A very nice article from the Times of India.

The Times of India reports:

Muslim pujari in Durga's abode
[29 Jan, 2007 0205hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK]

VISAKHAPATNAM: This is the essence of secular India. Respect and tolerance for all faiths. In a shining example of this, Payakaraopeta, a village in this district has a Muslim pujari at its Durga temple. He, like any other pujari , chants prayers in Sanskrit, helps visitors with their prayers and also carries out all the rituals.

What sets him apart is his name—Sheikh Mira Sahib. Payakaraopeta is located close to Tuni, a small town known for its betel leaf production. Every Monday, over a hundred people from several nearby villages climb the unpaved steps of Seethamma hill to pray to the goddess. Mira Sahib guides them all in performing various rites and the worshippers acknowledge him as their pujari .

With a shaven head, bare-chested and wearing a dhoti, Mira Sahib begins his day at the temple at 7 am and spends his time till late afternoon in saying prayers and helping the pilgrims.

He then returns home and attends to his chores. His earning is the dakshina that is given to him by devotees. "I used to herd buffalos about 25 years ago. I also used to help in weeding the path on this hill for archaeologists who were looking for some old relics and hidden caves," Mira reminisces.

"One day my gunapam (spearlike tool) hit something irregular. It was an idol of Goddess Durga. There were a few idols lying about uncared for, so I tossed this one also downhill. I came home and forgot about what I did. That night in my sleep the goddess appeared before me as my daughter. She demanded that I perform puja to her daily. Then she vanished. I was nonplussed and didn't know what to do for sometime. Then I made up my mind to follow her instructions," says he.

Next day Mira went back to the hill and installed the idol at the place he had found it. A few weeks later he began performing the puja to her.

"I learned a few mantras by listening to other worshippers. Later, I learned them properly from my guru, Subramanya Sastry. He taught me in spite of opposition from some people," he recollects.

In 2003, the US went to war in Iraq to take on Islamic terrorists. It should actually have gone to war in Pakistan, which is where the world's top Radical Islamic leadership organizing terrorist campaigns against India and the rest of the Civilized World, has been sheltered for the last several decades.

The US has been calling Pakistan a "frontline ally" in the War On Terror, while all throughout the Government Army and intelligence agencies (ISI) of Pakistan have been actively colluding with the Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Radical Islamic terrorist organizations. Individual US Army officers and CIA agents on the field have often complained against Pakistani complicity in Islamic terrorism, as has the other crucial US ally in the region: Afghanistan. And still the US kept patting Pakistan on the back officially, however stronger got the signals of Pakistani duplicity hypocrisy and dishonesty.

Finally, after all these years, the US seems to have woken up and seen the truth.

Let's hope something good will come out of it. Like the destruction of the Pakistani terrorism apparatus, for instance.

The Pakistani terrorism apparatus that has killed over 100,000 innocent Indian Hindu and Muslim men women and children in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, the North-East, Delhi, Mumbai, Ayodhya, and hundreds of other Indian cities in a vicious and bloody terrorist campaign that Pakistan has been running for the last several decades.

While the rest of the Civilized World, the Christian West, has silently watched, shamelessly refraining from protesting because practically none of the victims were Christian.

CNN reports:

Analysts: Al Qaeda has safe haven in Pakistan frontier
POSTED: 10:26 p.m. EST, January 24, 2007
Story Highlights
• Pakistan-Afghanistan border seen as al Qaeda host, intelligence official says
• View stems from recent Pakistani government pact with tribal leaders
• U.S. has long suspected area was haven for Taliban, as well

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pakistan's tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan have become an accepted haven for al Qaeda leaders such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior U.S. intelligence official told CNN on Wednesday.

That's not a formal assessment, the official said, but a growing view by U.S. intelligence analysts in the months since the Pakistani government reached an agreement with tribal authorities to not threaten the region's autonomy as long as the tribes agreed not to harbor foreigners.

The official told CNN that "the training camps are full" in the region, suggesting al Qaeda activity.

"This is a real safe haven to operate from. I am not talking about Taliban, I am talking about al Qaeda central," he said, referring to core members of al Qaeda. (Watch President Bush outline successes against terrorism Video)

The official said that before the agreement, Pakistani authorities were able to impede the ability of al Qaeda to regroup in the region. Now, the official said, it is easier for al Qaeda to operate.

U.S. military officials for some months have said the region became a Taliban haven because the agreement had no real enforcement penalties. There had been a strong suspicions that many of the attacks in Afghanistan have been organized by Taliban elements staging from inside Afghanistan.

NATO-led coalition forces in Afghanistan mistakenly fired on a Pakistani post Monday near Shawal, North Waziristan, in the border region, a Pakistan Army spokesman told CNN.

One Pakistani soldier was killed and two were wounded in the errant attack. NATO said responsibility for the mistake was "unclear."

On Monday,al-Zawahiri released his latest videotape taunting the United States over the Iraq war and anti-terror efforts.

Al-Zawahiri rejected President Bush's earlier contention that U.S. forces have deprived al Qaeda of haven in Afghanistan, calling the claim a "naked, barefaced lie."

NATO's "frontline ally" Pakistan has finally started receiving richly-deserved punishment for its continued support to Radical Islamic terrorism in India, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

The Times of India reports:

Border skirmish hits Nato, Pak relations
Chidanand Rajghatta
[24 Jan, 2007 0005hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK]

WASHINGTON: NATO forces fired on a Pakistani check post on the border with Afghanistan on Monday killing a Pakistani soldier and wounding several others in the first incident of its kind, exacerbating tensions between the west and what skeptics say is a dubious ally in the war on terror.

The incident, which involved helicopter gunships from the U.S-led coalition, occurred in the Zway Naray area in Shawal Valley in North Waziristan inside Pakistani territory. It appears to have been a punishment for infiltrating terrorists into Afghanistan.

Islamabad condemned the attack amid an uproar in Pakistan's parliament, but NATO forces, which have been chafing at Taliban crossings into Afghanistan, were unrepentant. One report quoted coalition forces as saying they were responding to firing from the Pakistani check post, a tactic which would square with frequent Indian charges that Pakistan's military provides cover for infiltrating terrorists.

The incident on the ground flew against the frequently expressed sentiment in the higher diplomatic sphere about Pakistan's status as a frontline ally. Western ground commanders who have complained in the past about Pakistan hosting terror camps and infiltrating Taliban fighters into Afghanistan have often been shut up by political and diplomatic compulsions.

But the unspoken truce appears to have been broken on Monday and the use of a helicopter gunship would suggest clearance from a higher military command. US officials made of show of suggesting that the action might have taken place within the Afghan border but that would make the death of a Pakistani soldier more complicated.

Tension has been rising both on the Pak-Afghanistan border and in the diplomatic sphere between Islamabad, Kabul and NATO capitals over Pakistan's inability of unwillingness to crack down on Taliban and Al Qaida fighters crossing into Afghanistan.

Some western analysts have gone so far as to say Pakistan is hosting terror camps inside its borders. The U.S intelligence chief John Negroponte twice testified before Congress last week that Al Qaida elements operated from "secure hideouts" in Pakistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also become increasingly strident and vocal about Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorism inside Afghanistan. The testimony, and other statements by U.S and Afghan officials expressing increasing skepticism about Pakistan's commitment to fight terror, has been met with angry denials and belligerent outbursts from Islamabad's military dictatorship.

Pakistan says it has deployed more than 80,000 troops on its border with Afghanistan and lost 600 men in action. But most of the casualties are said to be from its fight against separatist elements in the Frontier and Balochistan, not against the Taliban, which is seen as a Pakistan-ISI proxy.

Reporters – including a New York Times' Carlotta Gall - who have tried to get close to the scene of action and the truth have been intimidated and assaulted by Pakistan's intelligence, which is widely believed to handle the Taliban.

"We now know why. Gall's reporting has determined that Quetta is an important rear base for the Taliban, and that the Pakistani authorities are encouraging and perhaps sponsoring the cross-border insurgency," the NYT said in an editorial.

"Americans need to know more about this collusion and to demand better answers from Musharraf," the paper said. "It is simply impossible to believe that this support takes place without the approval of the Pakistani military."

The editorial pointed out that Pakistan is now the third-largest recipient of American foreign aid and said "The very least Washington should be demanding of Musharraf is that he enforce an immediate halt on Pakistani military support for the Taliban insurgents who are crossing the border and killing American troops."

But bellicose Pakistani politicians spoke of retaliation against western forces in Afghanistan. On Tuesday, Pakistani lawmaker Senator Hamidulah Jan Afridi told the government that "They (Nato forces) will not stop unless one or two of their planes were shot down."

"Violation of Pakistani territory from across the troubled western border must be retaliated," the country's Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi concurred. "Such attacks should be treated just like enemy attacks."

But going by past form, the Bush administration is expected to gloss over the spat while differentiating between Musharraf, who it regards as a faithful ally, and renegade elements in the Pakistani establishment.

Hours after the border spat, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up outside a U.S military base in Afghanistan, killing ten people.

As I have repeatedly pointed out before, Indian Muslims need to decide if they want to improve themselves taking advantage of the rights and privileges they get as equal and free citizens of India (freedoms, facilities, rights, and privileges that Muslims living in medieval and uncivilized Muslim countries like Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Lebanon, Bangladesh, do not get), or behave like the barbaric and uncivilized animals Muslims in aforementioned Muslims countries do.

In recent times, vast numbers of Indian Muslims have rioted, killed innocent non-Muslims, destroyed property, and created chaos in various parts of India over issues like publication of cartoons in Denmark, movies made by Maqbool Fida Hussein, and now, the hanging of Shia-killer Sunni Muslim Saddam Hussein by the Shia-dominated Government of Iraq.

Those Muslims living in India's borders who are more interested in causing chaos over issues of Denmark and Iraq than in going to school, getting educated, and learning to earn a decent honest living, are most welcome to leave India and commit their useless and unproductive acts in Denmark or Iraq. Assuming anybody in Denmark or Iraq wants them to be allowed into those countries.

These useless people who have nothing to contribute to Civilization and to the Economy, or to anybody else will probably not be particularly wanted anywhere.

The question is: how long will the Hindus and civilized Muslims loyal to India tolerate these morons committing these senseless acts making themselves a public nuisance.

If you think the police and armed forces of India should crack down like a ton of bricks upon these uncivilized Radical Islamic trouble-making animals and either civilize them or wipe them out, post a comment here and let the rest of India know what you think.

The Times of India reports:

Bangalore on edge after communal clashes
[22 Jan, 2007 1035hrs ISTIANS]

BANGALORE: A day after police firing sparked by communal clashes left one person dead and several injured, tension simmered in the IT city on Monday. However, authorities said they were confident peace would return soon.

A 12-year-old boy was killed and at least 22 people were injured when the police opened fire to chase away mobs that attacked them and also vandalised private and public property in the residential-cum-commercial areas of the city's eastern districts.

Curfew was clamped in many parts of east Bangalore including Bharati Nagar, Frazer town and Commercial Street.

“There is a lot of fear among people and no one wants to risk their life as there has been a lot of violence in the city since Friday,” Sangmesh, a steward at the Eden Park restaurant, said.

The violent clashes started on Friday after people protested violently against the hanging of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in communally sensitive areas with a large Muslim population.

On Sunday, several shops and buses were also set ablaze in the clashes. A Virat Hindu Samavesha, organised by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in association with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, was being held in one of the violence-hit areas.

“I have not seen such violence in the last six-seven years and I have asked my kids to not to venture out of home till Wednesday. Who knows what is going to happen this afternoon,” Sangmesh said. He added that there was at least a 40 per cent drop in their business on Sunday.

Said Abdul, a newspaper vendor on Infantry Road: “This kind of violence has never been witnessed in the last 10 years. Some violence and a curfew was seen here when Kannada actor Raj Kumar was kidnapped by forest brigand Veerappan a few years back.”

Anil, a manager of Hotel Gold Star at Queens Road, said he had asked the waiters and office boys not to venture near towards Bharati Nagar, Shivaji Nagar and Russell Market. “These are the most sensitive and violence-prone areas. We are learning to cope with the violence with a lot of apprehension among our guests, people and all our staff,” he said.

At least 1,000 policemen have been deployed in these violence-prone areas and two platoons of the Rapid Action Force, along with the police, will conduct a flag march in the city to instill confidence in the people. All schools in the violence-hit areas will remain closed till Tuesday.

“The situation is under control and we are trying our best to bring peace to the city after three days of violence. There was a lot of violence on Sunday as mobs torched buses, stabbed each other, pelted stones at vehicles despite all our efforts. They forced us to open fire and one person was killed,” Bangalore Police Commissioner N Achuta Rao, said.

Spineless leaders like Manmohan Singh and other Muslim-appeasing vote banking (pseudo-)secular UPA leaders, secure in the knowledge that they themselves and their near and dear ones are safely being guarded by the heroic soldiers and Black Cat commandos of India, are following policies tolerant to terrorism, endangering the lives of ordinary citizens of India.

The Government is more interested in "improving relations with Pakistan" than in making sure that innocent civilians living in its borders are protected and can live in safety and security.

Pakistani Islamic terrorists know that Indian Government will not do much to avenge terrorists attacks killing innocent Hindus of India. Indeed, they even know that in case any of them get caught by India after carrying out devastating terror attacks, the Government of India will keep them in five-star comfort for years, even decades, while Government-appointed lawyers fight for them in Court. In case they happen to get convicted, the Government of India will try its best to let them off with a Presidential Pardon.

The US has just published a report noting that "New Delhi's threshold for responding militarily to terrorist attacks has apparently increased since the two countries approached the brink of war in 2001 following a terror strike on the Indian parliament."

India is now willing to tolerate bigger and more devastating Islamic terror attacks from Pakistan before it considers taking revenge to discourage future attacks.

This is what usually happens: once Government of India sees that People of India have gotten into the habit of forgetting about past attacks, and are not holding the Government accountable for failing to take adequate measures to discourage terrorism, the Government feels comfortable tolerating bigger and bigger attacks.

This will stop only when the People of India rise up as one and take revenge against the morons of the UPA who are playing with our lives.

If we do not take action to protect our own lives, nobody else will.

Hindustan Times reports:

India could punish Pakistan for terror attack: US
Indo-Asian News Service
Karachi, January 21, 2007

Improved India-Pakistan relations notwithstanding, the US apprehends a terror attack on a high profile target could prompt India to "punish Islamabad for its continued support to Pakistan-based militants".

Like last year, the US continues to fear that "an attack on a high-profile target might lead New Delhi to take action to curtail militant capabilities in Pakistan or Pakistani Kashmir and punish Islamabad for its continued support to Pakistan-based militants," a report to be presented to Congress says, Dawn reported on Sunday.

If this happens, "we remain concerned about the potential that such a conflict could escalate," the Department of Homeland Security says in its annual report.

The report also mentions the possibility of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan, noting "the prospect of renewed tensions with nuclear-armed India remains despite improved relations" between them.

It expresses a measure of satisfaction over the three-year India-Pakistan peace process and the commitment of both Islamabad and New Delhi to continue with it.

The report also notes that New Delhi's threshold for responding militarily to terrorist attacks has apparently increased since the two countries approached the brink of war in 2001 following a terror strike on the Indian parliament.

It notes that the Mumbai train bombings last year disrupted but did not derail the composite dialogue and that a mechanism for exchanging information on terrorist attacks has been established.

"Yet, the prospect of renewed tensions between the two remains despite these improved relations," the report warns.

"New Delhi's concerns about Pakistan's tolerance, at a minimum, (and) of terrorist attacks on Indian soil remain a dominant theme in relations, and risks derailing rapprochement."

In a separate assessment of the threat of a nuclear conflict in South Asia, the report notes that improved relations between India and Pakistan have decreased the possibility of such a disaster.

"Although both New Delhi and Islamabad are fielding a more mature strategic nuclear capability, they do not appear to be engaged in a Cold War-style arms race based on a quest for numerical superiority."

For a thousand years, Radical Islamists have slaughtered "unbelievers" and "infidels" in bloody genocidal invasions and reigns of terror all over Central Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, vast parts of India, West Asia, and parts of Europe.

This has been done strictly in accordance with the instructions in the Koran.

And yet, the Civilized World is still sleeping. Silly people with small brains, no knowledge of history, and heads in the clouds calling themselves "Liberals" and "Secularists" are telling us -- in India, Western Europe, and USA -- that Islam is a "religion of peace" and that we should refuse to believe that people like Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, the Taliban, the Al Qaeda in Iraq and elsewhere, the terror attacks of 9/11, 3/11, 7/7 and 7/11, the Armenian Genocide, the mass killings of 1946 (called jihad and "Direct Action") of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Hussein Shaheed Sohrawardy of the Muslim League, the ongoing extermination of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the thousand-year-long genocide of Hindus, destructions of temples, kidnappings rapes torture and forced conversions of Hindu girls and women -- unmarried, married, or freshly widowed -- to Islam by Islamic invaders and rulers like Timur, Nadir Shah, Ghauri, Ghazni, Aurangzeb and countless other Radical Islamic mass-murderers over centuries and centuries, have nothing to do with Islam and the teachings of the Koran. And we are silently listening to this hogwash from these silly sentimental Islam-loving self-proclaimed "Liberals" and "Secularists" that are acting as accomplices of Radical Islam in the Islamic destruction of Liberalism and Secularism.

All this has already happened before. In Central Asia, West Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan. Advanced, Secular, and Liberal Hindu Buddhist and Christian Civilizations have been destroyed by Radical Islam and replaced with the hideously medieval primitive uncivilized animal "cultures" of today's Saudi Arabia, Libya, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Syria, etc.

Radical Islam has many faces. One face is that of people like Osama bin Laden. And the other is that of various Imams and clerics and self-proclaimed Islamic religious leaders who are trying to convince us that Radical Islam poses no threat to us and out Liberal Secular broad-minded generous kind and peace-loving Civilization.

And as long as we keep trusting them and ignoring the numerous attacks we face from Radical Islam every day, they will keep destroying us piece by piece by piece, as they have been doing for the last one thousand years.

Exactly how stupid do the Radical Islamists think we are ? And exactly how stupid and silly and sentimental are we really ? To not see a threat that has been destroying us piece by piece at steadily rising rates for a thousand years now ?

The Radical Islamists think they are doing God's work. As if God wanted all of us to live in caves like bearded monkeys of the Taliban, and spend all our time beating stoning and whipping women. They are doing Satan's work. That is what Salman Rushdie said, in the "The Satanic Verses". That is what the Pope recently said. The Koran is a document that very closely resembles the Bible and holy books of other Civilized religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. But it has some critical parts modified very significantly, by Satan. Anyone who reads the Koran comes to this understanding, unless their souls are owned by Satan to start with. This is what Salman Rushdie implies in his book "The Satanic Verses". The book has been banned in India by the self-proclaimed "Liberal" and "Secular" talking heads who run our great country. They don't want the people of India to know exactly how dangerous and Satanic and evil the Koran has been declared to be, by an educated modern civilized and secular Indian Muslim himself -- Salman Rushdie.

Most Indian Muslims have never read the Koran. They never signed up to worship Satan out of their own choice. They were born into it, because their ancestors were forced into it, either by force, or because of economic reasons (over centuries, many poor Hindus of India converted to Islam to avoid having to pay the cripplingly high zizya religious tax levied on non-Muslims; they just wanted to have food to feed their under-nourished kids, not to worship Satan and kill Hindus and Buddhists).

Once this vast majority of Indian Muslims reads the Koran and finds out exactly how evil and Satanic its ideology is, they will want to convert back to the native original religion of their persecuted ancestors -- Hinduism or Buddhism. Now that India is free from Radical Islamic rule, there is no longer a crippling zizya religious tax on Hindus and Buddhists.

The only problem is that the Koran, like any other Fascist document, imposes the death penalty on anybody who wants to leave Islam. Just like Hitler imposed the death penalty on anybody who wanted to leave the Nazi Party. This is exactly the problem faced by sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar's son Ashish Debsharma who recently converted back to Hinduism.

The Government of India will have to protect Indian Muslims who want to leave the House of Satan and come back into the Civilized way of life their ancestors were forced to leave. Does it have enough backbone to do so ? Do we have enough backbone to protect Muslims who want to convert back to Hinduism and are afraid of other Muslims who will try to kill them for doing so ?

We must. And we will.

The time is soon coming when Mother India will expect every son and daughter of hers to do their duty. A thousand years of ignominy and shame will finally be over and a new India will emerge to carry on the bright flame of Progress and Civilization of our illustrious and glorious ancestors.

Are you ready ?

CNN Reports:

Radicals vs. moderates: British Muslims at crossroads

POSTED: 1:50 p.m. EST, January 18, 2007

Story Highlights

• Extremist: "In war, people die"
• Many moderates say foreign policy is to blame for growing radicalism
• Moderate says some extremists believe killing people is "quite cool"
• Imam Usama Hasan says Quran does not justify killings, religion is about peace

More on CNN TV: CNN explores terror's new breeding ground in Britain. Watch the premiere of "CNN: SIU -- The War Within," this weekend at 8 p.m. ET.

British-born extremists like Omar Brooks say they are prepared for jihad.

DUBLIN, Ireland (CNN) -- At a recent debate over the battle for Islamic ideals in England, a British-born Muslim stood before the crowd and said Prophet Mohammed's message to nonbelievers is: "I come to slaughter all of you."

"We are the Muslims," said Omar Brooks, an extremist also known as Abu Izzadeen. "We drink the blood of the enemy, and we can face them anywhere. That is Islam and that is jihad."

Anjem Choudary, the public face of Islamist extremism in Britain, added that Muslims have no choice but to take the fight to the West.

"What are Muslims supposed to do when they are being killed in the streets in Afghanistan and Baghdad and Palestine? Do they not have the same rights to defend themselves? In war, people die. People don't make love; they kill each other," he said.

But in the same debate, held on the prestigious grounds of Dublin's Trinity College in October, many people in the crowd objected.

"These people, ladies and gentleman, have a good look at them. They actually believe if you kill women and children, you will go to heaven," said one young Muslim who waved his finger at the radicals.

"This is not ideology. It's a mental illness."

'Foreign policy has a lot to do with it'

This war of words is part of a larger debate going on in Britain -- the war within the Muslim community for the hearts and minds of young people. The battle of ideas came to the fore again this week when the trial began for six men who are accused of an "extremist Muslim plot" to target London on July 21, 2005.

The Woolwich Crown Court was told the men plotted to carry out a series of "murderous suicide bombings" on London's public transport system, just 14 days after the carnage of the July 7 London bombings, which killed 52 commuters and four bombers.

While Islamic extremists are believed to be a tiny minority of Britain's 1.6 million Muslims, they have no problem having their criticism heard. They have disdain for democracy -- and, most of all, the Bush administration's war on terror policies.

A poll taken in June 2006 for the Times of London newspaper suggested that 13 percent of British Muslims believe the July 7 London bombers were martyrs.

"Foreign policy has a lot to do with it," said Hanif Qadir, a youth worker and a moderate voice for Islam in Walthamstow, one of London's biggest Muslim neighborhoods. "But it's the minority radical groups that use that to get to our young people."

In August, British police descended on Walthamstow, saying they had foiled a conspiracy to blow up a dozen U.S.-bound airliners with liquid explosives. That set off the biggest security alert since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Police arrested 24 people in connection with the alleged terror plot, although one man was released after it was determined he was an innocent bystander.

Britain's Scotland Yard and MI5 have also said they are aware of at least 30 terrorist cells and potential plots inside Britain.

'Blowing people up is quite cool'

Young Muslims are easy prey, Qadir told CNN, because they believe the British government crackdown has scapegoated them because of their religious beliefs. The youth also can empathize with those who castigate the Bush administration.

There are some who believe "blowing people up is quite cool," Qadir said.

Qadir asked them why that was justified.

"The answers that I got back is: When a bomb goes off in Baghdad or in Afghanistan and innocent women and children are killed over there, who cares for them? So if a bomb goes off in America or in London, what's wrong with that?" he said.

Qadir is trying to get mosque leaders, many still practicing the tribal traditions of Pakistan, to communicate with the younger generation. But he says it is an uphill battle when radicals like Choudary dominate the debate, getting their faces -- and their message -- out in the public.

"Our scholars ... are not coming out of their holes -- their mosques and their holes -- to engage with these people. They're frightened of that," Qadir said.

The message of extremism can also thrive among youth who see no way out of ethnic ghettos.

"They're into all kinds of vices -- street crime, gun crime, drugs, car theft, credit card fraud. But then now you've got another threat," Qadir said.

"The new threat is radicalism. It's a cause. Every young man wants a cause."

Activist calls for Islamic law

Choudary, whose group Al-Mahajiroun disbanded before the British government could outlaw it under its anti-terror laws, spoke to CNN and made clear he wants to see Islamic law for Britain.

"All of the world belongs to Allah, and we will live according to the Sharia wherever we are," said Choudary, a lawyer. "This is a fundamental belief of the Muslims."

Asked if he believes in democracy, he said, "No, I don't at all."

"One day, the Sharia will be implemented in Britain. It's a matter of time."

Choudary cited the videotaped "will" of one of the London subway bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, who said, "Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight."

Choudary said he sides strongly with that statement -- "we have everything we need in those wills" -- and he cited passages from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, that he says justify jihad.

"I happen to be in an ideological and political war," Choudary said. "My brothers in al Qaeda and other Mujahedeen are involved in a military campaign."

While Choudary and other radicals continue to try to spread their beliefs, others say there is no justification for jihad in England. Imam Usama Hasan memorized the Quran by the time he was 11 and at 19, he briefly fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

"If you have the wrong intention, you can justify your criminal actions from any text -- whether it's the Quran or Bible or Shakespeare," Hasan said.

He said it makes him "furious" when radicals quote the Quran out of context to justify killing of innocents. It's a "very tiny" minority with such beliefs, he said, but "it only takes a handful, of course, to create devastation."

"Many people are terrified of Muslims. They are terrified of a brother walking down the road with his eastern dress and his hat and his beard, because they have seen these images associated with suicide bombers," he said.

"It is up to us to dispel that fear -- to smile at people to tell them that ... the message of Islam is not about bits of cloth. It is not about the beard or head scarf or the face veil or violence. It is about peace."

Pakistan has been playing games with the International Community on the War on Radical Islamic Terrorism. It has, from the very beginning, allowed Radical Islamic terrorist leaders like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar to live under Pakistani Government protection. At the same time, it is taking large amounts of money, guns, missiles, and other military equipment from the US, claiming to need it to fight against Radical Islamic terror, while actually using it against India in Kashmir and against Baloch nationalist freedom fighters who have no ties fo Al Qaeda and have never committed any acts of terror against any civilians.

Both India and Afghanistan have been complaining about continuing Pakistani support to Radical Islamic terrorists attacking both India and Afghanistan. American soldiers and US military leaders have themselves gone on record saying that Pakistan is not a reliable ally in the war against Radical Islam.

Will the Civilized World keep its eyes closed about these heinous crimes Pakistan is committing in broad daylight against Indians and Afghans until Pakistan finally does something that may affect Western civilian populations directly ? Such as, give a suitcase plutonium bomb to an Al Qaeda terrorist to set off in downtown New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C., or Chicago ?

The US and Western Europe played political games with India and ignored Pakistan's virulent and vicious campaign of Islamic terrorism against India for over three decades; the price to pay were the attacks of 9/11, 3/11, 7/7, and more that may come any day. Continued Western tolerance of Pakistani terrorism against India and Afghanistan will, more likely than not, lead to a similarly or even more devastatingly high price for the West in the not-too-distant future.

You are either Civilized, or against Civilization. No political games. It is too dangerous to play with fire.

Just like it was too dangerous to play political games with Hitler, as the leaders of UK, France and USA did at that time, and if they had not been very very lucky, they would have lost the war, and the world would have been a barbaric and medieval Nazist place today. The Civilized World was very very lucky that Hitler was stupid enough to let Einstein Oppenheimer and a bunch of other brilliant German Jews to escape Europe and reach America, where they built what Hitler himself had been pretty close to building first: the Atom Bomb. If Einstein and Oppenheimer had been jailed or killed in Hitler's concentration camps, America might not have made the Bomb. Then Japan might have never lost the war, and could threaten Allied Powers in US Asia and Europe. If Hitler had managed to use Einstein and Oppenheimer himself rather than kick them out of Europe (many Jews worked for Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy, not knowing or not believing that Hitler was truly exterminating Jews) then Hitler might have made the Bomb first. Then Germany would have surely won the war.

It is very very dangerous to play with fire. We all know that.

The question is: will the thick-headed small-minded politicians of America and Western Europe get this simple idea into their little brains through their thick skulls in time to save the world ?

Or will they continue to focus on Muslim vote banks (like Chirac does in France with a 10% Muslim minority vote bank) and religious tolerance and political correctness (like the Liberals of USA do, blissfully ignoring the serious threats to the modern ideology of Liberalism, secularism, religious equality and tolerance posed by the ongoing rise of Radical Islam).

BBC reports:

Mullah Omar 'hiding in Pakistan'

Muhammad Hanif was seen sitting in a dimly-lit room

Taleban leader Mullah Omar is living in Pakistan under the protection of its ISI intelligence agency, a captured Taleban spokesman has said.

The spokesman, Muhammad Hanif, made the apparent confession to Afghan agents who videotaped the questioning.

Mr Hanif is seen sitting in a dimly-lit room telling agents that Mullah Omar is in the city of Quetta. Correspondents confirm the voice is his.

Mullah Omar has not been seen since 2001. Pakistan rejected the claims.

'Baseless'

Afghanistan's intelligence agency distributed copies of the video CD to journalists on Wednesday.

We have no information on the whereabouts of Mullah Omar. He is not living in Pakistan Aftab Khan Sherpao Pakistani Interior Minister

Although the voice is confirmed as that of Mr Hanif, the conditions under which he made his statements are not clear.

He is sitting in the video and heard speaking in a soft voice.

Asked about Mullah Omar, he says: "He lives in Quetta."

"He is protected by the ISI," Mr Hanif adds, referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai made similar allegations last year.

Mullah Omar (C) and Taleban leaders are still at large

Mr Hanif also alleges that former ISI head Hamid Gul is supporting the Taleban against Afghan and foreign troops.

The ISI was instrumental in backing the Taleban after civil war swept Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989.

Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told the Associated Press news agency the claim that Mullah Omar was in Quetta was "totally baseless".

"We have no information on the whereabouts of Mullah Omar. He is not living in Pakistan.

"Afghan intelligence has made contradictory statements since the arrest of this so-called spokesman of Taleban. We don't know who this person is, and from where he had been arrested."

'Anthrax'

Afghan agents say they arrested Muhammad Hanif in the eastern province of Nangarhar near the border with Pakistan on Monday.

Two others travelling with him were also apprehended.

Nangarhar Governor Gul Aghar Sherzai said he had been picked up in a house which also contained what he described as packets of anthrax powder.

He did not say if the powder found was the deadly anthrax bacteria, or how much of it there was. Local intelligence officials and police would not confirm any discovery of anthrax.

Mr Hanif has been highly active over the past year, regularly e-mailing news organisations with the Taleban's version of events in the east of the country.

A man called Qari Mohammad Yousuf has performed similar functions for the Taleban in the south.

The two men were appointed after the capture in Quetta, Pakistan, of former Taleban spokesman Latifullah Hakimi in October 2005.

The Taleban have confirmed Mr Hanif's arrest.

On Wednesday, they named a replacement, Zabihollah Mojahed, the Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press reported.

The pattern of Indian women being horribly mistreated and horrifyingly exploited in primitive and uncivilized Saudi Arabia seems never-ending.

Most people don't know much about Saudi Arabia. It is a land of Bedouins who never made any cultural or scientific achievements: like discovering the idea of building a house, write a book, poetry, compose music, understand the theories of economics, politics, mathematics, science or technology, how to treat people of other religions with decency and respect, or how to treat women in a civilized manner. They are a primitive and uncivilized race that suddenly found out that it was sitting on the world's largest deposits of oil in the 1950's. And they got very very rich, without ever having worked hard for a day in their lives, unlike people from the other Great Civilizations of the world like the Europeans, Persians, Chinese, and Indians, who all made great progress in architecture, music, literature, poetry, science, technology, politics, economics, religion, law, etc, and whose people have a long history of hard work, and whose cultures have a long-held and deeply-ingrained respect for knowledge, hard work, and education.

Not a single Saudi does any useful work. They all get oil money from the Saudi Government. So they sit in their harems and try out newer and newer ideas of mistreating women and decadent twisted sexual "adventures". The idle mind is the Devil's workshop.

All their work, from low-tech housemaids' work to the high-tech engineering, is done by people from other countries, mostly from India. Paid for with oil money.

The Saudis, like other oil-rich Bedouin countries in the Middle East, are still in the medieval slave-trading mentality of the 14th Century. Poor hard-working people from India who are attracted by promises of high salaries are the easiest to victimize.

The Times of India reports:

Indian nurses forced to continue working
Nilanjana Bhaduri Jha
[17 Jan, 2007 1736hrs ISTINDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK]

NEW DELHI: Slaves. Archaic and other-worldly as the word sounds, it best describes the current state of a number of Indian nurses working in Saudi Arabia, struggling to return to India but being held back against their wishes.

Simply put, the women want to come back home but are not being allowed to. The Gulf dream in their eyes, these nurses went on a three-year work contract with the Saudi Ministry of Health.

The contracts expired in December 2006, but they are now being forced to continue working despite the fact that they have pleaded that they do not want to renew their employment.

The nurses had been placed in hospitals run by the Saudi Ministry of Health in Rumah, Tumair, Sajer and Al Nafy under the sponsorship of Nukhba House Medical Services Company, a Riyadh-based firm.

The grounds for holding them back: That the company has a contract with the Saudi Ministry of Health. The project at the hospitals has been extended and so has been the company’s contract with the ministry.

The sponsor is now shrugging off responsibility, conveying that the Saudi “health ministry has insisted that the same work force should continue till finalisation of the project,” the Indian Embassy has said in a status report to the Indian government.

As of now there is no word on the legality of the nurses’ stay in Saudi Arabia post-December. The Indian government fears that the nurses, already much exploited during the period of their contract, will be even more vulnerable to abuse now with their contracts lapsed.

The last three years have been an agonising experience for them. They were not allowed to come back home on vacation in all this time, the company defaulted on salaries on several occasions and now this.

The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia has repeatedly taken the matter up with the government there. Among other measures, through the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then through a plaintive letter written by the Indian Ambassador M O H Farook to the Saudi Minister of Labour and the Governor of Riyadh seeking their personal intervention in the case.

In his letter, the Ambassador has drawn the attention of the Saudi authorities to the exploitation of the nurses. He has exhorted the Saudis to resolve the issue expeditiously, invoking the principles of natural justice, pleading that it is inhuman to compel female employees to work against their wishes, even after the expiry of their contracts, and that the need to rejoin their families in their native places is even more crucial in the case of female workers.

At the recently-concluded Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here, delegates from the Gulf complained of unhealthy working conditions, poor pay, stringent labour laws, language problems et al, making a special mention of Saudi Arabia.

Indian workers there lived in “labour-camp-like environments” and often had to face hostile employers or sponsors, who held up their passports, Balachandran Nair, General Convener, Non-Resident Keralites Welfare Association in Saudi Arabia told Timesofindia.com.

Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs, Vayalar Ravi, who is looking into the matter, says, “These nurses and other workers go through agents or touts, who send them to the sponsors. Then they get exploited,” adding that redressal of the problems faced abroad by Indian workers is a priority with his ministry.

The minister signed an agreement last month with the UAE labour ministry to ensure a better deal for Indian workers there. The agreement, which he hopes to sign with all other Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, envisages ensuring that all contracts are implemented in toto, without reduction in wages or living conditions deteriorating. It also states that the workers will not be forced to sign any further agreements on the terms and conditions of their employment once they are in that country.

The USA seems to be slowly becoming more and more ready to acknowledge the fact that Pakistan is the centre of the global Islamic terror network. India and post-Taliban Afghanistan have been protesting against Pakistani terrorism for several decades and years respectively.

One would hope that the Civilized World would act unitedly to wipe out the grave threat of regressive uncivilized Radical Islamic Medievalism before it destroys Civilization Humanity and Rationality worldwide.

The reason Islam has spread so far and wide (all over West and Central Asia, and vast parts of South Asia) in a mere thousand years, in an age when information travelled slowly and unreliably by word of mouth and people travelling across continents took several years to get to their destinations, was because of the uncivilized brutality of the methods followed by Radical Islam.

The religion grew out of uncultured Arab Bedouins -- people who had never built even a mud hut, never drawn even a cave painting, never had the slightest inclination to find out the first thing about science or mathematics, in spite of having been in contact with advanced Civilizations in Persia, Europe, and India that had made astronomical progress in all these areas -- architecture, art, science, mathematics, politics, philosophy, theology, economics -- and more.

As people get civilized, they become more peace-loving, and become less like animals in the jungle -- ruthless, cruel, violent, ferocious, blood-thirty, immoral -- and develop higher human values, like honesty, respect for diversity of form, belief, and opinion, and more trust in reason and less in violence for resolving disputes and disagreements.

When the civilized people (Parsis, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians) of Persia, India, Central Asia, etc saw the onrush of the Allah-crazy blood-thirsty Radical Islamic mass-murderers like Timur, Nadir Shah, Muhammad Ghori, Mahmood of Ghazni, Babur, Aurangzeb, etc, they simply reacted like civilized people have always reacted to people who don't agree with them: by assuming that the new interlopers shared the same fundamental human values they held, and concluding that differences could be resolved through dialogue, compromise, and reasonable agreements.

Thus the Hindu rulers of India placated Allah-crazy blood-thirsty Radical Islamic invaders like Nadir Shah, Ghori, Timur, and Ghazni with diamonds, gold and pearls, assuming that when they had enough riches themselves they would get civilized, settle down and start doing useful work, produce useful stuff, and engage in trade to earn the gold and diamonds they wanted, rather than coming in to rob and kill honest and hard-working Indians every few years.

Sometimes, when the invaders came in to attack, lost, and got captured, they took full advantage of the knowledge they had of the rules followed by the civilized people of India. For instance, Prithviraj Chauhan, the last Hindu king of India, utterly routed the forces of Radical Islamic invader Muhammad Ghori in 1191 in the bloody First Battle of Tarain.

Muhammad Ghori saw that there was no way he could escape, so he threw away his weapons and was taken prisoner.

Ghori knew that the ancient Indian rules of war that governed the conduct of the highly civilized Kshatriya warriors of India decreed that as an unarmed combatant he could not be killed. So, after having invaded India and lost the war, he could still save his own life by simply throwing away his weapons.

Ghori also knew that unlike the practices of Islamic fighters (who, in full accordance of the teachings of the Koran, either killed or blinded castrated and enslaved -- to serve in harems as eunuchs -- captured male prisoners, and tortured and raped female prisoners into submission to serve as slaves in the same harems) the Hindus of India would simply exile him.

And he had guessed right. Prithviraj Chauhan -- magnanimous at heart to a unarmed captured enemy in full accordance of the Kshatriya rules of war -- simply released Ghori and forbade him to stay within the borders of India.

One year later, Ghori returned with vastly larger numbers of Allah-crazy blood-thirsty Radical Islamic soldiers in 1192. In the Second Battle of Tarain, Prithviraj lost.

Ghori showed Prithviraj none of the kindness magnanimity and generosity he had himself received one year earlier in the Court of Prithviraj in Delhi. Prithviraj Chauhan was killed, along with his entire family, and everybody who was suspected of the slightest loyalty to him. The streets of Delhi remained covered with blood for months and months.

In retrospect, Prithviraj should have reserved his civilized conduct only for others who were civilized themselves -- other Kshatriya or civilized Persian challengers, perhaps. Muhammad Ghori should have been killed in 1191.

Civilized human beings deserve to be treated like civilized human beings. Uncivilized animals should be treated like uncivilized animals. Prithviraj Chauhan's biggest mistake was to give an animal like Ghori the treatment meant for civilized Kshatriya warriors who shared his high moral values.

All two-legged creatures are not the same. Everybody who looks human isn't human.

Different creatures need to be treated differently. For Civilization's own survival, it must be ready to mete out equally uncivilized and brutal treatment to its uncivilized and brutal enemies.

Anyway, back to the story of Ghori.

The Hindus and Buddhists of India were shell-shocked at the unreasonable and horrifying inhumanity, cruelty, animal-like low-ness, and mindless violence the invaders seemed to revel in.

And once again, they made the same mistake of thinking that if enough time went by, the uncivilized invaders would start to behave better -- more like civilized human beings, and less like uncivilized animals.

Almost eight hundred years have passed since then.

The Civilized World, especially the Muslim-vote-banking UPA government of India, today is making the same mistake Prithviraj Chauhan made in 1191.

Radical Islam needs to be wiped out from this planet, at all costs, as soon as possible. The uncivilized followers of Radical Islam cannot be defeated by playing by the soft humane kind generous and civilized rules of our Civilization.

Radical Islamists must be fought with the same ferocity, cruelty, and animal brutality with which they are fighting us.

That is why UPA committed a towering crime against the people of India by getting rid of the POTA anti-terror law.

And that is why USA is making a historic blunder by not aggressively fighting the horrifyingly uncivilized Radical Islamists who are alive and well in Pakistan and continue daily to plot newer and more infamous crimes against Humanity and Civilization worldwide.

The Times of India reports:

Pakistan hub of Al-Qaida web: US
[12 Jan, 2007 1156hrs ISTIANS]

WASHINGTON: US has identified Pakistan as the hub of a worldwide web of Al-Qaida connections while asserting that India, which has been a major target for jihadist due to insurgency in Kashmir, would remain a reliable ally against global terrorism.

Describing Al-Qaida as a terrorist organisation that poses the greatest threat to US interests, US intelligence chief John Negroponte told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday that its leaders are holed up in a secure hideout in Pakistan, from which they are revitalising their bruised but resilient network.

Pakistan has apparently been singled out for the first time in a Congressional testimony as the centre of the network accused of the Sep 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3,000 people.

"They are cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe," he said in his annual assessment of worldwide threats against the US and its interests.

In contrast, India's role in South Asia came in for fulsome praise from Negroponte, who became director of national intelligence in April 2005 and will soon leave to become deputy secretary of state.

"We expect that India's growing confidence on the world stage as a result of its sustained high rates of economic growth will make New Delhi a more effective partner for the US but also a more formidable interlocutor in areas of disagreement, particularly in the World Trade Organisation (WTO)," he said.

"New Delhi seeks to play a role in fostering democracy in the region, especially in Nepal and Bangladesh, and will continue to be a reliable ally against global terrorism, given the fact that India is a major target for Jihadist (people who fight in defence of Islam) in part because of the insurgency in Kashmir," Negroponte added.

Noting that the three-year peace process between India and Pakistan has lessened tensions in the region and both sides appear committed to improving the bilateral relationship, he said: "New Delhi's threshold for responding militarily to terrorist attacks has apparently increased since the two countries last approached the brink of war in 2002.

"Nonetheless, New Delhi's concerns about Pakistan's tolerance, at a minimum, of terrorist attacks on Indian soil remains a dominant theme in relations, and risk derailing rapprochement."

An attack on a high-profile target might lead New Delhi to take action to curtail militant capabilities in Pakistan or Pakistan-administered Kashmir and punish Islamabad for its continued support to Pakistan-based militants, he said adding, "We remain concerned about the potential that such a conflict could escalate."

The Mumbai train bombings last year disrupted but ultimately did not derail the composite dialogue and a mechanism for exchanging information on terrorist attacks has been established, Negroponte noted.

"Yet, the prospect of renewed tensions between the two remains despite these improved relations, and we are mindful that Pakistan was a major source of nuclear proliferation until our efforts disrupted A.Q. Khan's network," he said.

Although both New Delhi and Islamabad are fielding a more mature strategic nuclear capability, they do not appear to be engaged in a Cold War-style arms race based on a quest for numerical superiority, he said.

For its part, Pakistan is a frontline partner in the war on terror. Nevertheless, it remains a major source of Islamic extremism and the home for some top terrorist leaders, Negroponte said.

Meanwhile, democracy has not been fully restored since the army took over power in 1999. With elections expected later this year, Pervez Musharraf continues to be criticised for remaining both the president and chief of army staff, but there are no political leaders inside the country able to challenge his continued leadership, he said.

Musharraf's secular opponents are in disarray, and the main Islamic parties continue to suffer from internal divisions and an inability to expand their support base, said Negroponte.




BBC reports:

Al-Qaeda 'rebuilding' in Pakistan

Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, left, are on the top of the wanted list

The head of US spying operations says the leaders of al-Qaeda have found a secure hideout in Pakistan from where they are rebuilding their strength.

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said al-Qaeda was strengthening its ties across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

Pakistan rejected the comments, which are the most specific on the issue yet.

This week, the US carried out air strikes in Somalia targeting what it believed to be members of al-Qaeda.

The BBC's James Westhead in Washington says that until now the US has not been so specific about where it believes al-Qaeda's leaders are hiding.

Such a claim will be embarrassing for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who Mr Negroponte described as a key partner in America's war on terror, our correspondent says.

Afghanistan has welcomed the comments. President Hamid Karzai's chief-of-staff, Jawed Ludin, told the BBC that Afghanistan had long maintained that the Islamic militants operated from within Pakistan, and that Mr Negroponte's statement was refreshing in its honesty.

'Secure hide-out'

Mr Negroponte told a Senate committee that al-Qaeda was still the militant organisation that "poses the greatest threat to US interests".

"They are cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe," he said.

We have captured or killed numerous senior al-Qaeda operatives, but al-Qaeda's core elements are resilient John Negroponte Is Pakistan helping Al-Qaeda?

"We have captured or killed numerous senior al-Qaeda operatives, but al-Qaeda's core elements are resilient. They continue to plot attacks against our homeland and other targets with the objective of inflicting mass casualties," Mr Negroponte added.

He did not say where in Pakistan the group's leadership was hiding, or refer to its chief, Osama Bin Laden, or his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who are wanted for masterminding the 11 September attacks on Washington and New York.

New job

But the unusually forthright statement by Mr Negroponte appears to be the first time the US has publicly singled out Pakistan, one of its key allies, as the current home of al-Qaeda's high command.

Previously, officials had spoken more vaguely about the group having bases in the mountainous border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mr Negroponte is soon to take up a new role at the state department

"Pakistan is our partner in the war on terror and has captured several al-Qaeda leaders. However, it is also a major source of Islamic extremism," Mr Negroponte said in written testimony submitted to the Senate committee.

Pakistani foreign office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam rejected the comments.

"Pakistan does not provide a secure hideout to al-Qaeda or any terrorist group," she said. "In fact the only country that has been instrumental in breaking the back of al-Qaeda is Pakistan."

Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao also played down Mr Negroponte's comments as "too general", saying that Pakistan responded to specific information about al-Qaeda members and claiming that the movement was totally marginalised.

Difficult border

The head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency, Lt-Gen Michael Maples, said Pakistan's border with Afghanistan remained a haven for al-Qaeda and other militants.

The tribal areas on the border are thought to be where al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden and his deputy Zawahiri could be hiding.

Pakistan and Afghanistan share a 1,400-mile (2,250km) mountainous border which is extremely difficult to patrol.

Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters are thought to be operating on both sides.

The two countries regularly exchange charge and counter-charge over who is to blame for the violence.

Recently, Pakistan reiterated its intention to fence and mine sections of the troubled border.

Kabul particularly opposes the idea of mining stretches of the frontier, saying it will endanger civilian lives.

An Islamist insurgency spearheaded by the resurgent Taleban militia is at its strongest in the southern Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan.

Mr Negroponte took charge of the 16 US intelligence agencies in April 2005, but is shortly due to move to the state department where he will become Condoleezza Rice's deputy.

President George W Bush last week named retired Navy Vice Admiral Michael McConnell as the new US national intelligence director.

Mr Negroponte made the claims about Pakistan in his annual assessment of worldwide threats against the US and its interests.

BBC reports:

Pakistan and Afghan army soldiers arrest a Taleban fighter

The head of US spying operations says Pakistan is the base from where Al-Qaeda is rebuilding itself. So what is to be made of the Pakistan government's avowed war on militancy?

There can be no two opinions about the fact that Pakistan's decision to support America's war on terror in September 2001 was taken under duress.

This gave rise to a duality in the Pakistani strategy that has defied clear definition and encouraged al-Qaeda and Taleban elements as much as it has curbed them.

Almost overnight, the country faced the prospect of rolling back the entire operational and logistical apparatus it had put in place in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region over the preceding decades.

The role of the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, in organising Afghan resistance against the Soviet troops during 1980s is well established.

The country's diplomatic, material and strategic support to the Taleban regime that took the stage in 1990s is well documented by the US state institutions and intelligence services.

Military supplies

To get this huge apparatus and the mindset attached to move in reverse gear has been a slow process, exposing Islamabad to allegations of complicity with the Taleban as early as 2002.

Media reports from that period quote incidents in which the Pakistani intelligence operatives were accused of protecting al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives or sneaking into Afghanistan with military supplies for the Taleban fighters.

Pakistan was also finding it hard to roll back the Islamist insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir, which was an extension of Pakistani strategy in Afghanistan and served the crucial objective of keeping the disputed valley instable.

President Bush tries to calm differences between the Pakistani and Afghan leaders

Top officials in the American administration, aware of the fact that Pakistan was crucial to their engagement in Afghanistan, started making concessions to Islamabad.

They seemed to believe that as long as Pakistan remained resolute, they could afford to be slow in Afghanistan.

This gave the Pakistani government the crucial breathing space needed to handle the issue more tactfully.

But analysts point out that this also renewed the urge among some sections of the establishment to desist from actions that could harm the country's interests in Afghanistan.

Sanctuary

The American shift to the war in Iraq further eased the pressure.

The year 2004 can be considered as a watershed.

During that year, Pakistan started toning down its activity on the Line of Control in Kashmir. This came to a complete halt following the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir that killed nearly 80,000 people.

In the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan started the year with hyped up military operations but ended it with peace deals in South Waziristan, leaving the district virtually in the hands of pro-Taleban militants known for harbouring Arab as well as Uzbek and Chechen fugitives.

Western observers believe that a similar deal with the militants in the neighbouring North Waziristan district turned a large swathe of Pakistani territory into an extended sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taleban militants.

Taleban fighters in southern Afghanistan

To a lesser extent, Islamabad's writ has also withered in the tribal districts north of Waziristan, notably in the northern-most district of Bajaur.

In Pakistan's Balochistan province, while the military has focused on a Baloch nationalist insurgency, a sense of urgency in securing the ethnic Pashtun belt along the Afghan border has been lacking.

Western, as well as some Pakistani media, have described this belt as the largest sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taleban elements in Pakistan.

On the Kashmir front, the presence of a strong state, India, forced the militants into a tight spot, reducing their room for manoeuvre.

In Afghanistan, the writ of the state runs thin, and the presence of foreign troops helps the militants reinforce their ranks endlessly.

Nato air strikes, or ground actions, that have caused civilian casualties have also fuelled recruitment to the militants by angry survivors of the attacks.

Unsavoury options

Last year has been particularly difficult, with close to 200 Western troops killed in action. Casualties among the Afghan government forces and civilians ran into thousands.

And many fear that the forthcoming spring offensive by Taleban may be even worse, causing unacceptably large Western casualties.

British soldier participating in NATO operation in Afghanistan

Analysts believe that this will leave the Western coalition forces with two options, both highly unsavoury.

They either carpet-bomb Pakistan's tribal areas and create a political turmoil in the region, or quit Afghanistan, as some of Pakistan's influential former intelligence operatives have been predicting.

But there is a third option as well.

If Nato and Pakistani officials are to be believed, Thursday's attack that killed a large number of Taleban fighters in the Barmal area of Afghanistan was the result of intelligence sharing and operational cooperation between the two sides.

From Nato's viewpoint, this is a tangible piece of action from Pakistan which has hitherto defined its role in the fight against terrorism in terms of the al-Qaeda operatives arrested or the number of troops deployed in the tribal areas.

If such pro-active cooperation extends over the next year, Taleban and al-Qaeda activities may be curtailed.

But if preparations for the forthcoming election in Pakistan divert the attention of the rulers away from its border region with Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda and Taleban are certain to do more damage next spring than they did last year.

Many people consider the Taliban to be misunderstood victims of Western propaganda. This is so far from the truth that it borders on the utterly ridiculous.

To understand the Taliban better, and to see why they are every inch as evil as anyone has ever pointed them out to be, read the Taliban's rule book.

CNN Reports:

The Taliban's rules
POSTED: 10:50 a.m. EST, December 7, 2006
By Henry Schuster
CNN

Editor's note: Henry Schuster, a senior producer in CNN's investigative unit and author of "Hunting Eric Rudolph," has been covering terrorism for more than a decade. Each week in "Tracking Terror," he reports on people and organizations driving international and domestic terrorism, and efforts to combat them.

(CNN) -- This is the time of year that fighting traditionally tapers off in Afghanistan as winter sets in, so it's probably not too surprising that the Taliban's latest offensive is on the propaganda front.

First there were videos, including one obtained by CNN that shows multiple beheadings as well as preparations for attacks and recruitment of suicide bombers.

Now, the Taliban has put out a code of conduct for its commanders and fighters -- including when to kill teachers and how to prevent sexual abuse.

According to Pakistani journalist Khawar Mehdi Rizvi, who obtained a copy of the 30-point plan and provided it to CNN, the instructions have been issued to district level commanders in Afghanistan in a small handbook.

The document, which says it was approved by the elusive Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, was apparently first given to members of the insurgent group's Shura council during a secret meeting in late September or October.

Coalition military officials say they have seen the document and believe it to be authentic.


An invitation to all Afghans

The Taliban sent more men to the battlefield this summer than in any of the five years since the group was toppled from power by the Northern Alliance and U.S.-led coalition, but rule one makes it clear that recruitment remains a priority:

"A Taliban commander is permitted to extend an invitation to all Afghans who support infidels so that they may convert to the true Islam."

New recruits will be protected, says the code of conduct, but they are also subject to the Taliban's harsh fundamentalist version of Islamic justice, which in the past has included mistreatment of women, beatings and executions.

Rule five says that any Taliban member who kills a new recruit forfeits his protection and "will be punished according to Islamic law" while rule seven says that "foreign infidels" taken prisoner must not be exchanged for other prisoners or money.

While the Taliban has fought with increasing sophistication during the most recent round of battles -- often with formations of 50 or more men -- it has also suffered big losses.

"This is an effort from the senior leadership to reassert basic command and control over the troops," Jarret Brachman, research director at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, says of the handbook.

He says many of the rules show how the Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, are trying to reassert control while in hiding and removed from direct contact with the rank and file.


A kinder, gentler Taliban?

The Taliban rose to power in the 1990s in response to corrupt warlords who were busy tearing the country apart.

Corruption is once again a serious problem, this time for the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, and the Taliban code of conduct is aimed at exploiting that advantage.

"Taliban may not use Jihad equipment or property for personal ends" reads rule nine, while rule 10 says each Taliban is held "accountable to his superiors in matters of money spending and equipment usage."

This is clear PR, Brachman says. "The Taliban recognizes that it has the reputation of being a band of brutal barbarians interested only in clubbing women back to the Stone Age. This rule sheet reads like an effort to put a kinder, gentler, more moderate and professional face on the movement."

Until you get to rules 24 and 25, which make it clear that the Taliban's current campaign of destroying schools around Afghanistan and terrorizing teachers will continue as long as schools dare teach something other than the Taliban version of Islam.

"It is forbidden to work as a teacher under the current puppet regime, because this strengthens the system of the infidels," says rule 24. And if a teacher refuses a warning to give up his job, reads rule 25, "he must be beaten."

"If the teacher still continues to instruct contrary to the principles of Islam, the district commander or a group leader must kill him," it continues.

When schools are burned, the Taliban rules say it is important that religious texts be removed from the buildings first.


Defining the Taliban

Journalist Rizvi says that each of the 30 rules reveals much about the Taliban and how it has evolved over the last five years.

One rule, notes Rizvi, says that only the highest levels of the Taliban can approve work for an NGO (the non-governmental organizations that do much of the aid and reconstruction work in Afghanistan). Rizvi says this means "they have planted people inside NGOs."

One reason for the handbook is to put the Taliban's religious views front and center to its members, adds Brachman. "The first rule is classic in that it welcomes believers of Islam into their movement. Punishments and judgments are stated as playing out according to Islamic law. "

He also sees it as a move -- as the Taliban raises its military profile -- to set a certain standard of professionalism and behavior.

Along with rules about not smoking cigarettes and not allowing murderers to join the Taliban, there also is this entry: Taliban "are not allowed to take young boys with no facial hair onto the battlefield or into their private quarters."

Sexual abuse, says Rizvi, has always been a problem for the movement, especially in some of the madrassas (religious schools) that feed recruits to the movement.

Controlling bad behavior, according to Brachman, is just one of the ways "the Taliban are aggressively seeking to update their organization inside and out."

And that, he says, is a worrying sign, as worrying as their increased presence on the battlefield.

This constitutes even more evidence of the unholy plan the Muslim religious leadership is following in India: accelerated Muslim population growth to take advantage of Democracy and Liberalism of Hindu society.

Most Hindus do not understand how Islam works. They think the Muslims are as independent and individualistic as the Hindus are; that the 150 million Muslims cannot possibly be acting in concert together as pawns in a grand plan.

The crucial point to understand in this context is that Islam is -- unlike Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, or Buddhism -- an organized religion. Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism etc are individual private faiths; they emphasize thinking and meditation, not elaborate group-formation exercises like an Army camp. Organized religions lay stress on organizing people into political or military forces, not on individual independent thinking, and other harmless exercises like meditation or self-improvement.

The Koran talks very little about things like meditation, or the origin of the Universe, or mathematics, or literature, or art, or anything of intellectual significance. It talks far more about how to deal with people of other religions (kafirs -- it is recommended to levy zizya taxes on them, and harass intimidate and if necessary kill them to ensure Islam becomes dominant), how to deal with people who reject Islam (it is recommended to kill them), how to organize people, keep them illiterate and backward, and make sure the religious theocracy reigns supreme. Just look at Iran or Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan under Taliban. Those are examples of Koranic principles in action. The Koran has no place for secular law; if you don't believe me, I request you to name three Muslim-majority countries where there is secular law is in force. Practically all except Turkey and Bangladesh follow the Islamic Shariah Law which is as medieval and uncivilized as any legal system can possibly be. Bangladesh is currently facing popular pressure to get rid of the secularism that still remains in its Constitution in name, and declare Shariah Law. Soon Turkey will be the only one.

The vast majority of Indian Muslims pay together five times a day, and spend hours together listening to religious fundamentalist sermons every Friday. There is only a tiny minority of educated secular and open-minded Muslims who think and act individually like normal discrete individuals; the rest are simply mindless clogs in a 150-million-person machine. They do what their clerics tell them to do during Friday prayers; be it to riot on the streets against some cartoons published in some distant land they had never heard of (Denmark), or to rail against some author they had never heard of and whose single book they will never read (Salman Rushdie).

Why do I care if Muslim population grows ? Well, there is a thousand years of history to consider.

Let's see what history can teach us.

First question: Has Muslim population been growing in India, and if so, how fast ?

Answer: Muslims formed 20% of the population of undivided India before 1947. In 1947 approximately half of them (10% of Indian population at that time) went to West and East Pakistan, which comprised 25% of the land of undivided India. The population of Muslims remaining in India was 10%. Since then, in fifty years, they have managed to increase their share to 15% of the population by breeding faster than all other communities.

This has given them a second benefit: they now claim to be the "underprivileged sections" of Indian population, and have started demanding Reservations and other special privileges.

Note that unlike Dalits and other so-called "lower castes" who have been historically mistreated (at least over the last 1000 years) the Muslims of India were never mistreated by Hindus. Indeed Muslims ruled all of India for almost 1000 years, during which they perpetrated horrific cruelties and crimes on Hindus of India: destruction of thousands of temples, killings of millions of Hindu men and boys, and kidnappings, torture, rape, and forced conversions to Islam of millions of Hindu women and girls who were added to the private harems of Muslim men in positions of power. Millions of Hindus were sold into slavery in Persia and other parts of West Asia. An entire mountain range (Hindu Kush -- meaning "Hindu Slaughter") commemorates the horrific massacres carried out over centuries that completely wiped out the Hindu Buddhist and Jain populations of today's Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

Indeed, the vast majority of South Asian Muslims are descended from the millions of Hindu Buddhist and Jain women and girls who were, over the centuries, captured, tortured into submission and raped by the Muslim invaders who murdered their parents and husbands and destroyed their lives. [The phenomenon is still continuing today; the Hindu minoroties in Pakistan, Bangladesh being the targets today.]

And after all that, the Muslims are trying to pass themselves off as the "victims" and demanding Reservations.

It is true that they are backward. But that is because while people of other communities go to school, study hard, and try to improve their lives, they were busy marrying four wives they cannot support, and breeding like rabbits to grow the Muslim population like their religious leaders have asked them to.

Indeed, it has been reported by well-known UK-based independent international financial magazine "The Economist" magazine (the Dec 2 2006 issue, on page 48) that Muslims in India fare better in parts of the country where Hindus form a clearer majority and the Muslim vote bank is ineffective. To quote The Economist: "In fact they [Muslims] often seem to fare worse where they have more political clout, which easily translates into unreliable token promises, for, say, an increase in the number of teachers literate in Urdu, the language of Indian Islam. The leaked figures on government jobs show that Muslims do better in Gujarat, scene of an anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002, than in Bihar, where governments depend on their votes."

The message is loud and clear: Muslims will be better-off themselves if they stop listening to their religious leaders who are using them as pawns to indulge in vote bank politics.

Now, some Muslims will understand that it is better to have a good life than to live like a beggar out-breeding Hindus in the cause of Islam. However, many others, the illiterate fundamentalist ones brain-washed by the Imams they listen to in Friday prayers every week, will consider their own material benefits to be unimportant in the cause of breeding in the cause of making Islam stronger in India.

That is the core problem with Islam and the Koran. It acts as a parasite. The Radical Islamists don't care about improving themselves and becoming better human beings and productive members of society. They just blindly follow whatever their Imam, and the Koran, says.

And the Koran tells them to breed like rabbits. To create more soldiers or voters as the case may be, it does not matter. To take over the world. Which is exactly what they have been doing, very efficiently, for the last one thousand years.

This latest fatwa against birth control is simply one more example of the same old story that has been playing for the last one thousand years.

That settles the first question about why I am concerned.

Second question: what happens when Muslims become the majority community in a previously secular country ?

This is where the story gets more ugly. As the Koran quite clearly and explicitly prescribes, non-Muslim minorities in Muslim-majority lands quickly start facing the most terrible, cruel, and uncivilized persecutions: they are intimidated and harassed at first, then it starts getting worse and worse: their property is taken away, their men are killed, their women are taken, and eventually they are wiped out.

We have seen this happen most recently to the Hindu minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and to the Christian minority that used to exist in Lebanon as recently as in 1975. Indeed, Lebanon had a Christian majority till a few decades before that.

We have also seen this happen in Muslim-dominated areas of undivided India in 1946-1947, as Muslim League leaders like Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Hussein Shaheed Sohrawardy explicitly called for "Direct Action" (killing, rioting, arson, murder, rape, and large-scale violence) using the word "jihaad" (which literally means "religious war") and overnight their enthusiastic supporters, fervent soldiers of Allah, turned vast Muslim-dominated areas of Bengal and Punjab into killing fields. The streets were covered with blood and filled with bodies overnight. Teams of killers with guns knifes bombs and swords went house to house, looking for Hindus and Sikhs to kill. In Bengal, the Muslim League Provisional Government headed by Hussein Shaheed Sohrawardy publicly declared that the police would not be asked to protect kafirs from Muslim mobs. (And Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi too decided that Hindu and Sikh lives were not important enough, and did nothing to save them, while doing everything to prevent Hindus and Sikhs from defending themselves by fighting back. Was this secularism ? He was being an accessory and accomplice in the Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing that was being committed by Muslims against Hindus and Sikhs in Muslim-majority areas of undivided India. This was the central Hypocrisy, Injustice, and Crime committed by Mohandas Gandhi that the unfortunate Nathuram Godse protested against in the only possible way he had available to him. It is a pity so few Hindus and Sikhs today even understand how noble his self-sacrifice was. They don't understand that sometimes a Crime, like Murder, has to be committed, to stop and prevent a larger Crime, like Genocide.)

Even today, nobody knows how many hundreds or thousands or millions of Hindus and Sikhs may have died in those few weeks of rioting.

As the Muslim population crosses 15% and inches closer to 20% in each passing decade, while the vast majority of Muslims continue to reject secular modern and liberal values and instead side with the backward fundamentalism and ideology represented by their Imams, other clerics, and other Muslim religious leaders, India is getting closer and closer to where it was in 1946.

Before Jinnah led 10% of the population to take 25% of the land.

What has happened before, can happen again.

Indeed since it happened before, it is actually more likely to happen again and probably will. Because the circumstances have not changed.

Just how self-deluding, blind, foolish, and suicidal are the Hindus of India that they don't do anything to prevent their own impending and ever-accelerating annnihilation by the forces of darkness and medievalism that take advantage so insidiously of their [the Hindus'] own liberal secular and progressive values ? That is a question only the Future can answer.

The Times of India reports:

Now, fatwa on fast food, contraceptives in MP
Suchandana Gupta
[30 Dec, 2006 2359hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK]

BHOPAL: Darul Ifta, a Muslim religious board under Madhya Pradesh's biggest mosque, has issued two fatwas one against fast food, and the other against contraception.

Darul Ifta, which is a religious board under Bhopal's and the state's biggest Masjid Committee, issued the fatwas, after the Friday prayers, in response to a month-long mass awakening programme undertaken by All India Muslim Teohar Committee.

The Committee's convener Osaf Shamiri Khurram said a recent study by a French food laboratory revealed porcine fat was being used in the production of a majority of instant foods.

"We have gone to madrassas and told youngsters there to refrain from eating instant noodles, ketchup and a number of those products which contain pig fat.

Our organisation has gone from door-to-door informing Muslim families to feed children fresh fruits and vegetables instead of these questionable products whose ingredients are not permissible in our religion," Khurram said.

The fatwa, along with the second one banning use of contraceptives, was signed by additional Mufti Shahar Babar Hussain and Mufti Shahar Raees Ahmed Khan.

A fortnight ago, BJP state government had announced that it would distribute 15,000 copies of a book titled 'Census 2001, Islam and Family Planning' by Padmashree Musaffar Hussain amongst Muslims in Madhya Pradesh.