Saturday 29 November, 2008

Startling Revelations

Initially, the idea of this post was to throw more light on the abbreviations and jargon used by journalists to describe the mayhem unfolding in Mumbai.  NSG, fidayeen, Marcos, Lashkar-e-Taiba etc... But as I investigated each link on Wiki and googled those terms, I hit upon some sinister weblinks and most of them - official. The Lashkar and other militant organizations in Pakistan are living ammunition posing a huge threat to India, America, UK, Israel and other nations on their radar...

I'd leave you and your intelligence to draw inferences from this information. Also note that some of the information and links lack context. But, disclaimers aside, it is starling...

1.Who are the NSG?
The National Security Guard (NSG) was set up in 1984 as a Federal Contingency Deployment Force to tackle all facets of terrorism in the country.  Thus the primary role of this Force is to combat terrorism in whatever form it may assume in areas where activity of terrorists assumes serious proportions, and the State Police and other Central Police Forces cannot cope up with the situation. The NSG is a Force specially equipped and trained to deal with specific situations and is therefore, to be used only in exceptional situations.
Source : NSG's Official Website


2. What is a Fidayeen attack?

A fidayeen attack is a suicide tactic used by militants. Such attacks are especially common in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. In a fidayeen, a militant equips himself (most fidayeens are men) with weapons and a sizeable amount of ammunition. He then proceeds to gain entrance into a military base, checkpoint or other military installation and proceeds to open fire on law-enforcement personnel. He continues his attack until he runs out of ammunition, at which point he is gunned down by security forces. Fidayeen militants sometimes do attempt to escape but are almost always shot by security forces shortly afterward because the militants rarely have a "getaway" plan chalked out. These militants, like suicide bombers are prepared to die during the execution of the attack.

But a Fidayeen attack is not a suicide attack. It is a different kind of attack usually carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba in Jammu and Kashmir. In this attack a Fidayee heavily armed enters into a military camp or convoy and start firing bullets and throwing grenades and fights till death. A fidayee does not blow himself up with explosives and if he gets a chance after fulfilling the mission he may try to escape.
Source : Wikipedia

3.What is Lashkar-e-Taiba?

- Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LET) is the armed wing of the Pakistan-based religious organization, Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), a Sunni anti-US missionary organization formed in 1989. LET is one of the three largest and best-trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India, and is not connected to a political party. LET's leader is MDI chief, Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed.

- LET has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Kashmir since 1993. LET is suspected of eight separate attacks in August that killed nearly 100, mostly Hindu Indians. LET militants are suspected of kidnapping six persons in Akhala, India, in November 2000 and killing five of them.

- LET has several hundred members in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, and in India's southern Kashmir and Doda regions. In their operations, LET uses assault rifles, light and heavy machineguns, mortars, explosives, and rocket propelled grenades.

- LET is based in Muridke (near Lahore) and Muzaffarabad. LET trains its militants in mobile training camps across Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Afghanistan. LET collects donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic NGOs, and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. The amount of LT funding is unknown. LET maintains ties to religious/military groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya through the MDI fraternal network.
Source : For Immediate Release
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
December 20, 2001



Description: A black AK-47 rifle, placed against a yellow sun in the center, protrudes vertically from an open, green Koran. Above the rifle, in black, is a semi-circular Koranic phrase which translates: "And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah." These images are set against a light blue background. Below the Koran is white lettering against a red background; it bears the group's original name: Markaz al-Dawa wa al-Irshad (the Center for Preaching and Guidance).

Explanation: The Koran signifies the centrality of Islam to Lashkar-e-Taiba's ideology; green is also Islam's traditional color. The blue background represents Allah's mercy and the sun symbolizes wisdom and virtue. The rifle's placement above the Koran, and the inscription above, denote the organization's belief that violent jihad will establish a society based on Islamic precepts. The red on the bottom is a symbol of strength and violence.


4. Who is Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed?


I hope these articles don't evoke an anti-Pakistan sentiment because that clearly isn't the need of the hour. Nonetheless, one cannot deny that the country is home to a FACTORY of living bombs waiting to be deployed at the point of a finger. Also, I happened to hit upon a link to Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed's official organization Jamat Dawah. Prof. Saaed as you may have read earlier is the founder and chief (which he denies on this website) of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. His claim on his official website is contradictory to the NY Times interview above. His website has so many references to the use of 'jihad' and Anti-India tones that it fails me as to how this man is allowed to function so freely.

P.S. - Some Shocking Links :- (PLEASE VISIT THEM)
If you read the date on this writeup, it reads 25th April, 2008
  • The students were shouting slogans such as, “The only remedy of correcting those who have insulted the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, is Jihad”
  • "The rally was so humongous that it stretched from the Press Club, all the way to the G.P.O."
  • "They also demanded an end to the oppressive GRE test system for admission to universities"
 B
Please understand that this is Prof. Saeed's official website. Date reads 21st May 2008
"In a statement issued here yesterday, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed said Muslims should wage jihad against countries that have disrespected the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, instead of signing trade and friendship pacts with them"
      C 
    "He said Muslims should implement Islamic laws and values in accordance with the teachings of the Quraan and Sunnah in their homes, and urged Muslim women to cover themselves and instill Islamic values in their children, and to abandon Hindu traditions and customs. The solution to all the problems of Muslims lies in turning back to the Quraan and the Sunnah, he stressed."
      D

      Amidst this madness, I found solace in a website named Bharat Rakshak

      P.S. - I am truly rattled guys. As I type these final words, I hear L.K. Advani address a gathering that - during his tenure as the home minister under Vajpayee's prime-ministership he ensured that all terrorists were invariably killed. Vote-bank politics, anyone?

      5 comments:

      1. Pakistan has created terrorism (in conjunction with the USA). That is an undeniable fact. Even if they no longer directly support these terrorists, most of them (or their instructors) train or have trained in pakistan.

        We can no longer, however, blame Pakistan, because it has lost control of the monster it has created. Those terrorists can now operate completely independently, and the Pakistani government (a front for the armed forces) has no control over them or their country anyways.

        Then there is the issue of Hindu terrorism. It exists. However, when it comes to laying blame, it is wrongly blamed in the media (especially western, and by the pseudo-liberals/seculars in India) to be the cause of Islamic terrorism. That is ALL WRONG. It was created as a response to Islamic terrorism.

        I don't say this to somehow defend Hindu terrorism. I say this because scholars seem convinced that if only Hindus were to just stop committing atrocities on Muslims, terrorism would stop. But that has everything completely backwards. Hindus SHOULD stop commiting atrocities (which are already far more sporadic than Islamic terrorism) but that will NOT stop Islamic terrorism.

        I have no idea what will stop Islamic terrorism. Most muslims are amongst the best people I know. Its not the religion per se. However, it is construed in ways that justifies, and encourages such killing, and I am completely lost for an answer.

        The standard belief (including mine) has been "eradicate poverty and educate them". Ignoring the impossibility of achieving this task, this idea is completely debunked by the fact that most modern terrorists are well spoken, well educated, middle class individuals.

        The only solution seems to be, give Israel back to Palestine, and make Kashmir independent. Ignoring the fact that neither will happen, since they are huge security risks to Jews, and India (anyways, an independent Kashmir will either become part of Pakistan, or China), success will only encourage terrorists to make greater demands.

        The only solution is sustained operations in Pakistan. Unfortunately, our good friends in the US believe that Iraq and Afghanistan are the problems, while Pakistan is the friend. They got it COMPLETELY backwards in 2001, and now the terrorist movement has only strengthened, because Pakistan has been shielded by the US.

        However, as a response, 1 thing we urgently need to guard against is forgetting the rule of law. We cannot allow cops to torture suspects, and we cannot allow them to target people (who are invariably, muslims), without evidence. That would only exacerbate the problem by creating even more divisions amongst us, at a time we need to come together.

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      2. those links are something else...!

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      3. By 'something else' you mean 'shocking' something else right? Or do you mean they are 'out of context'?... I'm guessing it's the former!

        I read your post on http://weblog.xanga.com/shesturningblue ... It's amazing! Did you report it to the media?

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      4. really helpful insight dude... but where have you been th three days... i was expecting more from you... your views...some interesting stuff!

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      5. Accidental Existence

        “Someone has to take responsibility!”... “Politicians are the bane of the society”….. “X should resign”…… “Y should take over”…. They keep on crying and yelling on a debate on National Television. They have been doing it since the faculties of my mind first learnt to think. My parents do it. My teachers have always done it. My friends learnt the same tape from their family. I used it too to win many debates and Model United Nations.

        When I saw Major Sandip Unnikrishnann’s mother at his funeral I thought he ought to be stupid. Stupid to have caused his mother so much grief for saving impotent and immobile little creatures like us. I am sure he could have laid down his life for a better nation and better people. He must have thought it was his duty to give us a sense of security so that we sleep peacefully every night. How I wish, I could tell him that his efforts were futile because these people are besieged by insecurities of much more monstrous proportions. Insecurity that they won’t be fucked if they have pimples, that their hair are not straight enough or that they would be embarrassed if they failed to pronounce a particular item in the menu of a famous French restaurant.

        Everything that has happened to me, every blast, every attack and every act of injustice is because of me. The sole responsibility lies on me. I am responsible for every crime that takes place in my neighborhood, my office and in my house. For years now, I have been a mute spectator. I have lived courage less existence. Everyone around me instilled fear, anxiety and insecurity in me, and I let it internalize. Every time I tried to fight back I was told to be sensible. I was told to be ‘practical’. As time passed I went into a slumber. Woke up every time a blast took place but had strong enough sleeping pills to go back to sleep again. Perhaps I am waiting for someone to barge into my house and put me to sleep forever. Do not get me wrong. I am not afraid. I am not worrying. In fact, I feel stronger than ever.

        The attacks on 26/11 I hope have at least evoked reactions. Because it is the ocean of indifference that I have seen, felt and been a part of for so long. People like the NSG Commando Sandeep were guarding the borders when you, the wealthy Indian was busy making money (lots of them in South Bombay), when you were busy making schemes to bed another beautiful woman, when you were making pseudo-secular speeches to win admiration of your dim-witted friends, when you were busy taking your dog for spa treatment, when you were smoking pot on the terrace of your B-school in the jubilation of you being placed with the highest salary on campus, when you thought you had contributed to the society by just being emotionally involved with a movie like Rang De Basanti, when you thought you were a true patriot by sending an SMS to NDTV congratulating the Indian Cricket team on T20, when you were busy making business plans assuming that you do not depend on anyone for its success, when you were driving around abusing BMC for the potholes on the road, when you were puking around on Christmas eve party and urinating liquor on the walls of ‘third world India’. I am not saying you should not have done all that. Just that there could have been some courage also to take responsibility for what has happened.

        It has been this indifference of yours that has caused it. When the trains were blown up in 2006, it did not matter to so many who thought they will anyway never use a train. I hope we all realize that ‘no one is safe’ and no amount of money can buy you immortality. Any one of us could have been at the ‘Taj’ or CST just as anyone of us could have been in the Delhi markets or in the Mumbai trains. If the last 3 days did not stir you, nothing will. Not even the blowing up of your own family for you are random matter in existence in this universe.

        I would like to end with some hope. Hope that young and energetic citizens like me will take matter in their own hands. Not leave it to the system or the government. Try and be a part of the process that decides our fate. And most importantly, not sit on the fence watching the action all our lives. For one day that pointed fence will cut right across your backside and paralyze you enough for you not to be able to fulfill any dream of yours.

        - Ankit Doshi

        (Please do not send me SMSes asking me to relax and for god’s sake do no use the words ‘chod na’. I might actually cause you physical harm and I will be even more motivated than the terrorists. I am perfectly normal unlike a lot of you.)

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      "The person who writes for the intelligent and smart like you is always sure of a meagre audience" - Anuj Gosalia