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Backing terror will be dangerous for you: Indian PM Narendra Modi's veiled warning to Pakistan on Afghanistan

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday (September 25) and touched upon many important points including the Coronavirus pandemic, climate change, health, technology and terrorism.

Talking about terrorism, PM Modi targeted Pakistan without mentioning its name as he said that countries with "regressive thinking" that are using terrorism as a "political tool" need to understand that terrorism is an equally big threat for them.

He mentioned the current delicate situation of Afghanistan, saying that the world has to ensure that Afghanistan isn't used to "spread terrorism or launch terror attacks".

PM Modi said, "At this time, the people of Afghanistan, women and children, the minorities there, need help, and we must fulfil our responsibility."

In August, the Taliban seized Afghanistan amid a chaotic withdrawal of US troops from the country, leaving it in dire straits with uncertainties over women and children's safety under the brutal Taliban regime. Pakistan has long been accused of providing support for the Taliban, something it denies.

Modi also said that in order to strengthen the rules-based world order, the international community must speak in unison, in an apparent reference to China which is flexing its military muscles in the Indo-Pacific.

Modi hailed the strength of India's diverse and vibrant democracy as in his opening remarks he said that child of a poor tea-seller rose to the country's highest political office and addressed the UN for the fourth time, calling it the strength of Indian democracy.Further in his speech, Modi said, "I represent a country which is known as the 'Mother of Democracy'. India is a great example of a vibrant democracy. Our democracy is recognised for its diversity. Democracy has been India's great tradition for thousands of years."

https://www.wionews.com/world/backing-terror-will-be-dangerous-for-you-indian-pm-narendra-modis-veiled-warning-to-pakistan-on-afghanistan-415918

Decoding Taliban apologist Imran Khan's speech at UNGA: A rant mixed with lies and fiction

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is a master at the twisting, modifying, and blending fact and fiction to suit his purposes. He gave his third UNGA speech as prime minister of Pakistan on Friday, and his speech, delivered over video, was clearly three times more disgraceful.

The Pakistani prime minister attempted to portray Pakistan as the victim of American ungratefulness and an international double standards, in a prerecorded speech aired on Friday evening. “For some reason, Pakistan has been blamed for the current crisis in Afghanistan by politicians in the United States and some politicians in Europe,” Khan remarked.

“From this platform, I want them all to know that, aside from Afghanistan, Pakistan was the country that suffered the most when we joined the US war on terror after 9/11,” he said, referring to the 11 September, 2001 terror attacks carried out by al Qaeda that led to US invasion of Afghanistan and the eventual killing of the terror group's chief Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan.

"The only reason we suffered so much was that we became an ally of the US, of the coalition, in the war against Afghanistan, where attacks were being conducted from Afghan soil into Pakistan. At least there should have been a word of appreciation. But rather than appreciation, imagine how we feel when we are blamed for the turn of events in Afghanistan".

However, reality differs significantly from the fiction scenario he painted before the world from the UNGA platform.

The truth is that Taliban militants were trained in Pakistani seminaries by Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency ISI and military.

They were either taught about jihad or assisted in the suppression of women.

Pakistan voluntarily joined the war on terror waged by the United States to suppress Pashtun nationalism.

Islamabad has always feared the formation of a Pashtun state, so it has encouraged Islamic nationalism instead, causing Afghanistan to devolve into chaos.In his failed attempt, Khan also tried to portray the Taliban as a positive force.Acting as the Taliban's messenger once more, he pleaded with world leaders to assist them by bolstering, stabilising, and rewarding them. It was almost as if the Taliban, which tried and failed to speak at UNGA, had dispatched Imran Khan to the UN to represent them.

In Panjshir, Pakistan's nefarious role in war-torn Afghanistan was exposed when its military drones and helicopters supported Taliban in capturing the province from the Afghan National Resistance Front.

Taliban apologist Imran Khan remarked, "According to the UN, half the people of Afghanistan are already vulnerable. And by next year, almost 90% of the people in Afghanistan will go below the poverty line. There is a huge humanitarian crisis looming ahead. This will have serious repercussions not just for the neighbours of Afghanistan but it will have repercussions everywhere."

"We must strengthen the present government, stabilise it for the sake of the people of Afghanistan. What have the Taliban promised? They will respect human rights, they will have an inclusive government, they will not allow the soil to be used by terrorists and they have given amnesty. If the world community incentivises them, encourages them to walk the talk, it will be a win-win situation for everyone," he added.

He said that if the world helps the Taliban, the country would not be used for international terrorism.

But the reality is that, with the Taliban regaining power and a witches' brew of terrorist factions active in the country, it is in a state of chaos. Afghanistan has already established itself as the new jihadi capital.

Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Haqqani Network, Tehreek-e-Taliban and Islamic State, all these terrorist organisations have moved to Afghanistan. They're reorganising and spreading, publishing declarations about fighting Islam's adversaries. Global jihad is seeing a revival. It's happening right in front of the Taliban's eyes, and Taliban apologist Imran Khan wants to reward these individuals. It was for India’s government that Khan reserved his harshest words, once again labelling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government “fascist.” Khan described India as a place where fear reigns supreme. Muslims are persecuted in this country, and Kashmiris are denied their rights, he claimed.

He went so far as to accuse the West of being biased towards India.

Pakistan's use of a worldwide platform to make personal statements has become an annual event. Imran's speech is an insult to the United Nations.

Sneha Dubey, India's young diplomat, gave a stinging response loaded with the facts to Pakistan's allegations regarding Kashmir before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Dubey used her Right of Reply to criticise Imran Khan's references to Kashmir in his UN General Assembly virtual speech, claiming that Islamabad has a long history of deliberately aiding terrorists.

Dubey, First Secretary of India said at UNGA, "Regrettably, this is not the first time the leader of Pakistan has misused platforms provided by the UN to propagate false and malicious propaganda against my country, and seeking in vain to divert the world's attention from the sad state of his country where terrorists enjoy free pass while the lives of ordinary people, especially those belonging to the minority communities, are turned upside down."

https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/decoding-taliban-apologist-imran-khans-speech-at-unga-a-rant-mixed-with-lies-and-fiction-415951

#Pakistan - Imran Khan says Pashtuns are Taliban-sympathisers, leaders react

 Imran Khan said three million Pashtuns are still there in Pakistan as refugees. ‘They do attack Pakistan,’ Imran Khan said drawing flak for spreading ‘misinformation about Pashtuns. 

Elaborating how Pakistan has suffered being caught between Afghanistan and the United States, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan at his United Nations speech said the Pashtuns living in the semi-autonomous tribal belt along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border always had affinity and sympathy towards the Taliban.

"Pakistan and the United States trained Mujahideen groups to fight for the liberation of Afghanistan. Amongst those Mujahideen groups were al Qaeda, were various groups from all over the world..these were considered heroes," Imran Khan said."Come 1989, the Soviets leave. So do the Americans.. Pakistan was left with 5 million Afghan refugees. We were left with sectarian militant groups which never existed before. And a year later, Pakistan was sanctioned by the US. We felt used," Imran Khan said.

"Fast forward 9/11. Pakistan is needed again by the US because now they are invading Afghanistan and that can't happen with the logistical support of Pakistan. What happens after that? The same Mujahideen that we have trained that fighting for occupation was a sacred duty, they turned against us. We were called collaborators," the Pakistan PM said.

The statement by Imran Khan at the UN regarding Pashtuns supporting the Taliban is misleading & condemnable. This is a reflection of his regressive mindset. Pashtuns as a nation never supported the Taliban they are the victims of their extreme ideology,Aimal Wali Khan of ANP tweeted.

Pashtun Tahafuz Movement leader Mohsin Dawar took to Twitter and said this is misinformation that the Prime Minister is spreading on an international platform. "Just shocked at how the PM of Pakistan can describe Taliban as Pashtun nationalists. The Taliban is a project of Pakistan's Generals for decimating Pashtun identity. Does the PM really think that the world is so uninformed that he can sell such lies on the UNGA forum?" he tweeted.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/imran-khan-says-pashtuns-are-taliban-sympathisers-leader-reacts-101632567729241.html

Radical leader of Pakistan’s Red Mosque emboldened by Taliban takeover of Afghanistan

By Pamela Constable

For years, the Red Mosque in Pakistan's capital has stood as a bastion of religious defiance, a nerve center of radical Islamist preaching that has drawn thousands of worshipers to hear rabble-rousing sermons by its longtime pro-Taliban leader, Maulana Abdul Aziz. In 2007, the mosque, also known as the Lal Masjid, and its next-door Islamic seminary, or madrassa, for girls were the site of a bloody siege by Pakistani security forces after a week-long standoff with armed militants inside the compound, which left at least 100 dead. Since then, Aziz has faced numerous criminal charges but has never been convicted.

Now, with the sudden Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Aziz says his followers’ crusade has been vindicated and their moment has arrived.

“The coming of the Taliban was an act of God,” the white-bearded cleric, 58, said in a rare interview this week at the girls’ madrassa, Jamia Hafsa. He no longer preaches at the mosque, under an agreement he made last year with the government.

“The whole world has seen that they defeated America and its arrogant power,” Aziz said. “It will definitely have a positive effect on our struggle to establish Islamic rule in Pakistan, but our success is in the hands of God.”

Madrassas in Pakistan have long played a major role in fostering militant Islamic groups, mostly aimed at foreign targets. The Afghan Taliban movement was spawned in a radical madrassa in Pakistan’s northwest border region, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, a violent anti-India insurgency, was incubated in madrassas in Punjab province.

But one such homegrown group, known as the Pakistani Taliban, waged war against the Pakistani government for years and is still active in Afghanistan. Officials here fear that the Taliban takeover in Kabul could embolden such extremists to launch a new holy war at home. A surge in religious fervor has sparked violent riots by one group that seeks a crackdown on blaspheming against Islam.

Pakistan calls for engagement with Taliban as West highlights concerns of abuse

Since last month, Aziz and his followers have periodically raised white Taliban flags on the Jamia Hafsa roof, defying government orders. The third time, on Sept. 18, police cordoned off the area amid growing alarm among nearby residents. Veiled students stood on the roof, shouting taunts.

Girls studying at a madrassa in Pakistan that teaches them to be “warriors for God.” (Pamela Constable/The Washington Post)Police said Aziz threatened them and brandished a gun. He was initially charged with rioting, sedition and other crimes under federal anti-terrorism laws, but the charges were dropped the next day.

“We have resolved the issues through dialogue, to keep the situation in the federal capital normal,” Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told a news conference Monday. Of the more than 500 madrassas and 1,000 mosques in Islamabad, he said, “we have an issue with only one.”

He said Aziz “comes up with an issue every day, and every day we try to resolve it.”

The kid-gloves treatment afforded Aziz stems in large measure from the still-lingering controversy over the 2007 Red Mosque siege, which was ordered by the military government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf after unsuccessful efforts to negotiate with the mosque’s leaders.The assault ignited a national outcry in the majority-Muslim country and sparked a wave of suicide bombings and attacks by the domestic Taliban militants that took years to quell. Aziz, who tried to escape from the besieged compound wearing a burqa, was caught and sent to prison.

He was ultimately acquitted by the Supreme Court on charges of murder and other violent crimes, citing a lack of evidence and failure of witnesses to testify. Over the years, he has faced 27 legal proceedings and spent several stints in prison, but the charges have never stuck.Meanwhile, the government rebuilt the badly damaged mosque, an imposing redbrick compound located near government ministries, embassies and the headquarters of the national intelligence agency. It has remained a hotbed of extremist fervor, with a new library named after Osama bin Laden, but it has never again violently challenged the government’s writ. In return, Pakistani authorities have tolerated its activities, up to a point, in a tacit and strategic peace agreement.“The Red Mosque operation was and still is a sensitive issue,” said a former security official in Islamabad, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely. In recent years, he said, Pakistan has been relatively free of terrorist attacks, and the government wants to keep it that way. “Whenever a problem arises now, the authorities try to settle it peacefully,” he said.

At the moment, Pakistan is trying to find a similar balance in its response to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Senior officials have resisted Western pressure to hold the new authorities in Kabul to account for abuses such as beating peaceful protesters, insisting that the more urgent need is to prevent a humanitarian crisis that could spill across Pakistan’s border.

After jubilation, Pakistan faces dilemma as Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan inspires religious militants

In an address Monday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said it had been a mistake to isolate Afghanistan in the past. According to a statement by the Foreign Ministry, he said the “immediate priority” is to help its suffering people and that a stable government in Kabul would be “more effective at denying space to terrorist groups.”

Aziz declined to say what steps he and his followers might take now, only that they will continue the “struggle” to establish Islamic rule in Pakistan. In the past, he has openly called for an “Islamic revolution” against the state. Some see the recent Taliban flag skirmishes as a bargaining chip in the group’s relations with the government, as both sides wait to see what happens next in Kabul.

Speaking softly and surrounded by religious books, Aziz blamed Pakistan’s problems on selfish greed by the ruling elite, saying its members “live in luxury while the people are starving” and follow misguided Western values of “loving the world more than loving God.” He praised the new leaders in Kabul but said they should strive to live “even more simply” in power.

“They should not meet in offices and live in palaces,” he said. “They should operate from mosques.”

Other Islamist groups here have welcomed the Taliban takeover, as did Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. But the groups must function within a long-established democracy and a more heterogenous and developed society than Afghanistan. Pakistan has sizable minorities of Christians and Shiite Muslims and a preponderance of moderate Sunni Muslims, although the influence of fundamentalist groups is spreading.

“Most people in Pakistan do not endorse their approach,” one Muslim scholar said of Aziz and his associates, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid. He said Aziz is “exploiting the moment” as well as his location in the capital. “The government cannot control that group,” the scholar said, “but it should ask other like-minded groups to help deal with them.” While Aziz was circumspect in his comments this week, his daughter Tayyiba Ghazi, 30, the vice principal at Jamia Hafsa, proudly described its female students as “religious warriors” in the battle for Islamist values.

Most of the 1,500-plus students are from the same ethnic Pashtun group as the Taliban and come from the northwest region bordering Afghanistan. Girls as young as 5 are sent to live there by poor families who pay no tuition. Many remain through their 20s. Male students are taught at a separate madrassa across the city.

In recent years, older students have acted as moral vigilantes, attacking music stores and kidnapping suspected prostitutes.

“We are all soldiers of Allah,” Ghazi said as she showed a reporter around the facility. Sounds of droning recitation came from dimly lit classrooms, where girls of all ages were hunched over low desks with their heads covered, memorizing the Koran.

Ghazi said the staff “teaches our girls to be brave, and they are not scared of anyone, not the police or other forces.”

In the recent past, she said, the group has been “balancing its actions” in public to avoid confrontation. But she complained that the government “calls us terrorists and won’t let people support us.”

“We don’t even have a bank account,” she said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistan-red-mosque-taliban/2021/09/24/e6d0c0ec-1b50-11ec-bea8-308ea134594f_story.html