Trevor's OK, thank God, but they took an inch and a half of shrapnel from the back of Paul Farbrace's head," she said.
"Trev told me there was a lot of blood on the team bus from the injuries suffered by the other blokes on the team."
Sydney-born Pakistan cricket team trainer David Dwyer, who was travelling in another bus in the convoy, described hearing a noise like firecrackers going off before his bus came to a screeching halt.
There seemed to be a lot of confusion and panic around the Sri Lankan team bus, which was "behind us when we passed it on the road", Dwyer said.
"It was only when we got back to the hotel and were told to stay in our rooms that we were told what had happened," he said. "Right now I'm still trying to get my head around what had just happened to a lot of our mates on the Sri Lankan cricket team."
Security concerns have plagued Pakistan for years and some foreign sports teams, including the Australian cricket team, have refused to play there. Just last month, after the Mumbai attack in which more than 170 people were killed, the Indian Government refused permission for the national cricket team to tour Pakistan.
Yesterday's attack was the first time a sporting team had been targeted in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation, which appears to be losing its battle to contain Islamic extremists within its borders.
It also rocked the South Asian heartland of cricket and prompted an immediate review of arrangements for the 2011 World Cup. The showpiece tournament is due to be jointly hosted by India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
"Quite clearly, this event puts a great question mark over the ability of Pakistan to host cricket World Cup matches," International Cricket Council president David Morgan told the BBC.
The Sri Lankan military is also engaged in a bloody battle with Tamil separatists in the north of the country. But Sri Lanka military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said he did not believe the attack was carried out by Tamil Tiger rebels, who are now on the brink of defeat after a 25-year armed struggle for a separate Tamil nation.
Reg Dickason, a security expert for the Australian, English and New Zealand cricket teams who opposed the Champion's Trophy being played in Pakistan last year, said yesterday he had tried to dissuade the Sri Lankan team from touring Pakistan a fortnight before their scheduled visit.
"Pakistan is in a volatile situation and travelling there needed careful consideration," he said. Source: The Australian
March 03
MASKED gunman have opened fire on the Sri Lankan cricket team's bus in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, killing at least eight people and wounding six players, officials say.
Lahore police chief Habib-ur Rehman said 12 gunmen today attacked the convoy near Lahore's Gaddafi stadium with rockets, hand grenades and automatic weapons and were involved in a 25-minute shoot-out with the security forces.
“They appeared to be well-trained terrorists. They came on rickshaws," he told reporters.
A police official said two civilians and six police officers who were guarding the players were killed in the attack which happened as the team was heading for the third day's play in the second Test against Pakistan.
Television footage of several gunmen creeping through the trees, crouching to aim their Kalashnikovs then running onto the next target were aired by Pakistan's private channel Geo.
Broken glass littered the road next to a gun cartridge and an empty rocket-propelled grenade launcher. A police motorbike was shown crashed sideways into the road at the Liberty Chowk (roundabout) in Lahore.
Bullet holes ripped through the windscreen of another vehicle and a white car was shown smashed headlong into the roundabout as nervous security officers guarded the site.
Sri Lankan authorities said six players were believed to have been wounded though earlier reports said eight had been injured.
Local police officer Mohammad Suhail told AFP that two players had bullet injuries but were "in a stable condition".
In Sri Lanka, Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge said Tharanga Paranavitana and Thilan Samaraweera had been taken to hospital in Lahore.
Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardena was also slightly wounded in the foot, his father told a Sri Lankan local television station after speaking with his son by telephone.
Samaraweera is one of Sri Lanka's leading players. He became only the seventh batsmen in Test cricket to notch a double hundred in consecutive matches on Monday, scoring 214 after a 231 in the drawn first Test.
The shooting came as the Sri Lankan army pushed its final offensive against ethnic Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the country in a civil war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Fears of attacks by Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda have caused many teams to postpone or cancel cricket tours to Pakistan in recent years.
Australia earlier this month forced Pakistan to change the venue of a one-day series to the neutral venues of Dubai and Abu Dhabi when the two sides meet in April-May this year over security fears.
Australia, who also played Pakistan in three Tests at the neutral venues of Colombo and Dubai in 2002, have not toured Pakistan since 1998.
India also refused to send its team across the border amid heightened tensions in the wake of attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, which New Delhi blamed on militants based in Pakistan.
Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are due to jointly host the cricket World Cup in 2011.
Last month, Pakistan's cricket chief vowed to improve security arrangements for the 10th edition of the four-yearly event and denied there was a risk associated with staging some of the games in the troubled country.
Last month, security concerns raised by other teams forced the ICC to move the 2009 Champions Trophy out of Pakistan.
The elite eight-nation Trophy was to be held in September-October this year but the ICC was to announce a new venue in April.
The event was originally scheduled for last year but was put off after South Africa pulled out of the event and Australia, England and New Zealand showed reluctance to tour because of fears about players' safety. Source: The Australian
 Muslim school websites are advising
students not to read Harry PotterBy Matthew Hickley Some Islamic schools are promoting fundamentalist views and encouraging children to despise Western society, a report warns. An investigation by the Civitas social policy think-tank found websites of some of the UK’s 166 Muslim schools are spreading extreme teachings, while a handful had links to sites promoting jihad, or holy war. Examples include web forums forbidding Muslims from reading Harry Potter books, playing chess or cricket and listening to Western music. The Civitas report, entitled Music, Chess and Other Sins, claims Ofsted inspectors are incapable of scrutinising Muslim faith schools properly, and demands an inquiry by MPs. Many of the websites featured in the report were shut down or edited in the hours before it was published. Islamic schools educate thousands of Muslim children. Most operate in the private sector although increasing numbers are seeking state funding. The study, overseen by Dr Denis MacEoin, a university lecturer in Islamic studies, looked at material found on Islamic schools’ websites, either content or via links. Read more ...Source: Daily MailH/T: Gramfan
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