India: Our Partner Against Jihad

I have long maintained that today’s global jihad calls for a reconfiguration of American alliances. The sham friendships the United States maintains with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other jihad-exporting states may be motivated by political expediency – and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, economic necessity – but no one can maintain that in view of America’s long-term strategic and security interests that in the long run they represent sound foreign policy.

A group called the US India League, of which I am proud to serve on the Advisory Board (along with, among others, Daniel Pipes, Alan Keyes, Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer), is laboring to precisely that end -- and is holding a reception at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on September 19 to publicize its efforts. (For information, consult www.usindialeague.org.)

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/i_latestdetail.asp?id=30024

Indian army kills suspected Hindu insurgent in Jammu-Kashmir(updated PM 05:10)

2005/8/20
JAMMU, India (AP)

Indian security forces killed a Hindu fighting for a suspected Islamic rebel group in an overnight shootout in India's Jammu-Kashmir state, an army spokesman said Saturday.

The man, identified by the army as Uttam Singh, was one of three suspected rebels who raided the home of an Indian army soldier in Thaloran, a remote village in Doda district, around midnight Friday, said Lt. Col. D. K. Badola, the army spokesman.

Singh was killed during a two-hour gunbattle with government forces and the two others escaped into the forested area of Thaloran, nearly 185 kilometers (115 miles) northeast of Jammu, the winter capital of India's portion of the disputed Kashmir region, Badola said. The Indian army soldier and his family were not hurt.

Singh was suspected to be a local commander of the Hizbul Mujahedeen, one of nearly a dozen rebel groups fighting for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Islamic Pakistan since 1989. More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict.

Satvir Gupta, a deputy inspector-general of police, said a small number of Hindus had joined the insurgency, lured by money paid by the rebel groups.

"We have killed three Hindu rebels in the past four years," Gupta told The Associated Press.

India's Kashmir region is the only Muslim majority area in a predominantly Hindu country. Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan by a cease-fire line, known as the Line of Control.

India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the Himalayan territory, since they won independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the region in entirety.

India: Our Partner Against Jihad
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 2, 2005

I have long maintained that today’s global jihad calls for a reconfiguration of American alliances. The sham friendships the United States maintains with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other jihad-exporting states may be motivated by political expediency – and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, economic necessity – but no one can maintain that in view of America’s long-term strategic and security interests that in the long run they represent sound foreign policy. It will probably take a Manhattan Project to find new energy sources, should one ever be initiated, to enable Washington to exert any meaningful diplomatic pressure over the House of Saud; the same constraints, however, do not exist in the case of Pakistan. In this case, a viable alternative immediately presents itself: the U.S. can and should strengthen ties with India.

Pakistan’s President Musharraf has promised to rid his unhappy land of Al-Qaeda ever since 9/11 and before; however, for a complex of reasons he has been able to do little or nothing to affect this. The jihad is epidemic in Pakistan. Jihad training camps dot the landscape – including those that investigators charge that Lodi, California resident Hamid Hayat attended in 2000, 2003, and 2004. Hayat allegedly planned to bring the jihad violence he learned there back to the United States. An Afghan intelligence officer remarked: “We know where a lot of these training camps are. We have their names. And we’ve given the Pakistanis all the information we have. We’re waiting for Pakistan to show the willingness to fight.”

He may be in for a long wait. The training camps are not there by accident: Pakistani madrasas are veritable “universities of jihad.” At least two of the July 7 London bombers attended such madrasas. Speakers at the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights recently described them as “nurseries of death and destruction.” Even textbooks approved by Musharraf himself foster notions about the necessity of Muslims to fight so that Islamic law will reign supreme. One textbook declares: “At present, jihad is continuing in different parts of the world. Numerous mujahedin [holy warriors] of Islam are involved in defending their religion, and independence, and to help their oppressed brothers across the world.” Democracy? It isn’t on the program: “When God’s people are forced to become slaves of man-made laws, they are hindered from practicing the religion of their God. When all the legal ways in this regard are closed, then power should be used to eliminate the evil. If Muslims are being oppressed, then jihad is necessary to free them from this cruel oppression.” Osama’s sentiments exactly. Musharraf recently ordered foreign students out of Pakistani madrasas, but it is the Pakistani students who are the problem.

Pakistani mosques are likewise epicenters of Islamic intransigence and exhortations to violence. After the July 7 bombings, authorities in Pakistan arrested 56 imams on charges of making “provocative speeches” during their Friday sermons; ten others were arrested for selling audiotapes of those sermons. The nation’s political system, meanwhile, is heavily influenced by the notion that Islamic law must reign supreme in any legitimate state – a principle that forms the cornerstone of bin Laden’s agenda. Osama himself, of course, has most likely found shelter (and may continue to do so) in the wild Pakistani highlands. That shelter, of course, is offered and protected by rank-and-file Pakistanis who share the terrorist mastermind’s outlook on life.

Nor is this sentiment limited only to the rank-and-file. A Kashmir jihad leader recently praised Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed for his role in establishing jihad training camps in Pakistan: “Sheikh Rashid has played a great role for Kashmir’s liberation. He used to support the frontline Jihadis, but very few people know about his contributions.” Rashid declined comment. However, on other occasions he has said that “our faith remains incomplete without jihad.” Meanwhile, it has come to light that former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif met with Osama several times in the late 1980s. When bin Laden exhorted him to aid the jihad in Kashmir, Sharif assured him: “I love jihad.”

What can America can do with a friend and ally like this? We can turn to India and strengthen our ties with that state, which has suffered the depredations of jihad violence for centuries. This is precisely the sort of shift that President Bush implied was imminent when he declared that “you’re either with the terrorists or with us.” Pakistan is, quite obviously, with the terrorists; India, on the other hand, is not. But the ship of state is not so easily turned. Concerted effort is now needed to demonstrate to Americans that a more vigorous alliance with India is in our best national security interests. A group called the US India League, of which I am proud to serve on the Advisory Board (along with, among others, Daniel Pipes, Alan Keyes, Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer), is laboring to precisely that end -- and is holding a reception at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on September 19 to publicize its efforts. (For information, consult www.usindialeague.org.)

It’s time for America to say: You’re either with the jihadists or you’re with us. India can and should be working side-by-side with us in this great struggle for freedom and human rights.

Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of five books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.

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