Consortium of Indian Defence Websites
https://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/
Pakistani security forces appeared to be trying to dampen down reporting this weekend on the background of Tashfeen Malik, who mounted an attack alongside her husband that killed 14 people in California.
Three professors at Malik's university said they had been advised not to talk to the media, while men claiming to be from Pakistan's security agencies told reporters to drop their investigations into her background on pain of arrest.
Men claiming to be from security agencies, but who refused to provide identification, also sought to discourage Reuters from further reporting on Malik's background, threatening journalists with arrest for unspecified offences.
"Whether you consider this a request or a dictation (order), I would advise you not to pursue this story," one said.
Tim Craig, a reporter from the Washington Post, tweeted that police had prevented him from leaving his hotel in Multan.
"I've lost track of how many different security/intel officials I've had to talk to, copy my passport, etc in past 17 hours - think 12 to 16," he tweeted
On NSAs talks in BKK. Foreign Secretaries were also present.RoyG wrote:YES! This is exactly what we wanted. Doval will now be talking to the Army directly.
will Mommy Dearest who spent a lot of time in the lovebird's nest, wind up in a federal pen with the Thuggettes and Sista Sojahs?Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he's been told that federal investigators are working hard to determine what Malik was doing overseas before she came to the U.S. in 2014 to be Farook's wife.
"There's a serious investigation ongoing into what she was doing in Pakistan and in Saudi, including if she attended the red mosque in Islamabad, which is a very radicalized mosque," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Just speculating if this "influential relative" ( a former provincial minister) with a fake degreeSuch members of the Punjab Assembly include Al-Haaj Muhammad Ilyas Chinioti, Tanveerul Islam, Makhdoom Syed Iftikhar Hussain Gillani, Sardar Muhammd Afzal Tatlah, Amina Jehangir, Javed Hassan Gujjar, Khawaja Salman Rafique, Ahmad Ali Aulak, Malik
was instrumental in "helping" Tafshin Malik obtain the necessary papers/US visa through his "sifarish contacts" at the US Embassy in Isloo.Perhaps that's why the meeting was held in Bangkok and not Delhi as intended. I do believe TSPA was extremely keen for the new NSA, who's their man, to size up Doval in person and Doval himself was keen on the same.CRamS wrote:It doesn't matter one way. But its interesting this meeting even took place, a climb-down of sorts for TSP after talking tough post Ufa. But true to form, TSP would have flushed down the toilet, all terror evidence presented by India, and in turn TSP would have presented some bogus crap of their own. Their goal as we all know is to get India to talk Kashmir where they put their demands: withdrawal of troops etc on the table. Sadly, we have PDP, NC, Cong, and other traitors on our side who will welcome this.
Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed has slammed Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for holding a meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi during the Paris climate change conference.
“Nawaz Sharif should not have met with Narendra Modi and exchanged smiles with him in Paris. It has hurt the sentiments of the Kashmiri Muslims,” Saeed said at a seminar titled ‘Kashmir Issue and Rise of Hindu Extremism in India’ at the Lahore High Court here on December 2 organised by the Pakistan Justice Party.The Pakistani media did not cover the event as the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has banned any media coverage of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), JuD and Flahai Insaniyat Foundation (FIF).Saeed founded the LeT whose operatives carried out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.He has challenged the media ban on his organisations in the high court here which issued notices to the government and PEMRA for reply next week..
So, at last, the Pakistani Army has succeeded in talking directly with GoI!Peregrine wrote:Five takeaways from the meeting of India, Pakistan NSAs in BangkokSince Ufa, Pakistan army chief, Raheel Sharif removed Sartaj Aziz as NSA and put in his own man, Nasir Janjua on the job.
The San Bernardino massacre saga is unfolding in unexpected directions that Americans are not entirely familiar with. It now turns out that the Pakistani wife of the duo that perpetrated the carnage might be the key player, and she may have radicalized her Pakistani-American husband and persuaded him to take part in the attack. Investigators are only now starting to connect the dots that is bringing them to the heartland of Sunni extremism in Pakistan’s Punjab province, an area where Saudi Arabia has infused a brand of toxic wahhabi extremism at the expense of its traditional peace loving sufism. This is entirely new turf for many Americans.
Syed Rizwan Farook came from a broken Pakistani immigrant family. A truck driver other and a mother who was a healthcare worker with Kaiser Permanente produced four children but could not stay together. However, nothing in Farook’s past appears to suggest any extremist thoughts or connections. An elder brother served with distinction in the US Navy and his two sisters while traditional, were not exactly ultraorthodox, which his wife turned out to be.
Apparently, it was Farook who went goes online looking for a conservative, orthodox wife and found Tashfeen Malik in Saudi Arabia. She is a year older than him (contrary to reports that put him at one year older). She wears a Saudi-style niqab (only eyes uncovered) and apparently that impresses him. He goes to Saudi Arabia to meet her and subsequently they get married, first in Mecca, and then, in Riverside, California, to fulfill the terms of her fiancee visa that enjoins them to marry in the U.S within three months of her arrival in US.
Here’s the big question: Did he know much about her background at this point in time?
Tashfeen Malik moved to Saudi Arabia when she was a child, brought there by her father Malik Gulzar Aulakh, reportedly an engineer working on Saudi projects. She was said to be 29 when she died so that would have been in the mid- to late-80s when she moved to Saudia. The family is from Karor Lal Esan in Layyah district in Pakistan’s Southern Punjab. It is the heartland of sufi ethos, largely seraiki speaking. Many sufi saints have emerged from this region, and Malik’s hometown itself is named after the mystic Hazrat Lal Esan, who is said to have stood on one leg and recited a sura from the Quran 10 million times (hence Karor (crore) Lal Esan).
So this is the area where over the last two decades the Saudis have pumped in money and resources to extinguish sufism and introduce a toxic sunni extremism. In fact, while everyone is poompheting about Fata and KP and Balochistan/Karachi, this Southern Punjab heartland is where there has been immense radicalization. It is also home to dregs like Ajmal Kasab and gang that carried out Mumbai 9/11. Going further back, the terrorist Masood Azhar, freed by the Kandahar hijackers comes from the region. It is the killing fields for LeT, LeJ and other such groups, led by Sunni supremacists like Malik Ishaq and Riaz Basra, who also find ther cannon fodder here.
In fact, one report mentions the Tashfeen’s family, the Malik Aulakhs, are politically influential and have extremist connections here. So do many other Pakistani Punjab politicians, including the current dispensation. In fact, if the U.S cares, it can nail almost every major politician in the region to extremist killer groups. Those who oppose them or take them on, like Shuka Khanzada, are simply eliminated. How much was Tashfeen Malik’s family part of this eco-system and the Saudi/Sunni makeover+indoctrination?
Tashfeen is said to have returned to Pakistan some years back to study. She went to a college in Multan (also a hotbed of sunni extremism) and earned a degree in pharmacy. It is not clear when exactly she came there, but if she is connected to the Lal Masjid cleric or clerics, as US investigators are suggesting, could this have been in 2007 (when she would have been 21/22)? Here is why this is important.
The siege of Lal Masjid took place in July 2007. it lasted a week. It was bloody and it was brutal, and vastly underreported outside Pakistan. Even in Pakistan, there was a lid on the coverage although you can find plenty of gory footage online now with more commentary and details than was available then. Official casualties were said to be 200, but the clerics and extremist groups claimed more than 1000, including women and children.
The siege was preceded and followed by an incredible show of militancy by niqab clad women angered by the Musharraf government’s crackdown. There are videos online in which they threaten suicide attacks. There are eve videos of the militant burka clad women lining up behind Abdul Aziz, the cleric who Tashfeen is said to have been in touch with and who subsequently pledged allegiance to ISIS. Was Tashfeen a part of this militancy? Or did she lose someone dear in the Lal Masjid carnage?
Here’s why the last question is important: Syed Rizwan Farook posted his profile on iMilap.com, which is a matrimonial site for disabled people and for those looking for a second marriage. Was Tashfeen (or Farook) married before? Or did they have some disability? It is also striking that they attacked a center in San Bernardino that served disabled people. So there’s something odd here — a few missing dots.
Ok, to press on…if Tashfeen had seen Farook’s profile, she may have noted his interest in guns, in target practice etc. If she’s looking to infiltrate into the U.S., this is a perfect opening.
But why would she want to infiltrate US, even assuming she was seeking to avenge the lal masjid carnage? Why not strike at the Pak Army, which a lot of jihadi groups are doing as they turned rogue — or as the Pak Army, which nurtured them, has turned rogue on them? Is it because she thought Musharraf and the Pak Army had launched the raid at American prompting? Why not strike at the American “stooges” in Pakistan?
Perhaps because she had already come to the US and her jihadi canvas had become even more expansive (going by the allegiance she is said to have expressed for ISIS just before the San Bernardino attack)?
Lot of questions. Meanwhile, people must be looking very very closely at the Lal Masjid videos and the militant women of Jamia Hafsa, although the niqab does not make it easy. Don’t expect anything to change dramatically though. The old, bogus shibboleth about Saudi Arabia and Pakistan being frontline allies is very much alive and current in U.S “strategic” thinking. The death of 14 Americans is not going to change it.
CRamS wrote:Gurus, just caught a few DDM gas bags on the NSA talks. The overwhelming consensus I see is that rather than a TSP climb down, this was an Indian climb down in that Kashmir was discussed (although I don't know what was discussed). They cite BJP spokesman like M.J.Akbar who said Ufa was historic to the extent India managed to get terrorism front and center ahead of J&K. And that J&K was discussed as per the joint statement means it was a climb-down. Some even suggesting that kirket is very much on the cards.
Climb down or not, facts speak for themselves. There has been massive infiltration attempt in Sopore, fight is still going on. ISI rings have been busted, so even if these talks are focused on terror, I don't know what they are about. It could also be that upping the terror ante in Sopore, and getting India to discuss Sopore as part of terror agenda, TSP has managed to get Kashmir on the table.
I see it as GoI finally getting the TSPA to come out and talk in the open. No more shadow boxing via "bloody civilian" proxies. Whatever be the outcomes of these talks, TSPA will not be able to claim plausible deniability or civilian incompetency, when the talks like all others in the past head towards their eventual, expected outcome- failure.SSridhar wrote:So, at last, the Pakistani Army has succeeded in talking directly with GoI!
ISLAMABAD: Chinese ambassador to Pakistan Sun Weidong has introduced a new phrase in Sino-Pak friendship, stating 'it is as pure and sincere as the ever-flowing water'.Addressing a function here, he stated “the friendship between men of noble characters is as pure as water”. Water is beneficial for all things, without striving for fame and gain. “The highest ethics is like water”. It is not only the summary of Chinese virtue but also the interpretation of China-Pakistan friendship.He cited famous Chinese saying, the sea can hold the water stemming from numerous rivers and it's huge because of its inclusiveness. If we put the China-Pakistan relationship as the surging Yangtze River and Indus River, the tens of thousands of streams converged into the Rivers are actually the good feelings deeply rooted in the hearts of our two peoples.In Pakistan, as long as people could recognize you as Chinese, they will say “ni hao” and “xie xie” to you while they smile sincerely to you.
Riiiiight!.In Pakistan, as long as people could recognize you as Chinese, they will say “ni hao” and “xie xie” to you while they smile sincerely to you.
The father of the Male terrorist was moderate and progressive. Says in an interview:In 2013, Islamist students there accused Junaid Hafeez, a young lecturer in English who had traveled to the United States as a Fulbright scholar, of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in comments he made on his Facebook page. Mr. Hafeez was later charged with blasphemy, a crime that carries a possible death penalty in Pakistan, and he is currently in jail awaiting trial.
Mr. Hafeez has struggled to find legal representation since two men fatally shot his lawyer, Rashid Rehman, in May 2014, in what was seen as punishment for daring to defend someone accused of blasphemy.
The senior Farook, in an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa, described his son as "an angel. Good, obedient studious. Maybe a little too shy, conservative and firmly against Israel."
Farook confirmed that his son spoke of Islamic State (noting, "Who doesn't these days?") and "prescribed to the ideals outlined by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," which included hating Israel.
"'Be patient,'" he tried to tell his son. "In two years, Israel won't exist anymore. Geopolitics is changing in Russia, China and America too."
"Nobody wants the Jews. What use is it to fight? We have tried it and we lost. Israel does not fight with weapons, but rather with politics.'"
This was apparently still not enough to dissuade his son from violence.
slamabad - The Capital Development Authority’s strange rationale to get rid of the slums has surprised many, as the CDA has said in its report that Christian community may outnumber Muslims in Islamabad.
In its reply before the Supreme Court in katchi abadi (slum) case the CDA submitted: “…most of the katchi abadies are under the occupation of the Christian community who are shifted from Narowal, Sheikhupura, Shakargarh, Sialkot, Kasur, Sahiwal and Faisalabad and it seems this pace of occupation of land by Christian community may increase their population from Muslims in the [federal] capital."
he government will set up a revolving fund to facilitate direct payments to Chinese power producing companies against purchase of electricity to help avert payment issues due to circular debt, it is learnt. According to sources, the government would pay Chinese electric power producing companies from the revolving fund if they are unable to get the receivable amount against the sale of electricity to consumers due to circular debt.
The sources said that Chinese investment companies that have launched their energy projects raised serious concern with the government for failure to regularly pay independent power producers due to on-going issue of circular debt for several years. The government decided to set up a revolving fund to remove the concerns of Chinese investment companies and make direct payments to them if they do not receive their dues in return for sale of electricity.
Congress dubbed the meeting between national security advisors of India and Pakistan a "grand betrayal" of the Modi government, with inclusion of Jammu and Kashmir in the discussions reflective of the "flip-flops" of its Pakistan policy.
"From the position in Ufa where the dialogue between the two PMs was confined to terror, the BJP government seems agreeable to talking on every issue that is part of the 'composite dialogue process'. What has changed between Ufa and Bangkok which warrants change in the government position?" former union minister of Congress Manish Tewari asked.
Is this a new form of satire that I am unfamiliar with?arun wrote:^^^ 400 % agree with the Nehru-Gandhi family led Congress Party regards Bangkok bilateral NSA level meeting being a “Grand Betrayal”.
The BJP led Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown no 56inch chest as I said a 8 posts above this one (Clicky). If chest it must be then 12 inch Pigeon Chest is about the best I could do.
shiv wrote:TV statement says govt clarifies that discussion was about terrorism in J&K.
http://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases.ht ... in_BangkokJoint Press Release on meeting of National Security Advisers of India and Pakistan in Bangkok
December 06, 2015
Pursuant to the meetings of the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan in Paris, the National Security Advisers, accompanied by the Foreign Secretaries, met in Bangkok today.
Discussions were held in a candid, cordial and constructive atmosphere.
They were guided by the vision of the two leaders for a peaceful stable and prosperous South Asia.
Discussions covered peace and security, terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir, and other issues, including tranquility along the LoC.
It was agreed to carry forward the constructive engagement.
Bangkok
December 06, 2015
Anujan Ji :Anujan wrote:^^^
In a way it is not a bad thing.
Basically the modus operandi of Paki civvis vis-a-vis India (even Massa) has been as follows. Some civvie PM/FM signs peace and tranquility agreement, Army/ISI continues cross border shelling, LoC attack, Bin Laden sheltering. Civvies (pretend to) wring their hands and tell everyone "hey we want peace onlee, it is the big bad TFTAs that are thwarting us".
They did this to Saudia too - vis-a-vis contributing troops.
Then the TFTAs come around and say "we all want peace onlee, it is the civvies who misread us".
Better to cut a deal with the TFTAs. Remember that Mushy era is when we had ceasefire along LoC. Terroristani Military
Dictatorship in Pakistan is good for India.
Is this a new form of being elliptically nebulous that I am unfamiliar with?Kashi wrote:Is this a new form of satire that I am unfamiliar with?arun wrote:^^^ 400 % agree with the Nehru-Gandhi family led Congress Party regards Bangkok bilateral NSA level meeting being a “Grand Betrayal”.
The BJP led Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown no 56inch chest as I said a 8 posts above this one (Clicky). If chest it must be then 12 inch Pigeon Chest is about the best I could do.
Shiv, I have been unable to track down the Governments clarification. May I request a link be posted.shiv wrote:TV statement says govt clarifies that discussion was about terrorism in J&K.
No link - just a scrolling TV line that said something like "Govt clarifies talk about terror in Kashmir after opposition uproar" or something to that effect. In fact Yashwant Sinha in an interview spoke of the reference to Kashmir as a "flip-flop" just before that mentioning ongoing attacks. So let's see what turns up. Will keep you posted - currently media have forgotten Pakistan. Rahulji and Soniaji to go to court tomorrow ruling airwaves. To hell with Chennai too..arun wrote:Shiv, I have been unable to track down the Governments clarification. May I request a link be posted.shiv wrote:TV statement says govt clarifies that discussion was about terrorism in J&K.