Pakistan

The FT says that at least two suicide bombers struck at the shrine of medieval Sufi master Datta Ganj Bakhsh (Sayyid Ali Hujwiri), the patron saint of Lahore, on Thursday evening, killing at least 42 and wounding 175. (The death toll will rise since many of the injured are in critical condition). Pakistan’s The News […]

Pakistan

Why Pakistan needs the Separation of Religion and State;
Atrocities by Taliban against Ahmadis

Juan Cole

The attack by ten armed and trained militants on two Ahmadi places of worship resembled in its techniques the assault on Mumbai (Bombay) in fall of 2008 (see this Federation of American Scientists report [.pdf]). Some at least of the militants appear to have been from southern Punjab and to have been residing in Waziristan […]

Afghanistan

Taliban Commander Maulvi Fazlullah Said Killed in Nuristan

Juan Cole

Conflicting reports are emerging from the province of Nuristan in Afghanistan, some alleging that Maulvi Fazlullah, a.k.a. ‘Mulla Radio,’ has been killed in fierce fighting along with six companions. On Thursday, a group of insurgents took on Afghanistan National Army troops in Nuristan, with heavy fighting continuing on Friday. Maulvi Fazlullah was one of the […]

Pakistan

Pakistan’s Social Media Ban Endangers Economic Growth

Juan Cole

The Lahore High Court’s ban on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and some other social media sites was supported on Friday in Pakistan by rallies of students, attorneys and fundamentalists. Blackberry services have also been banned by the Pakistani telecom authority. But these knowledge workers are unwittingly shooting themselves in the foot and raising the question of […]

al-Qaeda

Police: Shahzad has no Links to Taliban; Clinton Remarks Produce Firestorm in Pakistan

Juan Cole

Pakistani authorities doing the hard police work in Karachi of attempting to trace the network of friends and contacts of attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad have come up empty-handed. There is nothing in Shahzad’s background that links him to the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP or Taliban Movement of Pakistan), based in the Federally Administered […]

al-Qaeda

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Niass & Shahzad

Juan Cole

I received some snarky message after the Shahzad attempted bombing in Times Square, asking if I were still standing behind the idea of Islam as a religion of peace. It was a stupid comment. Classical Islamic law forbids murder and forbids terrorism, and it forbids aggression. Whether that makes it a religion of peace is […]

Afghanistan

Suspect Arrested in Times Square Bomb Plot; Afghan anger at NATO Grows

Juan Cole

As US authorities arrested Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American recently returned from Peshawar, on suspicion of ties to the Pakistani Taliban and involvement in the Times Square bomb plot, bad news is coming from Afghanistan itself. Pashtuns in the affected areas appear to be angry at the US invasion of Marjah this winter and convinced that […]

al-Qaeda

From Waziristan to New York

Juan Cole

It is a measure of the inter-connected character of our globalized world that the security of New York may be tied to events in distant, rugged and mysterious South Waziristan, Pakistan– a remote area even most Pakistanis know little about. And, US security may depend more on school-building and improving lives in South Waziristan than […]

Pakistan

Chaudhry: Dis(re)membering \pä-ki-ˈstän\

Juan Cole

This is a guest essay by Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, University of California, Berkeley, one of our country’s foremost academic specialists in comparative politics.: “…for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old-established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression.”– Sigmund Freud. On assuming […]