Extremist Muslim Vandalizes A College Chapel in Pakistan « Persecution News

Will Ban Ki-Moon speak about "Christianophobia" in Pakistan or that would be too politically incorrect for him?

A roadside bomb killed six Taliban militants, including a prominent local commander, in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, an attack that could have been motivated by tensions between different insurgent groups.

The bomb was detonated by remote control as Hakim Khan and five lower ranking militants were driving through the town of Marindy in the Kurram tribal region, said Jamil Khan, a local administrator. The commander who was killed was suspected of attacking Pakistani troops and kidnapping people for ransom, he said.

It was unclear who carried out the attack, but rivalries between different groups of fighters in northwestern Pakistan sometimes escalate into violence.

The slain commander was from Kurram but had close ties to the Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella group of militants that is based in nearby North and South Waziristan and has declared war on the Pakistani state, Khan said.

Source.

Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : Pakistan: parents of Christian rape, murder victim will not press charges:

"To the consternation of some Christian organizations, the Christian parents of a rape and murder victim have accepted one million Pakistani rupees ($11,636) in return for abandoning charges against the perpetrators of the crime.

Lubna Masih, 12, was going to a store to buy milk in the northern Pakistani city of Rawalpindi when five Muslim young men forced her into a car and raped and murdered her. Terrified by the prospect of reprisals, her family initially decided not to press charges. Later, as the parents began to consider charges, “several members of Parliament” stepped in to obtain the money for the impoverished family in return for the abandonment of charges, according to the Fides news agency, which did not report on the money’s source.

“If the parents do not even have the strength to defend the memory of their daughter, nobody can do anything,” commented one Christian organization."

Background:
Pakistan: Violence against Christian girls, "part of daily life": “Episodes of violence and abuse of Christian girls are part of daily life,” a Fides source said. “Those that make the news are just the tip of the iceberg.”

DAWN.COM | Metropolitan | No let-up in Karachi killings; toll 33

As many as 33 people lost their lives and 50 were injured in incidents of violence in different parts of the city in 30 hours till Sunday midnight.

Five vehicles, including a car belonging to the DawnNews, were set ablaze at Safoora Chowk on late Saturday night. City Police Chief Fayyaz Ahmed Leghari said around 30 people had fallen victims to targeted killings.

In reply to a question about ethnic profiles of the victims, the CCPO said they belonged to different groups.

The fresh spate of killings coincided with by-elections for the PS-94, Orangi Town, which fell vacant after the assassination of MQM MPA Raza Haider.

According to unofficial results, MQM’s candidate Saifuddin Khalid won the seat comfortably.

The Awami National Party announced on Saturday that it was boycotting the election because its demand to deploy troops had not been met.

They were detained after a shoot-out near a village in central Pakistan, said Abdi Qadri, a senior police officer, and revealed their plans under interrogation.

Violence against Christian girls is “unfortunately common” in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, according to Father Khalid Rashid Asi, vicar general of the Diocese of Faisalabad.

Lubna Masih, 12, was going to a store to buy milk when five Muslim young men forced her into a car and raped and murdered her, according to the Fides news agency. Terrified by the prospect of reprisals, her family has not pressed charges.

Kiran Nayyaz, 13, was working as a maid in a Muslim’s home when another Muslim employee raped her. Now pregnant, she is under the protection of the Diocese of Faisalabad. “The family is traumatized and the entire Catholic community fear reprisals,” said the diocesan vicar general. “But cases of violence such as these are unfortunately common.”

In July, according to Fides, three Muslims kidnapped, tortured, and raped a 16-year-old Christian girl in Punjab, and a group of Muslim students raped a 12-year-old Christian girl in Rawalpindi.

“Episodes of violence and abuse of Christian girls are part of daily life,” a Fides source said. “Those that make the news are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Source.

Background:
-On Pakistani Christians' violence (among others):
Pakistan: Two-year-old raped and left to die because her father refused to convert to Islam.
Pakistan: 5 Muslims allegedly ransacked house of Christians to make them drop rape charges.
Pakistan: Raped and Burned for Refusing to Convert to Islam.
Pakistan: Reports of Christian Girl Burnt Alive After Rape.

-On non-Muslims' treatment in Islamic countries:
UN: Islamic countries push (again...) for "Islamophobia" monitoring mechanism.
Iraq: Christians continue fleeing to neighbouring countries.
Egypt: Al-Azhar's "Statement to the Nation" reduces Copts to Dhimmi status.
Libya: Two South Koreans, accused of Christian proselitism, released.
Pakistan: Christian lawyer and his entire family killed by Islamic extremists.
Kuwait: policeman converts to Christianity, asks the Govt to change his papers.
"Blasphemy UN Resolution": US NGO "Open Doors" campain on Freedom of Believe.
Ethiopia: Christian accused of desecrating the Qu'ran.
Saudi Arabia: Twelve Philippinos and a Catholic priest released on bail, after being arrested for attending Mass.
Hector Aleem's update.
Iran: Christian pastor sentenced to death for "thought crime".
Sudan: Sudanese bishops' conference concerned about persecution if South supports independence.
Arab Christians face political Islam threat, Bishop Naguib says.
Catholic Synod: Rabbi cautions against hostility towards Israel.

Dear group members,


As you know our father Hector Aleem is in jail due to a false blasphemy offence. The trial is going on these days and the judge is giving hearing dates on daily basis. And the lawyer needs to go daily to the court for trial. So he needs his fees, we have reached this stage just because of your help. We need some of your help again, please donate as much as you can or if you cannot donate then please tell you friends and family to donate for us or simply pray for us and for the collection of donation for daddy. It’s a request, please do not ignore us.


If you want to donate through Pay pal then you can donate by following the link below.


Here is the link to pay pal: http://tinyurl.com/hectoraleem


And if you want to donate through any other way the please contact me.


Waiting for your positive responses and please remember us in your prayers. Also please pray for daddy’s immediate release and for our safety.


Please also read these two Articles:

• First One here.
• Second One here.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog, has obtained satellite images showing that a row of cooling towers at Pakistan's secret Khushab-III reactor has been completed. This suggests the plant could begin operation within months, allowing Pakistan substantially to increase its stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.

Last year, Barack Obama, US president, called for "a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials". In response, the Conference on Disarmament, a 64-nation coalition that negotiated the 1992 Chemical Weapons convention and the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreed to negotiate a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, intended to cap production of weapons-grade enriched uranium and most forms of plutonium.

But Pakistan, which is deepening its nuclear ties to China, has blocked the Conference on Disarmament from starting discussions, saying a cut-off would hurt its national security interests. Ashley Tellis, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "Pakistan thinks its going to be forced to cap its fissile material stocks and wants to make sure it has as much as it can get before then." The country's position has frustrated many states. Rose Gottmeiler, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, recently warned that her country's "patience is running out".

Khushab-III is the latest in a series of reactors built to feed Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. Khushab-II, located next to its new sister plant, became operational in February. The plutonium produced at the complex allows for the construction of small but lethal weapons: a single kilogram can produce an explosion equal to 20,000 tons of conventional explosives.

Source.

Background:
Pakistan: terrorist attacks and double game continues.
US slams Pakistan.
Contacts with the Taliban.
US top Defence officials worried about ISI's involvement with the Talibans.

Top US defence officials have expressed concerns that some elements of Pakistan's spy agency may be involved in improper interactions with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan has disclosed.

Talking to reporters at the Pentagon, Lapan revealed that US officials were concerned about some elements of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) having interactions with insurgents that "may be seen as supporting terrorist groups rather than going after them."

When asked whether the ISI was supporting terrorists, he said, "I don't want to go that far, and that's why I said interaction ... Elements of the ISI might be interacting with terrorist organizations in ways that aren't consistent with what the government and the military are doing."

The spokesman added that the Pakistani Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, himself a former spy chief, was aware of the US' concerns over the ISI agency and shared some of them.

"The ISI has done a great deal in fighting terrorism ... but we also have some concerns with ... the strategic focus of the ISI," he said.

Lapan's comments followed a newspaper report this week that quoted some US officials and Afghan militants as disclosing that some ISI members were pressing the Taliban to field commanders to fight against the US and its allies in Afghanistan.

Source.

Background:
Pakistan: terrorist attacks and double game continues. 
US slams Pakistan.
Contacts with the Taliban.

Two teenage suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Sufi shrine in Karachi killing nine worshippers, including two children, as Pakistan battles a new wave of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence.

At least 64 people were also wounded in the attack late Thursday said Fayyaz Leghari, chief of police in Karachi, a teeming port city in the country's south that is a maelstrom of communal and criminal violence.

He said 15 patients remain in a critical condition.

Provincial police surgeon Hamid Parhiar said his team found the heads and limbs of the two suicide attackers and said one was 14-years-old and the second was not older than 18.

"We have given their samples to the police for DNA tests in Islamabad," said Parhiar.

The bombs exploded at the entrance of the shrine to Abdullah Shah Ghazi, a saint in the Sufi mystical strain of Islam, as devotees packed it for a weekly gathering in the city's seaside Clifton district.

Source.

I wonder how these two children were convinced to commit suicide this way.

A married father who planned a "violent jihad" in Afghanistan or Pakistan wrote a farewell letter to his family saying Allah came first, a court has heard.

London Underground driver Amir Ali, of Ilford, Essex, bought a plane ticket to Islamabad, jurors were told.

Mr Ali's letter talked of his love for his children, but added he had to go for Allah's sake, prosecutor Duncan Penny told Snaresbrook Crown Court.

The 28-year-old denies one count of preparing for acts of terrorism.

Police found pictures of Mr Ali posing with weapons - including two AK47 rifles and a self-loading pistol - when they searched his home, Mr Penny said.

Source.

Taliban officials have engaged in periodic, discreet contacts with Afghan and U.S. officials for months but are unwilling to move to formal peace negotiations until the U.S. agrees to a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, according to a Pakistani intelligence official and members of a newly formed Afghan peace council.

The White House said Wednesday that President Barack Obama supports attempts by the Afghan government to open peace talks with Taliban leaders, but still wants the insurgents to renounce violence and their support of al-Qaida.

However, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the United States was not taking part in any such talks. "This is about Afghanistan," he said. "It has to be done by the Afghans."

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that secret talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan have begun between representatives of the Taliban and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The Post quoted Afghan and Arab sources as saying they believe for the first time that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban command council based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Source.

Do you see where the Quetta Shura is based? That's right. Pakistan, where Jihadist camps are "flourishing":


So, it's not clear that the talks with Taliban are going to be succesful but what it's really clear is that, speaking with them the war loses absolutely all its basis. If Western countries are prepared to engage in talks with the same people who are plotting since before the NATO operation against Western targets and without any real change for normal Afghans, the question is why now? Oh, sorry, the Obamamessiah doesn't see this war in terms of winning or losing. Well, there are a lot of good soldiers who have lost their lives there. So, you see, it's always something we should measure in terms of winning or losing, because if no goals are met and yet people have been killed in action, why were they killed?

By the way, it's not that Pakistan is not collaborating with the US, it's that it's actively supporting the Talibans. No one can understand that if a journalist has filmed those guys, Pakistani army hasn't found them.

Anyway, there are people who support this move and others who don't. This is a very interesting video, sent to me by Jennifer, a reader.


Background:
US slams Pakistan.
Pakistan: terrorist attacks and double game continues.

He wanted to take legal action against a Muslim who was charging a Christian exorbitant interest. Crosswalk:

Islamic extremists killed a Christian lawyer, his wife and their five children in northwestern Pakistan this week for mounting a legal challenge against a Muslim who was charging a Christian exorbitant interest, local sources said.

Police found the bodies of attorney and evangelist Edwin Paul and his family on Tuesday morning (Sept. 28) at their home in Haripur, a small town near Abbotabad in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (previously known as the North-West Frontier Province, or NWFP), according to Haripur Station House Officer (SHO) Maqbool Khan.

The victim and his wife Ruby Paul, along with their five children ages 6 to 17, had been shot to death.

"On Sept. 28 at around 8 a.m., we received a call from Sher Khan colony that people heard gunshots, and there was a group of people who ran from a house and drove away," Khan said. "We went and found seven bodies in a house."

CNN:

A German citizen of Afghan descent was the source of much of the information on a potential "Mumbai-style" terror plot in Europe, a German counterterrorism official said Wednesday.

The man, Ahmed Sidiqi, was detained in Kabul in July and transferred to U.S. custody where he has "revealed details about the terror plot," said the official, who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

A Pentecostal church in Karachi has been attacked and vandalized by militants still angry over a threat to burn Qur’ans in the United States earlier this month. (NOTE: The Koran was not burned.... and yet...).

Nine copies of the Bible, three hymn books and three wooden crosses were found burnt on Sept. 18 at the Nasri Pentecostal Church in Shah Latif Town, Karachi.

The area is home to about 120 Christian families.

A dholki or hand-held drum used in gospel music was also found damaged.

“The church gates were open and the locks broken. The attackers broke open a cupboard and vandalized religious items at around midnight,” said Pastor Peter Shahzad.

He was speaking to ucanews.com after a Sept. 19 Sunday service in which he urged the government to punish the culprits under the country’s blasphemy laws.

Pastor Shahzad later led his congregation to a protest rally at the Karachi Press Club, a popular venue for demonstrations.

A photographer of Portas Abertas is traveling through Pakistan to report on the flood's disaster. The circumstances are difficult and threatening. "I had to travel by night to the affected area and could only stay there for some hours. I had to go back to a safe city before there was talk of a foreigner in the region".

The photographer visited two villages. "Of course I had heard stories about Christians being overlooked during the relief effort of the government and Islamic organizations. In the first village that was a harsh reality. The town was still flooded with people camped on high ground. The Muslims were in tents nice and firm. Christians were situated a few hundred meters down the road, with makeshift tents made of branches, leaves and grass".

Image via WikipediaApart from Northern Ireland's IRA, he added:

Jonathan Evans also warned of a growing menace from Somalia and Yemen and said extremists could try to target the 2012 London Olympics, in a speech delivered late Thursday.
..."The fact that there are real plots uncovered on a fairly regular basis demonstrates that there is a persistent intent on the part of Al-Qaeda and its associates to attack the UK," Evans told an audience in London.
"The country continues to face a real threat from Al-Qaeda-related terrorism."
While a couple of years ago around three-quarters of plots aimed at Britain were linked to Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, the figure has fallen to 50 percent now due in part to increased activity in Somalia and Yemen.
Evans added that while there would be a "major security operation" around the Olympics, security services should assume that some extremists will "see an opportunity to gain notoriety and inflict damage."

Lahore: Another girl killed for ‘Honour’ | Pakistan Criminal Records:

 "As reported by The News on Wednesday, a man allegedly gunned down his married sister in the name of honour in the limits of Lower Mall police on Tuesday. Police said accused Irfan killed his 22-year-old sister (F) after she eloped with her first husband Majid. Victim’s family had married her with one Akram after her divorce with her first husband Majid. Few weeks after her second marriage, she again started meeting with her first husband Majid. Some days back, she eloped with her first husband after which her family member took her back from his custody. On the day of incident, victim’s brother Irfan exchanged harsh words with her that led to her killing. The accused shot her twice and fled the residence. The injured (F) was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced her dead. Police registered a case on the complaint of deceased’s mother Hussan Bano. However, accused is still at large."

Terrible.