Kashmir’s local news outlet Kashmir News Observer reported the death of South Kashmir’s Kakran Kulgam resident Satesh Singh on April 13, 2022. The Rajput was shot by unknown gunmen in the evening and died while being shifted to the hospital. Shocked by the incident, local Kashmiri Pandit groups like the KPSS asked Kashmiri people to decide once and for all, whether they are ‘welcome the minority community in the valley’.

According to the news agency, the police suspected it as a militant attack and cordoned off the area to nab the attackers. The Kashmir police tweeted, “Terrorists involved in this #gruesome terror crime will be neutralised soon. Search to track the involved #terrorists in progress.”

According to NDTV, Singh was shot in the head from a point-blank range. The news has upset the local minority community.

KPSS’ statement

Local organisation Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS) strongly condemned the killing of Kashmiri Hindus on April 15. It said that the killings lists that were circulated in mosques in 1990 are still circulated on the internet and social media in 2022.

“Just modus operandi has failed but the mentality is the same as what we minorities faced in the early 1990s,” said KPSS President Sanjay Tickoo.

He said that certain vicious and ill-minded people are using a particular religion as a cover to annihilate religious minorities in the Kashmir valley. According to Tickoo these attacks are possible only through the help of the local population. As such, he said the role of the Kashmiri society cannot be denied in the crimes against Kashmiri Pandits.

“Every gunman known or unknown is a local person and their OGWs are also from our own Kashmiri society who create fake trust with religious minorities to collect details and help these gunmen to kill Kashmiri Pandits/ Kashmiri Hindus living in the Kashmir Valley,” he said.

Tickoo voiced concern about the Kashmir Exodus repeating itself in 2022, considering the collective silence maintained by the people that creates “trust deficits”.

The KPSS condemned the government for not bothering with the attacks stating that the administration is either not inerested in saving minorities or they are incompetent to handle the situation. Expressing disappointment at the 1990 coalition government for failing to protect the minorities, it said, “In the last three years the same government failed again in securing minorities living in the Kashmir Valley, it indicates the Kashmiri Minorities will again have to leave Kashmir due to failure of Kashmiri Society as well as the administration.”

Misinformation at an unfortune time

Adding to the ailings of the community, The Kashmir Files Director Vivek Agnihotri chose this time to share a tweet where an alleged terrorist group ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ threatened to kill “kafirs” in Kashmir. News outlets like Amar Ujala, Lokmat News, News18, picked up this news based on Agnihotri’s tweet. However, by Friday afternoon Alt News unearthed many dubious aspects of the letter. The letter was unsigned had a spelling mistake in its English letterhead, showed the logo of another terrorist group – Jamaat-e-Dawa – entirely, had factual errors and resembled a similar letter allegedly issued by the Lashkar-e-Islam in 2016.

While it is true that such a letter was received by Baramulla resident Vijay Raina, the man claimed it was “sent by post”. For these reasons, the authenticity of this letter is questionable. Nonetheless, with the report of Singh’s death, Agnihotri’s tweet comes at an extremely untimely moment.

Related:

Kashmir: Suspected militants claim another life
This is what we feared: Sanjay Tickoo on the rising attacks in Kashmir since March
The Kashmir Files: Calls for Muslim genocide ring out in cinema halls, hate brews outside
The Kashmir Files making resident Kashmiri Pandits feel unsafe

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Image Courtesy: Zeenews

The move came a day after the UN Security Council comprising 15 nations, including Pakistan’s key ally China, named JeM in a statement condemning in the “strongest terms” the “heinous and cowardly attack perpetrated by Pakistan-based JeM” in Pulwama and stressed on the need to hold organisers and financiers of such “reprehensible acts” accountable and bring them to justice.

Meanwhile, at the same time Gen Bajwa visits the Line of Control (LoC), and said Pakistan will give a befitting reply to ‘any misadventure’
The Pakistan government Friday took over the administrative control of the headquarters of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), the militant outfit which claimed responsibility for the Pulwama suicide attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir.

The move came a day after the UN Security Council comprising 15 nations, including Pakistan’s key ally China, named JeM in a statement condemning in the “strongest terms” the “heinous and cowardly attack perpetrated by Pakistan-based JeM” in Pulwama and stressed on the need to hold organisers and financiers of such “reprehensible acts” accountable and bring them to justice.

“The Punjab government has taken over the control of the JeM headquarters in Bahawalpur,” Pakistan’s information minister Fawad Chaudhry told PTI.

“The government of Punjab has taken over the control of a campus comprising Madressatul Sabir and Jama-e-Masjid Subhanallah in Bahawalpur and appointed an administrator to manage its affairs,” the minister added. Bahawalpur is 400 km from Lahore.

A statement issued by the interior ministry also said the crackdown on Jaish “has been taken in line with the decision of the National Security Committee meeting held on Thursday under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran Khan”.

The Islamic seminaries in the campus have a faculty of 70 teachers and currently 600 students were studying in it, the statement said, adding that Punjab police is providing security and protection to the campus.

Pakistan Thursday also banned Hafiz Saeed-led Jamat-ud-Dawa and its charity wing Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation. Earlier, the two outfits were kept on the watchlist of the interior ministry.

Meanwhile, Pakistan army chief has said that though Pakistan is a peace-loving country, it will not be intimidated and any misadventure will be given a befitting response.

General Qamar Bajwa made the remarks on his visit to the Line of Control on Friday, said a statement issued the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

“COAS visited Line of Control. Reviewed state of preparedness. Lauded high moral of troops. Pakistan is a peace loving country but we will not be intimidated or coerced. Any aggression or misadventure shall be paid back in same coin”, Bajwa said, according to DG ISPR major general Asif Ghafoor.

UNSC Condemns Pulwama Attack

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned what it called the “heinous and cowardly” militant attack in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir and underlined the need to hold perpetrators of these “reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice”.
40 central reserve police force personnel were killed in a suicide attack in Pulwama district on February 14.

“The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the heinous and cowardly suicide bombing in Jammu and Kashmir, which left 40 Indian paramilitary forces dead and dozens wounded on February 14, 2019, for which Jaish-e-Mohammed has claimed responsibility,” the UNSC said in a statement.

The UN organ, which includes five permanent members China, France, Russia, UK and the US “underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice”, it said.
The top UN body urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions to cooperate actively with the government of India and all other relevant authorities.

The press statement is highly significant as China, a permanent member of the Council, has in the past repeatedly blocked India’s bids in the Security Council Sanctions Committee to designate JeM chief Masood Azhar as a “global terrorist”.

“A statement with many firsts takes more time than expected. In complex diplomatic situations, however, it is better to be late than never,” India’s permanent representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin tweeted on the UNSC statement.

On whether China raised any objections to the statement, sources told PTI here that drafting the statement was a “prolonged process” and was issued after “prolonged discussions”.

The members of the Security Council also expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims, as well as to the Indian people and the government of India, and wished a speedy and full recovery to those who were injured.

“The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security,” it said.

The Council also reiterated that “any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed”.

The UNSC reaffirmed the “need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts,” it said.

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Villagers scour rubble for belongings scattered during the bombing of Hajar Aukaish, Yemen, in April 2015. (A. Mojalli/VOA)

Just as the invasion of Iraq eventually produced the Islamic State (ISIS or IS), the killing of innocent Yemenis for no moral reason at all is providing a recruitment tool for terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East and Africa. And just as the Iraq invasion was predicated on a false claim of weapons of mass destruction, the war in Yemen rests on the bogus argument that Iranians are supporting terrorism in that country. In the first two years of the conflict in Yemen, the United States was not able to point to any evidence of Iranian weapons delivery to Yemen. Yet, the United States joined with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States with weapon sales, intelligence, and a U.S.-enforced naval blockade. Trump’s recent sale of arms to the Saudis was worth $125 billion.

The results of all this has been catastrophic. Take a look at the suffering of the Yemeni people in the past few years.

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab region. It has gone through conflicts for a variety of reasons: religion, ideology, and resources. In 1990, Yemen unified, but conflicts remained. The Zaidis (a branch of Shia Islam) are located in the mountains of northern Yemen where the Houthis are the major tribe/group. The remainder of the population of the country are Sunni. In 2014, the Houthis surged south and took control of the capital, Sanaa, and most of the surrounding area. The president of the country, Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, escaped to Saudi Arabia in 2015. In six months, the Saudis and Hadi formed an army and took back part of the area but not Sanaa.

The Saudi-led war against the Houthis brings together troops from Saudi Arabia, President Hadi’s supporters in the Yemeni military, Emirati countries, Islamist militants and some smaller tribes. Saudi allies are intervening to support the Hadi’s Saudi-installed puppet regime, with the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, and Belgium joining in the effort. Regional countries – Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Republic (UAE), Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan – are also providing support to the Saudis.

The Saudis are not just waging war against Houthi soldiers. They are bombing hospitals, schools, medical clinics and other civic places. The Houthis, outgunned, have resorted to fighting the war with child soldiers and, more recently, using smuggled weapons from Iran.
Yemen, a country of 25 million people, has lost 10,000 lives so far in this conflict. It has also experienced widespread human rights violations and disease, and nearly half the population is in a food crisis. “There is no food, no pure water, no electricity, nothing,” a a Yemini woman says. “One day, a businessperson came to us and give us dishes and spoons but I told him sarcastically, ‘what should we do with these? Eat the soil?’”

The dire situation in Yemen has become even more severe since the recent outbreak of cholera. The lack of sanitation, clean water, and medical care are fertile ground for the spread of the disease. This current outbreak reportedly infected 269,608 people and has caused the deaths of over 1,600. This number of fatalities in Yemen due to cholera is larger than all the cholera deaths in the world in 2015, as reported by the World Health Organization.

The current civilian slaughter, chaos, and daily indignities in Yemen create the perfect recruitment tool for the expansion of terrorist organizations. Al-Qaeda has been operating in Yemen for a long time. Known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), they are augmenting their presence with technological savvy and are now considered one of the most dangerous al-Qaeda groups. In addition, IS has begun to make their presence felt in Yemen.

The Islamic State is on the verge of defeat. But U.S. analysts, most recently Ashton Carter in a Washington Post op-ed, continue to overlook how U.S. policies created the blowback of terrorism and entities like IS. In Yemen, the United States is repeating the same errors it made in Iraq. And the results, in terms of breeding terrorist backlash, will be the same. Until the United States learns to be more humane and severs ties with corrupt and ruthless dictators for the sake of oil or other commodity interests, this cycle will never end.
 

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Data on violent incidents in the US reveal that focus on Islamist extremism since 9/11 may be misguided

A woman holds a flag as she looks out over the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

On a Tuesday morning in September 2001, the American experience with terrorism was fundamentally altered. Two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six people were murdered in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Thousands more, including many first responders, lost their lives to health complications from working at or being near Ground Zero.

The 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by Islamist extremists, resulting in nearly 18 times more deaths than America’s second most devastating terrorist attack – the Oklahoma City bombing. More than any other terrorist event in U.S. history, 9/11 drives Americans’ perspectives on who and what ideologies are associated with violent extremism.

But focusing solely on Islamist extremism when investigating, researching and developing counterterrorism policies goes against what the numbers tell us. Far-right extremism also poses a significant threat to the lives and well-being of Americans. This risk is often ignored or underestimated because of the devastating impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

We have spent more than 10 years collecting and analyzing empirical data that show us how these ideologies vary in important ways that can inform policy decisions. Our conclusion is that a “one size fits all” approach to countering violent extremism may not be effective.

By the numbers

Historically, the U.S. has been home to adherents of many types of extremist ideologies. The two current most prominent threats are motivated by Islamist extremism and far-right extremism.

To help assess these threats, the Department of Homeland Security and recently the Department of Justice have funded the Extremist Crime Database to collect data on crimes committed by ideologically motivated extremists in the United States. The results of our analyses are published in peer-reviewed journals and on the website for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism & Responses to Terrorism.

The ECDB includes data on ideologically motivated homicides committed by both Islamist extremists and far-right extremists going back more than 25 years.

Between 1990 and 2014, the ECDB has identified 38 homicide events motivated by Islamist extremism that killed 62 people. When you include 9/11, those numbers jump dramatically to 39 homicide events and 3,058 killed.

The database also identified 177 homicide events motivated by far-right extremism, with 245 killed. And when you include the Oklahoma City bombing, it rises to 178 homicide events and 413 killed.

Although our data for 2015 through 2017 are still being verified, we counted five homicide events perpetrated by Islamist extremists that resulted in the murders of 74 people. This includes the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, which killed 49 people. In the same time period, there were eight homicide events committed by far-right extremists that killed 27 people.

These data reveal that far-right extremists tend to be more active in committing homicides, yet Islamist extremists tend to be more deadly.

Our research has also identified violent Islamist extremist plots against 272 targets that were either foiled or failed between 2001 and 2014. We are in the process of compiling similar data on far-right plots. Although data collection is only about 50 percent complete, we have already identified 213 far-right targets from the same time period.

The locations of violent extremist activity also differ by ideology. Our data show that between 1990 and 2014, most Islamist extremist attacks occurred in the South (56.5 percent), and most far-right extremist attacks occurred in the West (34.7 percent). Both forms of violence were least likely to occur in the Midwest, with only three incidents committed by Islamist extremists (4.8 percent) and 33 events committed by far-right extremists (13.5 percent).

Targets of violence also vary across the two ideologies. For example, 63 percent of the Islamist extremism victims were targeted for no apparent reason. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, often visiting symbolic locations or crowded venues such as the World Trade Center or military installations.

In contrast, 53 percent of victims killed by far-right extremists were targeted for their actual or perceived race or ethnicity. Far-right extremists, such as neo-Nazis, skinheads and white supremacists, often target religious, racial and ethnic, and sexual orientation and gender identity minorities.

Motives and methods

There are also differences in violent extremists across demographics, motives and methods. For instance, data show that guns were the weapon of choice in approximately 73 percent of Islamist extremist homicides and in only 63 percent of far-right extremist homicides. We attribute these differences to far-right extremists using more personal forms of violence, such as beating or stabbing victims to death.

We have also found that suicide missions are not unique to Islamist extremists.

From 1990 to 2014, we identified three suicide missions in which at least one person was killed connected to Islamist extremism, including the 9/11 attacks as one event. In contrast, there were 15 suicide missions committed by far-right extremists.

Our analyses found that compared to Islamist extremists, far-right extremists were significantly more likely to be economically deprived, have served in the military and have a higher level of commitment to their ideology. Far-right extremists were also significantly more likely to be less educated, single, young and to have participated in training by a group associated with their extremist ideology.

Threat to law enforcement and military

Terrorists associated with Islamist and far-right extremist ideologies do not only attack civilians. They also pose a deadly threat to law enforcement and military personnel. During the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 72 law enforcement officers and 55 military personnel were killed by members of Al-Qaida. On April 19, 1995, 13 law enforcement officers and four military personnel were killed when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed by an anti-government far-right extremist in Oklahoma City.

Outside of these two events, Islamist extremists are responsible for the murders of 18 military personnel in three incidents, and seven law enforcement officers were killed in five incidents between 1990 and 2015. Far-right extremists have murdered 57 law enforcement officers in 46 incidents, but have never directly targeted military personnel.

Far-right extremists, who typically harbor anti-government sentiments, have a higher likelihood of escalating routine law enforcement contacts into fatal encounters. These homicides pose unique challenges to local law enforcement officers who are disproportionately targeted by the far right.

Moving forward

The events of 9/11 will continue to skew both our real and perceived risks of violent extremism in the United States. To focus solely on Islamist extremism is to ignore the murders perpetrated by the extreme far right and their place in a constantly changing threat environment.

Some have even warned that there is potential for collaboration between these extremist movements. Our own survey research suggests this is a concern of law enforcement.

Focusing on national counterterrorism efforts against both Islamist and far-right extremism acknowledges that there are differences between these two violent movements.

Focusing solely on one, while ignoring the other, will increase the risk of domestic terrorism and future acts of violence.

Both ideologies continue to pose real, unique threats to all Americans. Evidence shows far-right violent extremism poses a particular threat to law enforcement and racial, ethnic, religious and other minorities. Islamist violent extremism is a specific danger to military members, law enforcement, certain minorities and society at large. It remains imperative to support policies, programs and research aimed at countering all forms of violent extremism.

(This story is republished from The Conversation. The original story may be read here).

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जम्मू कश्मीर के बांदीपोर इलाके में मंगलवार सुबह सुरक्षाबलों के साथ मुठभेड़ में मारे गए दो आतंकियों के पास से 2000 रुपए के नए नोट बरामद हुए हैं। इसके अलावा उनसे करीब 15 हजार रुपए की नकदी और गोला-बारूद भी मिला है। 
 
आतंकियों के पास 2000 के नोट मिलने से सुरक्षाबलों के लिए नई चुनौती खड़ी हो गई है। अब इस बात पर सवाल उठने लगे हैं कि हाल ही जारी की गई नई करेंसी इन आतंकियों के पास कैसे और कहां से आई?

मंगलवार को जम्मू-कश्मीर के बांदीपुरा जिले में सुरक्षाबलों और आतंकवादियो के बीच जबरदस्त मुठभेड़ हुई। इस मुठभेड़ में सुरक्षाबलों ने दो आतंकियों को मार गिराया। यह मुठभेड़ मंगलवार सुबह बांदीपोर इलाके में हुई। करीब 2 घंटे तक चली मुठभेड़ में दो आतंकियों को मार गिराया गया।
 
इस मुठभेड़ के बाद पूरे इलाके में तनाव पैदा हो गया। स्थानीय लोगों ने नारेबाजी करते हुए सुरक्षाबलों पर पथराव शुरु कर दिया। हिंसक भीड पर काबू पाने के लिए पुलस को भी बल प्रयोग करना पडा। प्रशासन ने एहतियातन पूरे इलाके में धारा 144 लागू कर दी है।
 
सवाल ये है कि ये नए नोट आतंकवादियों के पास कहां से आए? इस बीच केंद्रीय गृह मंत्रालय ने जम्मू कश्मीर में बैंक लूटे जाने की वारदात पर रिपोर्ट मांगी है। बता दें कि नोटबंदी के बाद से जम्मू कश्मीर में बैंक लूटने की अभी तक तीन वारदात हो चुकी हैं।

Courtesy: National Dastak
 

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