DTN News: Pakistan Sectarian Violence Top Stories / Headlines News Dated March 20, 2014

DTN News: Pakistan Sectarian Violence Top Stories / Headlines News Dated March 20, 2014

 Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth 

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 20, 2014: Comprehensive daily news related to Pakistan Sectarian Violence Top Stories / Headlines News for the world of TODAY.*Comprehensive daily news related to Pakistan Sectarian Violence Top Stories / Headlines News for the world of TODAY

Global Conflict Tracker - Council on Foreign Relations

www.cfr.org/global/global-conflict.../p3213...‎

Council on Foreign Relations

These are: increased sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslim ... of a U.S.-Pakistan military confrontation, were not included in the 2014 survey ...

Sectarian Violence News, Photos and Videos - ABC News

abcnews.go.com › Topics › News › Iraq‎

ABC News

Sat, 15 Mar 2014 … eventually and full-blown civil war that activists say has killed more ..... solution to the crisis, which has seen sectarian violence rise as ...

Sectarian killings soar in Pakistan, raising fears of regional spillover ...

www.washingtonpost.com/.../sectarian-killings...pa...‎

The Washington Post

Jan 15, 2014 - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A surge in sectarian killings is raising new fears ... last year and the country is experiencing a gruesome start to 2014.

Sectarianism in Pakistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_in_Pakistan‎

Wikipedia

Sectarian violence in Pakistan refers to attacks against people and places in ..... In January 2014, a policeman standing guard outside a Hindu temple at ...

‎Minority religions - ‎History - ‎Sufism - ‎Ahmadiyya

Sectarian Violence in Pakistan - South Asia Terrorism Portal

www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/sect-killing.htm‎

Sectarian Violence in Pakistan: 1989-2014 ... *Data till March 2, 2014 .... In an incident of sectarian violence, a person and his minor daughter were killed while ...

Sectarian conflict — a threat to security - Daily Times

www.dailytimes.com.pk/...2014/sectarian-conflict-a-threat-to...‎

Daily Times

Feb 10, 2014 - Sectarian violence was rife in Pakistan in the 1980s and early 1990s. ...of sectarian violence have been reported till January 19, 2014 in which ...

Sunni-Shiite violence soars in Pakistan | Religion News Service

www.religionnews.com/2014/.../sunni-shiite-viole...‎

Religion News Service

(RNS) Tit-for-tat target killings between Sunnis and Shiites have escalated this past year, with ... Naveed Ahmad | Feb 3, 2014 | 5 Comments ... Neither Shiite nor Sunni leaders speak candidly about the renewed spree of sectarian violence.

Sectarian violence increased in 2013, says report - DAWN.COM

www.dawn.com/.../sectarian-violence-increased-in-2013-says-repo...‎

Dawn

Jan 6, 2014 - March 19, 2014 | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 17, 1435 ... According to the report, the rise in sectarian violence started in 2011 and continued ... This was revealed in the 'Pakistan Security Report 2013' launched by Pak Institute for ...

NOREF - Sectarian violence: Pakistan's greatest security threat?

www.peacebuilding.no › Home › Regions › Asia › Pakistan‎

Aug 9, 2012 - Pakistan is experiencing a sharp resurgence in sectarian violence. ...2014; The 2014 ISAF pullout from Afghanistan: impacts on Pakistan ...

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DTN News - NIGERIA NEWS: 30 Killed in School Attack in Northeast Nigeria

DTN News - NIGERIA NEWS: 30 Killed in School Attack in Northeast Nigeria

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources AP /ABC
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 6, 2013: (POTISKUM, Nigeria) Islamic extremists have killed 29 students and one teacher in an attack on a boarding school in northeast Nigeria.

Survivors being treated for burn and gunshots wounds say some students were burned alive in the attack before dawn Saturday on Government Secondary School in Mamudo town in Yobe state.

As he wept over the bodies of his two boys, farmer Malam Abdullahi swore he would withdraw three remaining sons from a nearby school.

He complained there was no protection for students despite the deployment of thousands of troops since the government declared a state of emergency mid-May in three northeastern states.

Dozens of schools have been torched and unknown scores of students killed among more than 1,600 victims slain by extremists since 2010.

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DTN News - BANGLADESH NEWS: One Dead And 35 People Injured To Contain Islamist Protestors Says Bangladeshi Police

DTN News - BANGLADESH NEWS: One Dead And 35 People Injured To Contain Islamist Protestors Says Bangladeshi Police 

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith 
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 6, 2013: Islamist protestors run as Bangladeshi police fire rubber bullets during clashes in Dhaka. 

'At least one person was shot dead and 35 people were injured,' police sub-inspector Rokon declared.


Picture: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP

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DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: New Pakistan Outreach Could Aid Afghan Peace Deal

DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: New Pakistan Outreach Could Aid Afghan Peace Deal

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Sebastian Abbot and Heidi Vogt - Associated Press
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - October 28, 2012: Pakistan has increased efforts to reach out to some of its biggest enemies in Afghanistan, a significant policy shift that could prove crucial to U.S.-backed efforts to strike a peace deal in the neighboring country.

The target of the diplomatic push has mainly been non-Pashtun political leaders who have been at odds with Pakistan for years because of the country's historical support for the Afghan Taliban, a Pashtun movement.

Many of the leaders fought against the Taliban when the fundamentalist Islamic group seized control of Afghanistan in the 1990s with Pakistan's help, and have accused Islamabad of maintaining support for the insurgents following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 — allegations denied by the government.

Many experts agree that Pakistan continues to see the Taliban as an ally, albeit a shaky one, in countering the influence of archenemy India in Afghanistan. But they also say Islamabad no longer believes the insurgents can take over the country or wants them to, a common misperception in the West.

"A Taliban victory on the other side of the border would give a huge boost to domestic militants fighting the Pakistani state," said Zahid Hussain, a journalist who has written extensively about Islamabad's war against the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan is also worried that unrest in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of most foreign troops in 2014 could provide the Pakistani Taliban with greater space to establish sanctuaries across the border.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are allies but have focused on different enemies. The Afghan Taliban battle local and foreign forces in Afghanistan, while the Pakistani Taliban mainly wage war against Islamabad.

These concerns have led Pakistan to the conclusion that a peace agreement that includes all Afghan groups is in its best interests, and contact with its traditional foes among the non-Pashtuns is necessary to achieve that goal, said Moeed Yusuf, South Asia adviser for the United States Institute of Peace.

"I think the fundamental point here is that there is a serious realization among some people who matter in Pakistan that they can't continue to put all their eggs in the Taliban basket because it is too shaky," said Yusuf. "This is a major shift, and a shift that I think everybody should welcome."

The outreach comes as Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.S. have stepped up efforts to breathe new life into the Taliban peace process, which has been hamstrung by distrust among all the parties involved.

The U.S. and Pakistan recently set up working groups to identify which Taliban leaders would be open to reconciliation and to ensure those holed up on Pakistani territory would be able to travel to the site of talks. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been in discussions to revive a joint commission set up to discuss the peace process.

Pakistan is seen as key to a peace deal because of its ties with the Taliban, and there is hope that Islamabad's increased engagement with non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan will facilitate the process.

"I think one of Pakistan's realizations is that if you want to play a bigger role to reconcile all these groups, you need to reach out to every group," said Rahimullah Yousufzai, a Pakistani journalist and expert on the Taliban. "They will be pushing the Taliban to share power with all these people, but it won't be easy because the Taliban aren't known to share power and the U.S. doesn't want to give them a major share."

Islamabad's historical support for the Taliban and other Pashtuns in Afghanistan, who make up about 40 percent of the population of 190 million, is partly rooted in the sizable number of Pashtuns who live in Pakistan. The ethnic group has always been seen as the best bet for furthering Pakistan's interests in the country.

Pakistan first advertised its overtures to non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan in February when Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar met with a range of ethnic Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara leaders during a visit to Kabul. Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf followed suit in July when he traveled to Afghanistan and invited the group to the opening of the new Pakistani Embassy in Kabul.

There have also been less publicized contacts by Pakistan's ambassador to Kabul, Mohammad Sadiq, and the country's army and intelligence service, according to Pakistani and Afghan officials.

Khar said the policy shift had been in the works for a while but was like a steering a large ship in a new direction.

"You're not able to do it immediately," said the foreign minister.

Pakistan's powerful army is the true arbiter of the country's Afghan policy, but experts expressed doubt that the Foreign Ministry would have pushed ahead without the support of the generals, who have historically had the closest relationship to the Taliban.

One key Afghan leader who has met with the Pakistanis, Abdullah Abdullah, said he appreciated the country's recent attempt to reach out because it was done publicly. The influential politician, who was runner-up to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the 2009 election, said Pakistani intelligence officials contacted him in previous years, but he refused to speak with them because he did not believe communication should be carried out in secret.

"I see a lot of good in reaching out, in engagement, in dialogue," said Abdullah, who is half Pashtun but draws much of his support from the Tajik community.

The outreach has rattled the Taliban, who have warned Pakistani officials that they can't trust the non-Pashtuns, Yousufzai said.

Pakistan will have to overcome significant distrust among the non-Pashtuns. The government has old ties to some of the leaders, who worked with Pakistan in the 1980s to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan, but Islamabad's subsequent support for the Taliban created a huge amount of bad blood.

Despite that, the Pakistanis are hopeful.

"The Pakistani side's view of Afghan negotiations is that you kill on one day and kiss on the next, so while this will be very tough, they think that it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that they may actually get somewhere," said Yusuf, the South Asia analyst.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Sebastian Abbot and Heidi Vogt - Associated Press
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DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Taliban Shoot Pakistani Schoolgirl Campaigning For Peace

DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Taliban Shoot Pakistani Schoolgirl Campaigning For Peace

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Jibran Ahmad  Reuters
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - October 9, 2012: Taliban gunmen in Pakistan shot and seriously wounded on Tuesday a 14-year-old schoolgirl who rose to fame for speaking out against the militants, authorities said.

Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head and neck when gunmen fired on her school bus in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad. Two other girls were also wounded, police said.

Yousufzai became famous for speaking out against the Pakistani Taliban at a time when even the government seemed to be appeasing the hardline Islamists.

The government agreed to a ceasefire with the Taliban in Swat in early 2009, effectively recognizing insurgent control of the valley whose lakes and mountains had long been a tourist attraction.

The Taliban set up courts, executed residents and closed girls' schools, including the one that Yousufzai attended. A documentary team filmed her weeping as she explained her ambition to be a doctor.

"My friend came to me and said, 'for God's sake, answer me honestly, is our school going to be attacked by the Taliban?'," Yousufzai, then 11, wrote in a blog published by the BBC.

"During the morning assembly we were told not to wear colorful clothes as the Taliban would object."

The army launched an offensive and retook control of Swat later that year, and Yousufzai later received the country's highest civilian award. She was also nominated for international awards for child activists.

Since then, she has received numerous threats. On Tuesday, gunmen arrived at her school and asked for her by name, witnesses told police. Yousufzai was shot when she came out of class and went to a bus.

Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said his group was behind the shooting.

"She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her ideal leader," Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

"She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas," he said, referring to the main ethnic group in northwest Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. Most members of the Taliban come from conservative Pashtun tribes.

Doctors were struggling to save Yousufzai, said Lal Noor, a doctor at the Saidu Sharif Teaching Hospital in the Swat valley's main town of Mingora.

The U.S. State Department condemned the attack.

"Directing violence at children is barbaric. It's cowardly. And our hearts go out to her and the others who were wounded, as well as their families," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington.

(Writing by Katharine Houreld; additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington; Editing by Robert Birsel and Paul Simao)

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Jibran Ahmad  Reuters
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DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: Taliban Behead 17 At Afghan Party 'With Music And Dancing'

DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: Taliban Behead 17 At Afghan Party 'With Music And Dancing'

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Mamoon Durrani (AFP)
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - August 27, 2012: Taliban Islamist insurgents beheaded 17 civilians, including two women, who were holding a party with music in a southern Afghanistan village, officials said Monday.

"I can confirm that this is the work of the Taliban," the Helmand provincial governor's spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP, referring to the hardliners notorious during their rule for public executions and the suppression of music and parties.

"Two women and 15 men were beheaded. They were partying with music in an area under the control of the Taliban," he said.

Nematullah Khan, the Musa Qala district chief confirmed that the villagers had organised a party with music, and one local official said he suspected that the two women had been dancing.

Secret parties with dancing women from a gypsy-type tribe are common across southern Afghanistan.

During their 1996-2001 rule in Afghanistan the Taliban, waging a fierce insurgency against the NATO-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, also tried to stop the mixing of men and women who were not related.

The latest atrocity happened near Zamindawar village, an area on the border between Kajaki and Musa Qala districts where the Taliban are active.

The insurgents have in the past been blamed for beheading local villagers, mostly over charges of spying for Afghan and US-led NATO forces.

Haji Musa Khan, a tribal elder in Musa Qala district, said the region had seen a surge in such killings in recent months.

"We had three people beheaded during the month of Ramadan. Another person, the son of a tribal elder, was beheaded recently," he said.

Khan said the killings followed major military operations by Afghan and NATO troops in the area.

Hours after the beheadings, Taliban insurgents overran an Afghan army post in the same province in a pre-dawn attack on Monday, killing 10 troopers, authorities said.

Four soldiers were wounded and six others were missing following the attack in Helmand's Washir district, senior regional police officer Colonel Mohammad Ismael Hotak told AFP.

Ahmadi confirmed the incident and said the attack was an "insider" plot in which some army soldiers helped the rebels attack the post.

"The Taliban attacked a post in Washir and killed 10 soldiers. Four other soldiers were wounded and five others have gone with the Taliban with their guns," he said. "It was an insider plot."

If it is confirmed that the attack was facilitated by soldiers it will mark a new escalation in a string of insider attacks on Afghan and NATO security forces.

Two NATO soldiers were killed Monday when an Afghan army soldier turned his weapon against them in a "green-on-blue" attack in eastern Laghman province, the US-led International Security Assistance Force said.

"ISAF soldiers returned fire and killed the attacker," ISAF said.

The latest NATO deaths take the toll from insider attacks this month alone to 12 and to a total of 42 this year, making up around 13 percent of all NATO deaths in 2012.

NATO, which has about 130,000 troops in Afghanistan, has struggled to stem the attacks and they have become a major issue in the Afghan war, eroding trust between the two forces.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Mamoon Durrani (AFP)
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DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Pakistani Islamist Leader Hafiz Saeed Mocks U.S. Over $10Million Bounty At News Conference

DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Pakistani Islamist Leader Hafiz Saeed Mocks U.S. Over $10Million Bounty At News Conference
*Lashkar-e-Taiba founder decries 'ridiculous' US bounty
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources BBC News
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - April 4, 2012: The founder of Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has described a $10m (£6.2m) bounty on his head - announced by the US on Tuesday - as "regrettable and misdirected".

In an interview with the Associated Press news agency, Hafiz Saeed said that such rewards "are usually for those who live in caves and mountains".

Mr Saeed travels widely in Pakistan from his base in the city of Lahore.

He now heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) group, widely seen as a LeT front.

LeT is blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India. The three-day rampage by 10 gunmen in November 2008 left 165 people dead. Nine of the attackers were also killed.

Local media on Wednesday quoted Pakistan interior ministry sources as saying that the government cannot proceed against Mr Saeed without "hard and undeniable evidence that can withstand judicial scrutiny".

He has consistently denied any suggestion that either he or JuD - which he says is a charity - played any role in militant violence.

Pakistan arrested LeT's senior leaders after the Mumbai attacks. But most of them, including Mr Saeed, were later freed on appeal.

'Regrettable'
In his interview with AP, Mr Saeed said that the US only announced the reward because of his demonstrations against reopening supply lines through Pakistan to Nato troops in Afghanistan.

The supply routes were closed down in November when 24 Pakistani soldiers on the border with Afghanistan were accidentally killed in a US air strike.

"We are organising massive public meetings to inform the nation about all the threats which Pakistan will face after the restoration of the supplies," he told AP in a mosque in Islamabad on Tuesday.

"With the grace of God, we are doing our work in Pakistan openly. It is regrettable that America has no information about me. Such rewards are usually for those who live in caves and mountains."

The US has designated both LeT and JuD as foreign terrorist organisations. Intelligence officials say LeT has extended its focus beyond India in recent years - plotting attacks in Europe and Australia.

Correspondents say that the reward represents a change in US thinking - previously it was thought that pursuing the JuD leadership would cause too much friction with the Pakistani government.

The US State Department says that Mr Saeed continues "to spread ideology advocating terrorism, as well as virulent rhetoric condemning the United States, India, Israel and other perceived enemies".

It said that six of the 166 people killed in the 2008 attacks were American citizens.

The sole surviving gunman, Pakistani national Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, was captured and sentenced to death by a court. His appeal is pending.

India has welcomed the reward, saying it sent a strong signal to LeT members that "the international community remains united in combating terrorism" and bringing to justice those behind the Mumbai attacks.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources BBC News
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