Nihad Awad, national executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, spoke in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday about the arrests in Pakistan of five Americans

Police in Pakistan raided a house linked to an Islamic militant group Wednesday and arrested five young American Muslim men from the Washington, D.C., area, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

One of the young men had left behind a video showing scenes of war, calling for the defense of Muslims and saying that “young Muslims have to do something,” said a person who had seen the video, describing it as a farewell of sorts.

It was the third known case since September in which Americans with ties to the Pakistan-Afghanistan region have been detained over possible terrorist connections.

The men were not accused of any crime, but their intent remained mysterious, and both U.S. and Pakistani officials emphasized that they were still gathering facts.

The five Americans, ranging in age from 19 to 25, were arrested in Sargodha, a dusty city in Punjab province, where several militant organizations with links to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban operate, according to a senior Pakistani official and a U.S. official in Washington. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.

Three of the men arrested Wednesday are Pakistani-Americans, one is a Yemeni-American and one an Egyptian-American, the Pakistani official said. Pakistani law enforcement officers had “continuously tracked” the men from the moment they arrived Dec. 1 at Karachi international airport. All carried U.S. passports, he said.

They traveled to the city of Hyderabad, returned to Karachi, the hub of commerce in Pakistan, and then went to Lahore, the Punjab provincial capital, where they spent five days before going to Sargodha, he said.

They were arrested at a house that was occupied by Khalid Farooq, the father of one of the young men, Umer Farooq, according to an official familiar with the case. The elder Farooq is believed to have ties to Jaish-e-Muhammad, a banned Pakistani militant group, the official said.

Other Islamic militant organizations are also known to operate in Sargodha, including Sipah-e-Sahaba and a splinter group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Both are Sunni Muslim groups that have targeted minority Shiite Muslims and have also been linked to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

Al-Qaeda, whose leaders are primarily Arabs, and the Pakistani Taliban, led by ethnic Pashtuns, are based in the country’s Pashtun-dominated tribal region bordering Afghanistan. They have spearheaded an insurgency that has killed and maimed thousands of people in suicide bombings and other attacks since 2007.

Many experts are concerned about cooperation between the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda and militant groups based in Punjab that were once used by Pakistani security services to wage a proxy war with India in the disputed Kashmir region.

The U.S. official confirmed that the five men were the same five men from Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs whose families reported them missing last month. Also confirming that they were the missing five men was Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a Muslim American advocacy organization to which their families turned for help.

CAIR arranged a Dec. 1 meeting for the families with Islamic leaders in northern Virginia, who then contacted the FBI, said Hooper, who declined to give further details.

Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the families of the five men were particularly disturbed to see the video message that one of them left behind.

“One person appeared in that video, and they made references to the ongoing conflict in the world, and that young Muslims have to do something,” Awad said. “The video’s about 11 minutes, and it’s like a farewell. And they did not specify what they would be doing.”

He cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions. But Awad and other Muslim leaders said the case – along with the recent recruitment of young Somali-American men in Minnesota by a violent group in Somalia – suggested that at least a small number of young American Muslims were drawn to extremist views. They pledged to start a nationwide campaign to counter such attitudes.

Hooper said neither the young men’s mosque – the ICNA Center, associated with the national Islamic Circle of North America – nor their families in Virginia supported extremism or violence.

“The Muslim community has taken the lead on this case in terms of taking it to law enforcement,” Hooper said.

Asked for assistance by the FBI, Pakistani security officers tracked the men to Farooq’s house, where they were taken into custody, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

In addition to Umer Farooq, two of the other men – named in Pakistani press accounts as Ahmed Abdullah and Wakar Khan – were described by officials as of Pakistani descent. Another, Ramy Zamzam, is of Egyptian descent, and the fifth man, Aman Yasser, is of Yemeni descent, according to one official. Some were born abroad, but all are now U.S. citizens, U.S. officials said.

A local imam in the Washington area said that before the men left, they did not seem to have become militant.

“From all of our interviews, there was no sign they were outwardly radicalized,” said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik.

Zamzam is a dental student at Howard University, where he received an undergraduate degree this year with a major in biology and chemistry, according to his Facebook page.

One of Zamzam’s younger brothers, interviewed at the family’s apartment in Alexandria, Va., said Zamzam has a 4.0 grade-point average and is “a good guy.”

An upstairs neighbor, Peter Max-Jones, 16, called Zamzam “very intelligent, very kind, very helpful. Good citizen, all around.” He said Zamzam’s family was “very patriotic, very quiet.”

A U.S. official said there were no apparent links between the men and another American with roots in Pakistan, David Headley. Headley pleaded not guilty Wednesday in a Chicago federal court to charges he helped a Pakistani group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, plot last year’s terrorist strike on India’s financial capital, Mumbai. That attack killed 166 people, including six Americans.

Headley, who was arrested in October, has also been indicted on charges of plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper that published a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. In another case linked to Pakistan, U.S. authorities in September arrested a Colorado airport van driver, Najibullah Zazi, and charged him with receiving explosives training from al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal area and conspiring to carry out a bomb attack in New York.

They detained Gary Faulkner, a 52-year-old construction worker, after a 10-hour search in the country’s lawless tribal areas.

Officers said he told them he planned to “decapitate” the al-Qaeda leader. He was carrying a 40-inch sword, a handgun and dagger, and was equipped with night-vision goggles.

A local police officer, Mumtaz Ahmad Khan, said: “We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden.” Bin Laden has evaded capture ever since the 9/11 attacks that shocked the world and turned al-Qaeda into a global terror brand. Analysts believe the 53-year-old Saudi has slipped back and forth across the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, relying on networks of tribal supporters in a region where central government holds little sway.

Last month, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan’s lawless border regions – and that he was being protected by Pakistani government officials.

However, some analysts also believe he may be dead, pointing out that video messages featuring the jihadi leader have all but dried up in recent years. Rumours have long circulated that he is struggling with kidney disease, or was badly wounded in an airstrike.

The tantalising prospect of tracking down such a notorious criminal has attracted a small band of bounty hunters and fantasists, lured by a $25 million (€20 million) FBI reward offered for information leading to his capture.

Mr Faulkner’s solo mission is the latest bizarre twist in the world’s highest-stakes game of hide-and-seek. He told police he visited Pakistan seven times.

On this occasion he arrived in the country at the start of the month and travelled to the district of Chitral, a mountainous area close to the Afghan border that attracts adventurous tourists for its hiking.

He was assigned a police guard – common in an area where foreigners are targeted by kidnap gangs. When he checked out without informing his minder, police launched a manhunt, according to Mr Khan, who was involved in the investigation.

“A search operation was launched and we found him 14 kilometres [nine miles] short of the Pakistan-Afghan border. He was trying to enter Nuristan,” said Mr Khan.

Nuristan is a stronghold of the Afghan Taliban, and along with Chitral is often mooted as a possible bin Laden safe haven. As well as his weapons, Mr Faulkner was also carrying a book of Christian verse.

“He said 9/11 caused colossal losses to the US, therefore he wanted to locate Osama bin Laden and his friends,” added Mr Khan.

He apparently told police: “God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him.” Mr Faulkner is being questioned by Pakistani intelligence agents.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle dance with students during a celebration of Diwali at a school in Mumbai

BARACK Obama has heralded a new phase in his country’s “indispensable” relationship with India at the weekend.

The US President signed $US10 billion ($9.85bn) worth of job-creating deals and flagged closer counter-terrorism ties with the world’s largest democracy.

But he also called for fresh dialogue between India and Pakistan and for India to recognise that its neighbour’s success was in its own best interests.

Mr Obama’s India visit, his first since taking office last year, has caused angst in neighbouring Pakistan, the US’s turbulent ally and India’s sworn rival, after it failed to convince the White House to include Islamabad on the US President’s four-nation Asia tour schedule.

Exacerbating Pakistani irritation was Saturday’s announcement of US support for India’s phased-in membership of the world’s major nuclear non-proliferation regimes – including the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Neither India nor Pakistan has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the US brought India in from the cold in 2008 with the civilian nuclear technology supply agreement, while Pakistan remains locked out of the nuclear club.

Mr Obama used a speech at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai yesterday to appeal to India and Pakistan to find common ground and restart talks towards a peaceful coexistence.

“Obviously the history between India and Pakistan is incredibly complex and was born of much tragedy. (But) it may be surprising to some of you to know that I am absolutely convinced that the country with the biggest stake in Pakistan’s success is India,” he said.

While Pakistan was not acting quickly enough to eradicate militancy within its borders, it had also suffered the greatest casualties because of that militancy and now recognised what a profound problem this was.

A day earlier, in Mumbai, the President and first lady Michelle Obama met families and victims of the 2008 terror strikes on the city at the Taj Hotel, the scene of a 72-hour siege by Pakistani gunmen.

Mr and Mrs Obama, accompanied by one of the largest-ever presidential caravans of business leaders, journalists and security personnel to visit Asia, flew into New Delhi last night ahead of a state dinner and an address today before India’s joint houses of parliament.

The US President was expected to face several thorny issues at the Indian PM’s dinner table last night including Pakistan’s role in the spread of militancy, US military engagement in Afghanistan and India’s push for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.

Analysts said yesterday New Delhi would also be looking for solid US support for its role as democratic counter-balance in Asia to China’s rising hegemony.

The US leader used a speech before top US and Indian business people to announce a relaxation of export controls to India – including on the sale of dual-use nuclear technology – and to trumpet the benefit to American workers of the $US10bn in new US export deals.

Several Indian commentators yesterday decried Mr Obama’s speech as crass, more befitting a trade delegation head than a US President.

But Indian business scion Anand Mahindra said it reflected an important shift in the balance of power. “India should be thankful that it has done away with the global image that it has its hand outstretched, asking for help,” said Mr Mahindra, vice-chairman of Indian vehicle manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra.

“Now foreign companies want India’s help. It’s nice to see a hand being outstretched towards us for a change. Let’s not spurn it.”

Some 20 deals were signed off at the weekend including a $US2.7bn commission for passenger aircraft from Boeing for Indian airline SpiceJet.

The Hindustan Times reports that Suhas Chaudhary’s .38 was not locked, which led to the accidental firing on Saturday. Police report that Chaudhary had just finished his shift of guarding the Taj Mahal Hotel. When he was getting into his vehicle, he removed his gun and accidentally pulled the trigger.

No one else was reported to be injured and neither President Obama nor Michelle Obama were at the hotel when it happened. The bullet grazed Chaudhary’s leg before hitting the ground. He was taken to hospital.

Mumbai police’s crime branch is part of the outer security ring of the president’s three-day visit to the country, which concludes Monday. Obama’s 10-day trip to Asia will then move on to Jakarta, Seoul and Yokohama before he returns to Washington.

By Farhat Taj:

In terms of the drone attacks, the US must not make any distinction between al Qaeda and the Taliban. They both have internalised a global ideology that is anti-civilisation and anti-human

There is news coming up in the media that al Qaeda in Waziristan may run away to Yemen in the face of growing drone attacks. The people of Waziristan have expressed deep concern at this news. They do not want al Qaeda to run away from Waziristan. They want al Qaeda along with the Taliban burnt to ashes on the soil of Waziristan through relentless drone attacks. The drone attacks, they believe, are the one and only ‘cure’ for these anti-civilisation creatures and the US must robustly administer them the ‘cure’ until their existence is annihilated from the world. The people of Waziristan, including tribal leaders, women and religious people, asked me to convey in categorical terms to the US the following in my column.

One, your new drone attack strategy is brilliant, i.e. one attack closely followed by another. After the first attack the terrorists cordon off the area and none but the terrorists are allowed on the spot. Another attack at that point kills so many of them. Excellent! Keep it up!

Your drone technology has the full capacity to encircle and eliminate al Qaeda and the Taliban in Waziristan. If you fail to do so and al Qaeda manages to run away to Yemen or any other place, it could only happen in two cases: either you are highly incompetent people or you have ulterior motives.

The people who have established one of the world’s most vibrant democracies and have taken science and technology to a new zenith cannot be highly incompetent. Now the only possibility is that you have ulterior motives, which could facilitate al Qaeda’s escape from Waziristan.

In a sense the ISI of Pakistan and the CIA of the US share a sinister reputation: both use fanatic Islamists to promote strategic goals. The Taliban are the strategic assets of the ISI and al Qaeda of the CIA. Terrorised people in FATA believe that the ISI would never eliminate the Taliban for the sake of strategic depth in Afghanistan and countless people across the Muslim world believe that al Qaeda is a CIA invention to trigger chaos in Muslim lands and hence create excuses for the US to control natural resources such as oil and gas in those lands. There is also a perception in FATA and the rest of Pakistan that the US is especially going soft on Islamists from the restive Muslim areas of China. Those Islamists would be used to destabilise China, the emerging rival to the US in world politics.

Here in Waziristan the US has a good opportunity to prove to the Muslim world that it is indeed serious in eliminating al Qaeda. The escape of al Qaeda from Waziristan to Yemen or any other Muslim country would communicate the message that the US is an imperial power that just ‘relocates’ its strategic assets from one Muslim society to another only to destabilise them and hence paves the way for US military intervention in those areas.

In terms of the drone attacks, the US must not make any distinction between al Qaeda and the Taliban. They both have internalised a global ideology that is anti-civilisation and anti-human. They will keep coming back to strike at civilisations — Islamic, Western, Confucian or Indian. The sooner the world gets rid of them the better.

This was the view of the people of Waziristan. I would now draw the attention of the US to the Peshawar Declaration, a joint statement of political parties, civil society organisations, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, labourers and intellectuals, following a conference on December 12-13, 2009, in Peshawar. The declaration notes that if the people of the war-affected areas are satisfied with any counter-militancy strategy; it is drone attacks that they support the most. Some people in Waziristan compare drones with the Quran’s Ababeels — the holy sparrows sent by God to avenge Abraham, the intended conqueror of the Khana Kaaba. Which other Muslim society has likened anything from the US military with a Quranic symbol? Only the Pakhtuns did that so publicly in this time of rising anti-Americanism across the Muslim world! What more does the US want from a Muslim society? Now please go ahead and do the needful as indicated by the people of Waziristan.

The overpowered people of Waziristan are angry. They believe no one in their entire history has inflicted so much insult on them as al Qaeda. In our native land, they say, al Qaeda has killed so many of us. Anyone in the world who has gone mad in the name of religion has come to occupy our land. They are Arabs, Central Asians, Caucasians and Africans. They are people with black, brown, blue and green eyes. They are brown, black and white. They all have chosen our land for their sinister designs against all civilisations. No self-respecting people, they argue, can accept this situation.

The ball is now in the US’s court. Their action or inaction against the terrorists in Waziristan would either confirm their image in the Muslim world as an imperial power destabilising Muslim societies in the name of the war on terror or would challenge that image, at least in FATA and the NWFP, the Muslim society on the frontline of the war on terror. The people of Waziristan hope the US challenges that image through the elimination of all terrorists — al Qaeda or the Taliban — in Waziristan.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. She can be reached at bergen34@yahoo.co

After the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the US and the West did not look back at the war-torn country after 1989. The Afghans felt betrayed after all their sacrifices. Pakistan was left to pick up the pieces. Instead of starting a rehabilitation and reconstruction process in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other regional players started to pursue their own vested interests there. The mujahideen fell into a debilitating civil war in an already battered country and later on the Taliban were unleashed. At the end of it all, Pakistan was responsible for installing the most barbaric of regimes in Afghanistan, that of the Taliban. The US is as much responsible for this crisis, or maybe even more so, than any other regional player. If it had not left the Afghans high and dry after the war, things could have been significantly different. Pakistan was also greatly affected by the American indifference and consolidated the trend towards becoming a national security-driven state almost to the exclusion of everything else. Rising inflation, poverty, unemployment, the energy crisis, etc., are the costs of past historical follies. President Zardari’s reminder to Holbrooke was in this context.

The president told the delegation that the economic cost of waging the war against terror has left a dent in an already weak economy. The US delegation informed him that the Obama administration would be clearing the dues of both 2008 and 2009 Coalition Support Funds (CSF) soon. President Zardari called on the international community to help boost our economy. We would like to remind the president that no domestic or foreign investor would want to invest his money in a country that is in a state of war. Asking for a Marshall Plan may not be feasible. We need to gradually but incrementally build our economy. Instead of remaining a national security state, we need a transition if we want to develop.

On another note, Mr Holbrooke got upset during a meeting with politicians when they criticised American policies. A diplomat is known for his sang froid and should be used to hearing all types of things. Instead of getting angry, Mr Holbrooke should have answered their grievances like Hillary Clinton did when she visited Pakistan last year. It is not befitting for an envoy, and a ‘special’ one at that, to flare up just because there has been a rise in the anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. After all, the US is guilty of pursuing policies that are not very popular with the people. The Americans should not only listen to positive criticism but also learn from past mistakes. History should not be repeated this time at least. *

Khuzdar killings

The killing of two activists of the Baloch Students Organisation (BSO) is a sad reminder that the right to peaceful protest has still not found acceptance with the security agencies. There are conflicting reports of how the incident happened during the wheel-jam, shutter-down strike that was being observed in various districts of Balochistan on Friday against the targeted killings of Baloch people in Karachi. According to one news report, the BSO rally had just started out from Government Degree College, Khuzdar, when the security forces present there opened fire to disperse the protestors, killing two and injuring four activists. BSO claims the Frontier Corps (FC) is responsible for the firing, while FC sources have denied responsibility on the plea that its personnel were not deployed in that area. Whoever is responsible, the fact remains that it was one of the law enforcement agencies.

It is the routine practice of police in all parts of the country to resort to violence in order to disperse protesters. A few days ago, police baton-charged people protesting electricity and gas load shedding in Shahdara. The next day, students of Islamia College University, Peshawar, were brutally beaten for protesting imposition of fines and denial of permission to sit in exams due to low attendance. What happened in Khuzdar has crossed all limits. The incident backfired, as angry protesters reacted with sabotage activities. The current incident is all the more alarming because Balochistan is in the throes of an insurgency. Detaining people perceived as enemies without due process of law has become a norm for the law enforcement apparatus in Balochistan. Hundreds of Baloch activists have gone missing in recent years, which also saw a steep rise in the graph of separatist appeal among Baloch youth. It is sad that on the one hand the government is trying to resolve the Balochistan issue, on the other, law enforcement agencies insist on maintaining a colonial attitude towards its people. Changing this culture should be the first step in giving rights to the Baloch people.

The right to peaceful protest is an inalienable democratic right of the people that demands respect by law enforcers. Given the context in which the current incident took place, it is essential to hold a judicial enquiry and fix responsibility in order to neutralise the negative impact of the fatal blunder committed by the law enforcers. Failure to bring the culprits to book will strengthen the impression that the current government too is paying only lip service to the grievances of Balochistan. *

Talking to reporters in Islamabad, Gates said that 12 RQ-7 Shadow unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be part of one billion dollar allocation for Pakistan from its Coalition Support Fund.

He said weapons and equipment will also be provided to Pakistan for the war against terrorism.

The Shadow UAVs will help build the Pakistan Army’s capacity for intelligence-gathering, said the U.S. defense secretary.

Gates did not reply to a question whether the U.S. would impose any condition as that the Shadow drones could not be used along Pakistan’s eastern border with India.

Defense analysts say that the Shadow drone is smaller than the pilotless plane the U.S. is using to hit militants in Pakistan’s tribal belt. But they consider it an important move for the U.S. to bolster the military ties with Pakistan and a key step for the final pullout of U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan.

“It will have a very positive political impact. It will reduce the embarrassment of the political leadership,” said Talat Masood, a retired army general and defense analyst.

The Shadow is 11.2 feet (3.41 meters) long and has a wingspan of 14 feet (4.27 meters). The latest version of this drone has a range of about 110 km and an endurance of six hours.

The Pakistan Army already has less sophisticated and indigenously developed drones that it uses for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes.

Gates also said the U.S. will soon make a payment of 500 million dollars from the Coalition Support Fund to reimburse Pakistan for its expenses in the war on terror.

Islamabad has been complaining about delays in the reimbursement of its expenses. And President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in meetings with Gates on Thursday called for early payment of the fund. Zardari told the U. S. defense secretary that Pakistan has suffered 34 billion dollars since the U.S-led coalition in 2001.

Offensive image used to attract web visitors

Google is running an ad above the image that says “Sometimes our search results can be offensive. We agree. Read more.” The ad clicks through to a page where Google clarifies its image and search policy:

Search engines are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the Internet. A site’s ranking in Google’s search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query.

We at YBH! think the image is ridiculous.  However, we don’t call for its removal because it is offensive.  The page that hosts it uses the photo to draw in visitors; it’s a sales gimmick and attention-getter, it’s working.   There was an ad for Obama fave J. Crew on the page when we clicked through.  It is not a right wing anti-Obama website, just a page full of ads looking for traffic. 

We must commend Google for not banning the page simply because they disagree with its content.

Google themselves sums it up best:

We apologize if you’ve had an upsetting experience using Google. We hope you understand our position regarding offensive results.

Yes.  It is called free speech, we get it and applaud you for it.

Similar offensive images were common throughout the Bush years.  Mr. Bush was often portrayed as a chimp or a certain German leader of the 20th century.   The bottom line is that with the advent of Photoshop, no one is immune to being modified.

The site itself may get banned from Google for other reasons.  For example,  Google may find out that the website somehow “spammed” or used black-hat techniques to get so prominent a position for the much-searched term “Michelle Obama.”  Google hates spam, and the company has a reputation for being merciless toward those that attempt to manipulate its search results.

A search of Microsoft’s Bing search engine’s image section turns up no controversial images of Ms. Obama.  In fact Bing’s results look like they were taken directly from a Vogue magazine shoot.