New Trend Magazine (www.newtrendmag.org)

[Biggest Islamic web site in the U.S.]
P.O. Box 356, Kingsville, MD 21087.
Phone: 410-435-5000.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are not necessarily shared by editorial committee.
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Names will be withheld on request.
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LATEST NEWS:

President Saddam Hussain's voice was heard on Al-Jazeerah TV calling on the Iraqi people to continue Jihad. Looks like he was aware of military collapse of Iraq and had prepared a post-invasion plan.

Evidently, America is now in serious trouble in Iraq.
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Attack On Quetta Imam Bara: Who is Behind This and Why?
(commentary by our Pakistan Observer)

On July 4, Pakistani government sources allege, four assailants attacked the main Imam Bara or Shia mosque in the border city of Quetta. By July 5, the death toll had risen to 44 worshipers and the 4 assailants killed plus 85 worshipers injured.

After the attack, enraged demonstrators from the Shia community, which is strong in Quetta, attacked government buildings, banks, cars and public facilities. The government imposed curfew on the city and called in the army
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WHO PERPETRATED THIS MASSACRE AND WHY?

Whatever is said at this point is in the realm of speculation. It is to be hoped that a thorough and impartial inquiry will be carried out.

In Pakistan, most incidents are connected to the government. The inquiry should include an investigation of the government's possible involvement. In terms of Pakistani politics, the government has the most to gain from such tragedies. How?:

At this time, the opposition, MMA, is about to launch a movement to remove Musharraf following the coup leader's treacherous visit to the U.S. in which he started ground work for the recognition of Israel.

It also gives Musharraf an opportunity to move against peaceful and duly elected opposition governments in Frontier Province and Baluchistan.

The massacre, if focused on enough, could help Musharraf to divert attention from the betrayal of Pakistan he is involved in right now.

Pakistanis have an APPETITE for conspiracy theories. Some Pakistanis are saying the attack had the hand of Israeli intelligence (Mossad) behind it. Others say it is RAW (the Indian intelligence agency). Either one could be correct or totally off the mark. At this time both India and Israel want Musharraf to stay in power and continue with the Bush-Sharon-Vajpayee agenda.

The MMA and the Jihad movement lead by Hafiz Saeed have the most to lose from a sectarian attack. MMA is a peaceful movement and includes Shias in its coalition. The Jihad movement (Jamaat ad-Dawa) is focused on Kashmir and sees sectarian attacks as distractions from the cause.

THE ROOTS OF THE ATTACK MIGHT LIE IN THE AFGHANISTAN WARS:

Most Pakistanis do not realize, in human terms, not statistics, that in Afghanistan there has been major bloodletting, part of which involved issues which tend to become sectarian in Pakistan. It's not really a Shia-Sunni issue at any theological level. It has to do with the emergence of IRAN as a regional power. Owing to the horrendous nature of the Afghan wars, the situation has become vicious COMPARABLE TO THE CIVIL WAR IN SPAIN BETWEEN the REPUBLICANS and the FASCISTS in the 1930s. In that war, all sense of the sacred was forgotten and assailants would carry out attacks on churches and perpetrate horrific acts of desecration. Let's look at the sectarian poison infused into Afghanistan and its connection with Pakistan.

1. During the CIVIL STRIFE between the mujahideen factions, after the Soviet withdrawal, IRAN started developing a Shia initiative to take over Kabul by military force. The Shias, majority of whom live in Hazarajat (central Afghanistan), did not accept the Iranian moves. However, a small force was armed heavily by Iran and it attacked Kabul and took over parts of it. Serious acts of murder, rape and looting were carried out by these bands of riff raff heavily armed by Iran.

2. Peace was brought to Afghanistan by the TALIBAN but Iran worked with segments of Dostum's Communists in the north to undermine the advancing Taliban forces. The Taliban were in too much of a hurry to establish peace in the north. As a result, they were surprised when one commander, linked to Dostum, whom the Taliban considered their ally, turned on the Taliban with Iranian help. There was a big massacre of the Taliban in this surprise move, with an estimated 5,000 Taliban killed and buried in mass graves.

3. Thereafter, Iran rapidly increased its moves against the Taliban and won over more and more support from the Hazarajat Shia to attack the Taliban. Gradually the two sides started considering each other as armed infidels. Both sides attacked and killed each other somewhat in the pattern of horrors which we see in the history of Spain in the 1930s.

4. During the American assault on the Taliban, Iran was hooked up to the Communist Dostum and the Shia forces (now organized into a regular military force).

5. Following the Taliban retreat, a segment of Taliban forces was tricked into surrender by the Dostum-Shia military forces backed by the U.S. The Taliban thought they would be sent home. Instead the Shias and Dostum group, under U.S. supervision, placed the prisoners in closed containers and allowed them to die of intense cold and starvation. AN ESTIMATED 3,000 TALIBAN PRISONERS WERE KILLED in this way by the Shia-Dotum combine. [This is known as the massacre of Sheberghan and has been documented by an Irish TV team.]

6. The PAKISTANI regime seems to be well aware of the hatred between Hazarajat Shias and Taliban. Hence, WITHIN PAKISTAN, in the Quetta area, Musharraf's people have been recruiting Hazarajat Shias into the police to ensure that owing to their hatred, they would not let any Taliban or other Islamic refugees enter Pakistan.

7. According to Pakistani media, the prison keepers in most Pakistani prisons, where Pakistanis who had gone to fight in Afghanistan were kept, were drawn from the Shia community. Thus Musharraf seems to have deliberately used the hatred between the two groups to humiliate the supporters of the Taliban.

Musharraf, quite isolated in Pakistan, observers say, has desperately drawn his forces from alleged Qadianis, extremist and Hazarajat Shias, and criminal types who are against the Islamic foundations of Pakistan. A sect called the Parvezis, for instance, allegedly celebrated the bombing of Afghanistan and the destruction of the Taliban. The Parvezis support General Parvez Musharraf and oppose the Muslim mainstream.

AN INDEPENDENT COMMISSION SHOULD BE SET UP TO INVESTIGATE THE MASSACRE IN QUETTA. The government's actions should be included in this investigation. The Commission must investigate the TRAGEDY OF AFGHANISTAN and CIA agent Musharraf's role in that tragedy. With that background, the atrocity in Quetta should be investigated and the people behind it punished.

It is time for IRAN and the Musharraf government to get out of the use of sectarianism to keep the Pakistani people at each other's throats. SECTARIANISM MUST BE STOPPED and the way to do it is through transparency. The public must know what is going on behind the scenes. Pakistan's Islamic base is under attack as Bush has successfully implanted his man in the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad.
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2003-07-05 Sat 15:59ct