Afghanistan's government has lashed out at
Imran Khan after the former
Pakistan cricket star, now a politician, said the
Taliban were fighting a "holy war" in the country that was justified by Islamic law. Speaking after visiting a hospital in Peshawar where
Malala Yousafzai – the
14-year-old activist shot in the head by the Taliban for supporting girls' education – was treated last week, Khan told reporters that insurgents in Afghanistan were fighting a "jihad". Citing a verse from the Qur'an, he said: "It is very clear that whoever is fighting for their freedom is fighting a jihad …"The people who are fighting in Afghanistan against the foreign occupation are fighting a jihad," he added, according to a
video of remarks to journalists. Afghan politicians have reacted with disbelief, with one parliamentarian suggesting Khan should be arrested. The Ulema Council, a grouping of senior clerics, declared his comments "unislamic". A Kabul foreign ministry spokesman said Khan was "either profoundly and dangerously ignorant about the reality in Afghanistan, or he has ill will against the Afghan people."Our children are killed on daily basis, civilians killed and our schools, hospitals and infrastructure attacked on a daily basis. To call any of that jihad is profoundly wrong and misguided."
REFERENCE: Imran Khan says Taliban's 'holy war' in Afghanistan is justified by Islamic law Pakistani politician's comments at hospital that treated shooting victim Malala Yousafzai outrage Afghanistan's government Jon Boone in Islamabad The Guardian, Sunday 14 October 2012 15.20 BST http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/14/imran-khan-taliban-afghanistan-islam Imran Khan thanks Bruce Braley By Ahsan Mansoor Monday, December 24, 2007
http://www.insaf.pk/News/tabid/60/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/689/Imran-Khan-thanks-Bruce-Braley.aspx
Let there be no doubt that Malala and her friends are not child soldiers. They are youth icons. They did not wield guns or bombs but pen and microphone
In Pakistan, an apparent national consensus followed the heinous attack on the three young girls Malala Yousafzai, Kainat and Shazia. It lasted for less than two days perhaps. What should have transformed into a national resolve to fight the Taliban terrorists degenerated quickly into a Malala and anti-Malala, or more accurately perhaps, a pro- and anti-Taliban Pakistan. The pro-Taliban forces could not keep up a pro-Malala pretence for too long. They went from a qualified denunciation of the dastardly act to oblique compliments to the child icon to a vicious campaign to undermine her standing, ultimately to unabashed apologetics for the Taliban terrorists.
The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan, as is customary now, was leading the pro-Taliban pack and spent no time in muddying the waters by declaring the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan as (a perceived) jihad. That he made the comments right after visiting Malala, fighting for her life, was particularly callous. He could not bring himself to denounce squarely the Taliban for being the savages that they are, and of course, not by name. Not to be outdone by Mr Khan and his Internet ruffians, who act more and more like the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and its student wing, the original JI jumped into the fray as virtually the information wing of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The former JI ameer, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and his daughter, the ex-MNA Dr Samia Raheel Qazi, have unleashed an exceptionally morbid effort to malign Malala and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai. The jihadist cheerleaders in the media spent no time in projecting the Qazis and their drivel into every living room.
The Qazis have alleged that Malala was groomed by her father as a virtual tool of the US policy in the region. In tandem with their tirade, the Internet was flooded with pictures of Malala and her family with the late US envoy Richard Holbrooke to suggest that the affected family was on some sort of subversive mission. A false dilemma was created to project Malala as a child soldier somehow comparable with the young suicide bombers deployed by the jihadists. In a most unfortunate manner, Malala’s father was first blamed for doctoring her diaries and then for putting the child in harm’s way. A whisper campaign has accompanied this vitriol about how is it possible for a young child of nine or 10 to actually display such maturity in her writings. One anchor took the campaign of drawing false binaries a step further in his show, ostensibly about journalistic ethics. A senior newspaper editor cut that anchor to size but framing the false narratives goes on in full swing. REFERENCE: COMMENT : Malala and anti-Malala Pakistan — Dr Mohammad Taqi Thursday, October 18, 2012
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C10%5C18%5Cstory_18-10-2012_pg3_2
Excerpts from a Pashto interview of Malala Yusufzai with English subtitles.
Zahid Buneri: Malala, let us go back when an operation was launched in Swat & people were displaced. You were also displaced?
Malala: Yes, when Taliban started slitting throats of people, banned girls from going to school, then Pakistan Army (we are thankful to them) asked us to leave the area so we can have a successful operation. If we were there, the operation would never have been successful. So we sacrificed and left our homes for 3 months and migrated to Peshawar, Mardan. People here gave us so much love that we never felt that we were displaced. They treated us like guests for which we are thankful to them. When the operation was successful & we returned to our area, Swat had become the most peaceful place. Then we saw many schools destroyed which were destroyed either by Taliban or during the operation. We want those schools to be reconstructed, many schools have been rebuilt by Army & other organizations but we want all schools that were destroyed reconstructed. The children who are studying under tents should once again return to their schools.
Zahid Buneri: May ALLAH solve the problems of our Pakhtoon daughters & the Pakhtoon Nation. If all problems cannot be solved, at least we should be equal to other nations.
Malala, we would want you to come to Bacha Khan Markaz to our studio so we can talk in detail about various issues. Any message for Pakhtoons?
Malala: I want to give my message to Pakhtoons, to educate their sons and daughters. Not just school, work on them so they treat every human being well. We do not tolerate a Hindu or Sikh in our society. This is no way, tomorrow people will not tolerate us. Teach them tolerance. Teach them how to tolerate the ideas of others and how to live in coexistence with others. Learn to live with each other. Try to build good relations with each other. This is my message to Pakhtoons. REFERENCE:Pashto interview of Malala Yusufzai with English subtitles. Posted on October 18, 2012 (Special Thanks to Dr Aamir Saeed for the Translation)
http://baalahisaar.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/pashto-interview-of-malala-yusufzai-with-english-subtitles/
Imran Khan's Jihad and Taliban before 911.
An Afghan Penalty For Soccer Shorts Published: July 18, 2000 The religious police of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement arrested visiting Pakistani soccer players on Saturday and shaved their heads because they were wearing shorts, Afghan and team officials said today. The players from the Pakistani border town of Chaman were released after the incident at a playground in the southern Afghan town of Kandahar, the Taliban headquarters. A junior team of Chaman's Young Afghan Football Club had played two matches in Kandahar and was warming up for a third when the Taliban police took the players into custody as thousands of spectators watched, said the club manager, Abdul Qayyum. ''Their heads were shaven,'' he said. ''Five of our players managed to escape from the scene.'' His players were ''quite annoyed,'' he said. ''Guests are not treated like this in our society.''
A Taliban Information Ministry official in Kandahar said the players had violated the Taliban dress code under which male athletes must wear trousers while playing. The Taliban, who have vowed to create the world's purest Islamic state, have ordered women to wear an all-enveloping veil outside their homes and men to grow long beards and to cover their heads. REFERENCE: An Afghan Penalty For Soccer Shorts
Published: July 18, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/18/world/an-afghan-penalty-for-soccer-shorts.html
Taliban Jihad under General Pervez Musharraf Regime
2000: No complaints -- Pak soccer body KARACHI, July 18: The Pakistan Football Federation said on Tuesday that it would not condemn an incident in neighbouring Afghanistan last week in which members of the Taliban militia shaved off heads of Pakistani soccer players for wearing ``un-Islamic dress'' during a friendly football match with Afghans at Kandahar. The bizarre incident occurred when the Taliban raided the third match between the players from Pakistan and their Afghan competitors in the religious capital of Afghanistan, Kandahar, and accused the Pakistani players of ``spreading obscenity and inciting passions'' by wearing shorts.The Taliban had earlier decreed that men could wear only shalwars (baggy trousers) when playing football. The game, which has a passionate following in Afghanistan, was reluctantly allowed by the Taliban, alongwith male wrestling, after most sport activities were banned for being a waste of time.
Abdul Qayuum, captain of the young Afghan Club, Chaman (Pakistan) told a Pakistani newspaper said the players were released on Sunday last and were deported to Pakistan.The Pakistani players who escaped sought refuge in the local Pakistani consulate. But the Pakistan Football Federation said that it would not condemn the incident since the punishment was ``not that severe'' and that the match was not an official engagement between the two countries.Earlier, Afghanistan hit the sports headlines when it did not allow their boxing team to shave their beards - as it is a crime to shave one's beard in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The boxers were automatically disqualified from their Asian Boxing engagements. Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. REFERENCE:
No complaints -- Pak soccer body KAMAL SIDDIQI Wednesday, July 19, 2000 http://www.expressindia.com/news/ie/daily/20000719/isp19064.html
Imran Khan and Taliban's Jihad in 2009 in Pakistan's Settled Area (After 911)
2009: Taliban shave men for listening to music in Buner PESHAWAR Taliban militants in Buner district shaved the heads and moustaches of four Pakistani men as punishment for listening to music, one of the men said Sunday. Although Taliban and local officials said the fighters retreated from Buner by Saturday, local members of the movement remain. Residents said many fighters were still present in the hilly outskirts of the district. In one incident late Saturday, Taliban hardliners shaved the heads and moustaches of four men for listening to music, a young man from Buner told AFP by telephone, requesting not to be identified. `I was with three other friends in my car, listening to music when armed Taliban stopped us and, after smashing cassettes and the cassette player, they shaved half our heads and moustaches,` he said. `The Taliban also beat us and asked us not to listen to music ever again,` said the terrified man. Local police said they had no information about the incident. The victim said neither he nor his friends lodged a complaint with police, as this would have been `useless.` `It might have annoyed the Taliban further and I fear for my life,` the man said.
Residents in Mingora, the main town in Swat, said Taliban posters had been put up in streets and markets ordering women not to go shopping. The posters had appeared after the Taliban`s controversial agreement with the government to enforce Islamic law in the region. `We will take action against women who go out shopping in the markets and any shopkeeper seen dealing with women shoppers will be dealt with severely,` read the poster from the Swat branch of Tehrik-i-Taliban. `The peace agreement does not mean that obscenity should be re-born,` it added. Extremist Taliban consider it `obscene` for women to leave their homes, and ban females from venturing out in public without an immediate male relative — namely a father, brother, son or husband. For years, Swat was a popular ski resort frequented by Westerners but the Pakistani government effectively lost control of the mountainous district after the violent Taliban campaign to enforce Sharia law. REFERENCE: Taliban shave men for listening to music in Buner
http://archives.dawn.com/archives/82823
What the Taliban did after succeeding in Jihad in 90s (before 911)
Najibullah and his brother Dead bodies after the Taliban took over in 90s
1998: Afghanistan: The Massacre in Mazar-I Sharif On August 8, 1998, Taliban militia forces captured the city of Mazar-i Sharif in northwest Afghanistan, the only major city controlled by the United Front, the coalition of forces opposed to the Taliban. The fall of Mazar was part of a successful offensive that gave the Taliban control of almost every major city and important significant territory in northern and central Afghanistan. Within the first few hours of seizing control of the city, Taliban troops killed scores of civilians in indiscriminate attacks, shooting noncombatants and suspected combatants alike in residential areas, city street sand markets. Witnesses described it as a "killing frenzy" as the advancing forces shot at "anything that moved." Retreating opposition forces may also have engaged in indiscriminate shooting as they fled the city. Human Rights Watch believes that at least hundreds of civilians were among those killed as the panicked population of Mazar-i Sharif tried to evade the gunfire or escape the city.
In the days that followed, Taliban forces carried out a systematic search for male members of the ethnic Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek communities in the city. The Hazaras, a Persian-speaking Shi’a ethnic group, were particularly targeted, in part because of their religious identity. During the house-to-house searches, scores and perhaps hundreds of Hazara men and boys were summarily executed, apparently to ensure that they would be unable to mount any resistance to the Taliban. Also killed were eight Iranian officials at the Iranian consulate in the city and an Iranian journalist. Thousands of men from various ethnic communities were detained first in the overcrowded city jail and then transported to other cities, including Shiberghan, Herat and Qandahar. Most of the prisoners were transported in large container trucks capable of holding one hundred to 150 people. In two known instances, when the trucks reached Shiberghan, some 130 kilometers west of Mazar, nearly all of the men inside had asphyxiated or died of heat stroke inside the closed metal containers. Some prisoners were also transported in smaller trucks. As of late October, some 4,500 men from Mazar remained in detention.
The few international relief groups operating in Mazar had evacuated their staff in the days before the attack on the city.1 On August 16, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), resumed its operations in the city. In late October, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) was permitted to resume its activities.
Following the takeover, the Taliban allowed no journalists to travel anywhere in the area.
In the absence of a full-scale investigation, there is no way to know precisely how many were killed in the weeks following the fall of Mazar to the Taliban. Based on interviews with survivors and other informed sources, Human Rights Watch believes that at least 2,000 may have been killed in the city and possibly many more. Manycivilians were also killed in aerial bombardments and rocket attacks as they fled south of the city toward the Alborz mountains. Human Rights Watch is also concerned by persistent reports that women and girls, particularly in certain Hazara neighborhoods of Mazar-i Sharif, were raped and abducted during the Taliban takeover of the city.
The killings of Hazara men and boys appear to have been carried out largely in reprisal for the killing of several thousand Taliban soldiers after a failed attempt by the Taliban to take the city from May to July 1997. Of these, some 2,000 were reportedly summarily executed after capture in Shiberghan and other areas, including areas to which prisoners from Mazar were deported. A number of neighborhoods targeted for searches in Mazar had been among those where resistance by Hizb-i Wahdat troops against the Taliban had begun at that time. Witnesses stated that Taliban conducting the house-to-house searches accused Hazaras in general of killing Taliban troops in 1997 and did not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. In speeches given at mosques throughout Mazar, the Taliban governor, Mulla Manon Niazi, also blamed Hazaras for the 1997 killings.
The Hazaras were also singled out because they are Shi'a. The Taliban are Sunni Muslims and followers of a strict conservative sect that considers the Shi'a to be infidels. During their search operations in Mazar, the Taliban ordered some residents to prove that they were not Shi'a by reciting Sunni prayers. Over a period of several weeks, Governor Niazi made inflammatory speeches against Hazaras in which he ordered them to become Sunnis, leave Afghanistan, or risk being killed.
The Taliban forces that captured Mazar-i Sharif included Pashtuns from Balkh, the province of which Mazar is the capital and the name of a town northwest of Mazar. These Balkh Pashtuns had been members of a militia aligned with the Hizb-i Islami, a largely Pashtun faction that was part of the United Front. Some weeks before the offensive on Mazar, Hizb-i Wahdat forces launched an operation in Balkh to drive Pashtuns from the area so that they would not be able to provide support to the advancing Taliban troops. The Hizb-i Wahdat forces reportedly engaged in widespread rape and looting. The rapes in particular reportedly drove several key commanders among the Balkh Pashtuns to switch sides and help the Taliban. Some were reportedly also unhappy with Hizb-i Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's courting of Shi’a religious leaders. Other commanders were simply bought off. Balkh Pashtuns were among the first troops entering the city and have been identified among the Taliban troops who engaged in indiscriminate shooting on the first day. Balkh Pashtuns also took part in the house-to-house searches and may have acted as informers identifying Hazara neighborhoods and houses.
However, witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch stated that the search parties also included Taliban officers who were not from local areas and that the Taliban officers separating prisoners at the jail were not Balkh Pashtuns but non-local "mainstream" Taliban — those from Qandahar or other predominantly Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan where many of the senior Taliban leaders are based. The speeches by Governor Niazi also demonstrate an intent at senior levels to target Hazaras. Other witnesses stated that senior Taliban leaders were not only aware of the extent of the killing in Mazar but had decided to allow it to continue for several days before stopping it.
Human Rights Watch also interviewed a number of witnesses who described the abductions of girls and women from neighborhoods in Mazar, including Saidabad, Karte Ariana and Ali Chopan. There are consistent reports as well of a number of incidents of rape; Balkh Pashtuns were identified in some cases. In the weeks after the takeover the Taliban announced the execution of some soldiers who had been responsible for crimes, including rape, during the offensive. REFERENCE: November 1998 Vol. 10, No. 7 (C) AFGHANISTAN: THE MASSACRE IN MAZAR-I SHARIF
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/afghan/ Afghanistan: The Massacre in Mazar-I Sharif
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,HRW,,AFG,,45c9a4b52,0.html
