JNN 17.10.10 DALLAS: Former president General (retd)  Pervaiz Musharaf has said that those who were killed in Islamabad’s Lal Masjid were terrorists and insisted that no woman was killed during that operation, adding that out of 150 only 94 terrorists, including two foreign nationals, were killed in the July 2007 encounter.

The former president was  addressing a Public meeting of All Pakistan Muslim League in Dallas on Saturday. The former general dwelt at length on Pakistan’s political situation and the issues of Dr Qadeer and Taliban.

Musharraf clarified that he had never apologised for the Lal Masjid episode. According to him, Lal Masjid was a “den of terrorists” and as a head of state it was his duty to restore the writ of the state. He said that the government tried its best to settle the Masjid issue peacefully. “We also invited the Imam of Ka’aba for mediation, but all in vain. Since, we never wanted to turn Pakistan into a Taliban state, we took action”.

“I have apologised on the issue of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which I had to accept on the advice of my political advisers.”

The former president said that when he was in uniform, people called him a dictator. Pointing at himself, he said that “  Dictatorship lies in the brain, and it is a mindset and uniform has got nothing to do with it”.

Referring to Dr Qadeer’s confession, the former dictator termed the nuclear scientist “ A Liar”, adding that Dr Qadeer “sold” nuclear secrets to three countries and he (Musharraf) had valid proof.

Denying that his government had harassed the nuclear scientist, he said that whatever Dr Qadeer had said on television he had done so voluntarily and he was not forced to do so, said Musharraf.

“I saved Dr Qadeer because he is a national hero, and I also consider him national hero,” he said, adding: “It is also a fact that he (Qadeer) made mistakes.”

The public meeting was also addressed by Coordinator of APML’s Dallas coordinator Javed Siddiqui. As many as 500 people attended the public meeting.

Earlier, General Musharraf was received by party leaders Ameer Sukhano, Dr Hassan, Dr Tasnim Agha, Naeem, Nadeem Akhter Azeem Siddiqui Tanvir Malik, Dr Arjumand, Khalil Qureshi Muhammad Ali Siddiqui, Nadem Chaudhry and others.

JNN 17.10.10 A media report says that US intelligence officials were aware of plans to attack Mumbai years before the terrorist incident killed more than 170 people in India’s main port city in 2008.

A report published by the Washington Post on Wednesday said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had been tipped off in 2005 about an American national, who masterminded attacks on the Indian financial hub three years later.

The man identified as David Coleman Headley underwent intensive training with banned militant groups in Pakistan, the report added.

Based on the report, Headley’s wife told FBI agents that her husband was in close contact with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group blamed by India for the deadly attacks on Mumbai.

The report also says Headley went to Mumbai five times to scout landmark locations and targets for the attack on the city.

The report comes months after the Pakistani interior ministry suggested that the Mumbai attack were planned outside Pakistan.

“An initial probe conducted by a three-member team set up by the Interior Ministry has concluded that the 26/11 attacks were planned outside Pakistan,” Pakistan’s Dawn News quoted unnamed sources as saying in 2009.

The British intelligence service, MI5, however, had earlier said that it had uncovered links between the terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks and UK nationals.

“We have looked at individuals’ communications, where they have been and so on and found they have got connections with most countries including the UK…,” said MI5 Director General Jonathan Evans in early January 2009.

Pakistan has rejected the involvement of its government in the attacks, saying that “non-state actors” were involved in the incident.

Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors have soured since the incident.

Whlie even in previous reports of UK based newspapers it was said that the Attacker were not Pakistani , but they were from Britian and were even trained by British Intelligence agencies.

As per the reports published in the following Papers on Saturday, November 29, 2008

Both the  Daily Express  and the Daily Star assure their readers that British citizens were involved in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Under the headline”Brit terror nuts shoot girl, 13, dead” the Starreports:

“The Mumbai massacre that left more than 150 people dead was carried out by Brits, it emerged last night. Police from the UK and India are probing claims that up to seven of the assassins, whose victims included a 13-year-old girl, travelled from the UK.

“Indian security forces said at least two of the captured terrorists were British-born Pakistanis, while the total number could be as many as seven. In a sick twist, they are thought to have possible links to Yorkshire towns where the 7/7 outrages were plotted.

“Last night UK police were using hi-tech computer software to link images of up to 25 gunmen to known Islamic fanatics.”

Read on, however, and you find Gordon Brown quoted as saying: “At no point has the Prime Minister of India suggested to me there is evidence at this stage of any terrorist of British origins.” And an unnamed security source states that there is “no specific information” linking suspects to the UK.

Which, of course, doesn’t prevent the Star and Express using this tragedy to publish scaremongering headlines as part of their propaganda campaign against the UK’s Muslim communities.

Nor is this malicious reporting restricted to Richard Desmond’s rags. The Daily Mirror  goes with “Seven Mumbai gunmen are from ‘Leeds and Hartlepool'”, while the Independent  takes the opportunity to run a story entitled “British Muslims have become a mainstay of the global ‘jihad'”.

Some 23 activists arrested as part of a clampdown on Shia political opposition in Bahrain have been charged with “terrorism and conspiring against the government.”

The men will face trial on October 28 on the charge of “spreading false information and forming an illegal group,” said Prosecutor General Abdul-Rahman al-Sayed on Wednesday.

The Shia activists could face sentences as harsh as life imprisonment if convicted.

Bahrain’s Sunni-dominated government has intensified its crackdown on the country’s majority Shia population, arresting dozens of opposition figures on the allegation of planning to topple the Bahraini government.

Amnesty International says more than 250 people, believed to be in detention, are at the risk of being tortured.

The detentions come ahead of the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections on October 23.

Human Rights Watch has also accused Bahrain of restricting movement and travel of human rights activists in an effort to prevent them from spreading the word about the arrest of opposition members.

“There is a continuous war against all Shias who are critics of the government,” Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said on Monday.

The population of Bahrain is predominantly Shia. However, they have long complained about being discriminated against by the Sunni-dominated government in obtaining jobs and receiving services.

I have followed the events in Bahrain over the past two months and have been shocked by the news that our brothers are ill-treated in prisons.

We in the Shia Islamic Movement and indeed the entire Muslims in Nigeria express our solidarity with these brothers, especially the religious scholars like Sheikh Mohammad Habib Al Miqdad, Sheikh Saeed Al Nouri, Sheikh Mirza Al Mahroos, Sheikh Abdul Hadi Al Makhowdar and Sayyed Aqeel Al Sari.

The reports by the international human rights bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have caused enormous anxiety among Muslims in Nigeria. These acts are crimes and the perpetrators have committed crimes against humanity.

It is also absurd to hear the withdrawal of the Bahraini nationality from Ayatullah Sheikh Hussain Najati and his family. He is the representative of Grand Ayatullah Sayyed Ali Al Sistani and this is an act of disrespect to the religious leadership.

We stand shoulder to shoulder with our Muslim brothers in Bahrain and call on the Government of Bahrain to stop its aggression against its own people and respect their rights.

We call for the following:

1-    The immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Bahrain.

2-    A thorough and impartial investigation into the use of torture against the prisoners of conscience.

3-    The prosecution of the torturers and an end to the impunity as enshrined in the Bahraini laws.

4-    An immediate halt to the naturalization process that aims at altering the demographic balance in Bahrain. This act is tantamount to silent genocide.

5-    The restoration of Bahraini nationality to Ayatullah Sheikh Hussain Najati who was born and bred in Bahrain.

6-    A constitution written by the people and approved in a referendum as is the practice in the modern world.

7-    An immediate end to kidnappings by the Death Squads, and an impartial investigation into all cases of this kind.

Ibraheem Zakzaky

Leader of Shia Islamic Movement in Nigeria