My Belief System & Profile
Belief System Use
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"No Validating Terrorism By Fear"
Pakistan: No foreign involvement in blast probe
Bhutto seeks help with investigation into bloody attack that targeted her
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A senior government official on Monday rejected a call from former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for U.S. and British experts to help investigate the devastating suicide attack on her homecoming procession.
The Thursday night bombing in Karachi killed 136 people, wounded hundreds more, and left open the possibility campaign rallies would be banned ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections. But Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said foreign experts would not be brought into the probe, despite Bhutto’s call Sunday for their involvement.
“I would categorically reject this,” he told reporters. “We are conducting the investigation in a very objective manner.”
Bhutto, who returned after eight years in exile, escaped the blast because she had stepped into her armored bus minutes before the bomb went off.
The government has rejected Bhutto’s allegation that elements within the current administration and security apparatus were trying to kill her. She claims they are remnants of the regime of former military leader Gen. Zia-ul Haq, who oversaw the creation of mujahedeen groups that fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Veterans of that struggle later formed al-Qaida and the Taliban militant movement.
Musharraf vows thorough probe
Bhutto has called for an independent inquiry. She has also questioned why many streetlights were not working as her convoy inched its way through the darkness, and noted the chief investigator is a police officer who had been present as her husband was allegedly tortured while in custody on corruption charges in 1999.
“The inquiry should be led by Pakistan, but the government should call on foreign experts so that the killers .... can be brought to justice without any doubts,” she told reporters on Monday in Karachi.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has promised to conduct a thorough probe into the bombing. Police are questioning three people but have yet to announce any breakthrough.
Ban on campaign rallies
Islamists and backers of another former premier, meanwhile, on Monday condemned a ban on campaign rallies proposed after the suicide bombing, calling it an attempt to rig elections that could lead to Bhutto sharing power with Pakistan’s U.S.-allied president.
Freewheeling rallies have long formed the core of campaigning in this South Asian nation.
Sadiq ul-Farooq, a leader of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N party, claimed the proposal was part of a plan to rig election results by preventing “popular opposition leaders from reaching their voters.”
Sherpao said the proposal would allow gatherings in specific, well-protected areas, but would ban large processions and rallies. Further violence, he indicated, could lead to a rescheduling of the vote.
“We do not want to postpone the elections and we do not want any sort of any excuse for that,” he said. “We want a peaceful, conducive atmosphere.”
Analysts warn that curtailed campaigning could hurt the elections’ credibility and fuel political turmoil in the nuclear-armed nation as it faces a surge in Islamic extremism.
Toward an alliance?
There are growing signs that Musharraf and Bhutto are moving toward an alliance with a common mission to fight Islamic extremism, despite misgivings in the pro-Musharraf ruling party.
That would leave Sharif, who was ousted when Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup, to lead an opposition likely to include religious parties bitterly opposed to Pakistan’s front-line role in the U.S.-led war on terror.
Ameer ul-Azeem, spokesman for the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, a coalition of opposition religious parties, denounced Musharraf as a “dictator who calls himself a democrat.”
“Since Musharraf knows the ruling party is not able to organize any big rallies, he is now thinking of depriving opposition parties of their right to campaign,” ul-Azeem said.
While authorities allowed Bhutto to return, Sharif was immediately deported to Saudi Arabia when he flew into Pakistan on Sept. 10 from exile on a declared mission to force Musharraf from power. Ul-Farooq insisted Sharif would try to return again within the next month.
Sharif served two terms as prime minister in the 1990s and remains Pakistan’s most popular politician according to a recent poll.
Bhutto said Sunday that while there should be no restrictions on political parties, each party would assess whether it was safe to go ahead with rallies.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21416647/
Militants hail Bhutto attack on Web site
Posted: Friday, October 19, 2007 5:47 PM
Categories: Cairo, Egypt
Not everyone was displeased to see more than one hundred Pakistani citizens dead on the streets of Karachi on Thursday. Most of those who commented on the suicide bombings on a popular pro-militant Internet site called EkHlaas greeted the news with postings of “God is great!”
“This woman promised the United States to fight Islam and allow the U.S. to interrogate the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons. God is great, thank God, the Mujahideen (holy warriors) Taliban said they would shoot her,” posted one visitor under the name Meskin.
“I hope she will be destroyed and this is the last page for Musharraf. I hope they will all be burned,” a visitor named Abbas said.
Even before the attack, one contributor posted a hauntingly accurate predication: “Today Bhutto will return to Pakistan and has announced she will allow the U.S. troops, so the suicide bombers are having a rendezvous with her today,” wrote Mohenid Saram. “If not today, after a week, or a month, but reaching her before she reaches power will be easy and the mujahideen (holy warriors) will not spare an effort.”
One sole voice stoked an angry debate when he stood against the attack: Tarek al Shamri called it a ‘crime’ that killed hundreds of Muslims and described the perpetrators as “infidels.” He questioned whether the CIA was behind it.
Others quickly rebuked him by saying the attack targeted a tyrant, her guards and supporters, and not innocent Muslims. Argued Abu Rayan al Ansari, “If you call it a crime, it is not a crime.”
Here are excerpts from the interview:
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Curry: "Even if you don't regret returning, because your ideals, as you just described them, are high, do you regret how they returned [unintel phrase]? That is a 20-minute drive. It took 10 hours. It was a very slow-moving motorcade surrounded by millions of people. When you knew — when you knew you were at risk, that you could be putting them at risk, did you make the right choice to come back in this way?"
Bhutto: "I ... Ann, I find this question very uncomfortable."
Curry: "Of course, you do [unintel phrase] ...
Bhutto: "The reas— no, let me tell you why. Let me tell you why, for me it validates terrorism and extremism. I know that's not how you mean it.
But for me it validates terrorism and extremism.
It means that terrorists can force us to change our values. It means that terrorists can dictate the agenda. It means that terrorists, by threatening violence, can take over nations and destroy the quality of life of their people. And that's the reason it makes me uncomfortable.
It was no secret to me that I could be attacked. I chose to return and put my life on the line to defend a principle I believe in. I never forced [unintel] anyone to come out to the airport to receive me. They chose to come because they wanted to bring change, to bring democracy and to save their motherland from disintegrating.
And I don't think the terrorists succeeded because we took 10 hours. I think the terrorists succeeded because the lights were off and they could move under cover of darkness without being intercepted by us. But even on the outside chance, even if the lights had not been off, even if we had failed to detect them, at the end of the day, I have to ask that can we validate terrorism and extremism and say, "Let's give up. Because if we don't give up trying to save our values and trying to save our land then we'll get killed."
In the face of the tragic lost of life and injuries suffered by the supporters of democracy and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the in the assassination attempt by radical Islamists in Pakistan, the Free World can learn a valuable lesson. Terrorists lose when the people don't give in to fear. Benazir Bhutto and her supporters have not cowled in fear of terrorist threats of violence. Benazir Bhutto says her prayers, puts her lipstick on and a beautiful sari and goes to meet her brave and dancing supporters in a grand rally for democracy in Pakistan. May we be so brave when it is our turn to face terrorist threats in our beloved homeland. God save Pakistan. God save America.
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