Posted on 07/26/2008 8:45:44 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Seven bombs hit Ahmedabad, two killed Enlarge Photo
By Rupam Jain Nair
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - At least seven small bombs exploded in Ahmedabad on Saturday, killing at least two people and wounding 55, just a day after another set of blasts in the country's southern IT hub, officials said.
On Friday, eight bombs exploded in quick succession in Bangalore, killing at least one person and wounding six others.
Saturday's blasts were in the Ahmedabad's crowded old city dominated by its Muslim community. One was left in a metal tiffin box, used to carry food, another apparently left on a bicycle.
(Excerpt) Read more at in.news.yahoo.com ...
Ping!
Prayers for the people of India.
I think before this is over, will have to kill about 90% of the Islamofascists. The other 10% will go about their quiet, profitable way as elected officials in America.
Not good at all. If they find out Pakistan is connected to these in any way the repercussions could be severe, unfortunately for both sides.
I had not heard about yesterday in Bangalore
Sounds more like one of the following...
1) Revenge for the eight bombs the other day, taking it out on the Muslim community.
2) Goading India into a civil war, so they can attempt to take over the government.
3) Diverting attention from other more important events that are happening...but the media is only covering the bombings.
The bombs were low power. Thats not AQ’s method
Minutes before blasts, email said: ‘Stop us if you can’
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jul/26ahd3.htm
July 26, 2008 21:25 IST
Minutes before the Ahmedabad serial blasts, an email was sent to the Gujarat police which is now in the possession of the Intelligence Bureau. It read: Stop us if you can.
Intelligence Bureau officials told rediff.com that the email had been sent out by the Indian Mujahideen, a less known outfit which was slowly trying to spread its tentacles in the country.
The Indian Mujahideen in its email also said its intention was to cause panic and fight political outfits which were opposed to Islam. The mail further read, ‘We the Indian Mujahideen have carried out attacks and will continue to do so. Stop us if you can.’
The first time the Indian Mujahideen came into the limelight was during the Uttar Pradesh blasts in November 2007. Immediately after that a mail had been sent out by the outfit claiming responsibility for the blasts. The police, however, had dismissed the mail as a prank and continued to look for a Harkat ul Jihad e Islami-Lashkar e Tayiba link to the blasts.
The second time the outfit was in the news was during the Jaipur blasts in May this year when it claimed it was behind the incident.
The IB says the latest email shows that the Indian Mujahideen was behind Friday’s blasts too, and the Bangalore police is trying to ascertain the similarities between the two blasts.
IB officers told rediff.com that in both cases the intention was not to cause casualties but to create a scare. The mail also says the outfit’s intention is to fight governments which it feels is anti-Muslim. In both Karnataka and Gujarat the BJP is in power.
So who are the Indian Mujahideen?
The IB says the outfit was floated by a couple of youth from Hyderabad’s Old City, as a faction of the Students Islamic Movement of India.
With the arrest of SIMI’s top leaders in Indore, the Indian Mujahideen has been given the responsibility of carrying out terror strikes. Although the outfit is not as professional as SIMI it is capable of creating chaos, sources said.
Immediately after the UP blasts, the Indian Mujahideen was deliberately pushed to the forefront by SIMI and HuJI as the heat on them was growing.
The Times Now news television network said at least 27 people were injured in the latest blasts and other television stations said the explosives were on bicycles and detonated with remote devices.
Ahmed declined to comment on reports that a little-known Islamic guerrilla group — the Indian Mujahedeen — had telephoned a television station and claimed responsibility for the latest attack.
“Such initial reports are coming from Ahmedabad but let this hour of crisis pass and then we will get a full report from officials on the ground,” Ahmed said.
Ahmedabad police said the first explosion was reported at around 6:00 pm (1230 GMT) on a bridge in Ahmedabad, a communally-sensitive city which saw bloody Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002.
Sounds like old local rivalry’s to me. Hindu Vs Muslim
Serial blasts in Ahmedabad
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Serial_blasts_in_Ahmedabad_15_dead/articleshow/3283744.cms
AHMEDABAD: Close on the heels of Bangalore serial blasts, serial blasts rocked Ahmedabad on Saturday evening leaving two killed and several injured. (Watch)
The low-intensity explosions occurred at eight areas of Maninagar, Isanpur, Narol circle, Bapunagar, Hatkeshwar and Sarangpur bridge, Sarkej and Odhav and created a wave of panic.
There were two blasts in Maninagar and the first blast occurred in this area at 6.45 PM. The second blast here occurred near LG hospital. Maninagar is the constituency of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The Ahmedabad blasts came a day after the multiple explosions in Bangalore in which two persons were killed.
Police said at least two had died and 25 injured, some of them seriously, in the blasts. The injured have been rushed to civil hospital and LG hospital.
Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said in New Delhi there were eight blasts. Unconfirmed reports said there were 13 blasts.
The explosion in the sensitive Sarkej area occurred in a CNG bus.
Some of the bombs were believed to have been placed in cycles eerily similar to the Jaipur blasts on May 13 in which 65 persons died. A couple of bombs were reported to have been placed in tiffin boxes in a modus operandi similar to the explosions outside a Lucknow court last year.
President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the blasts and appealed for calm.
Time for some more Hindu Asswhoopin?
The Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the Jaipur blasts. This is the second time that the name of this lesser known outfit is coming to the forefront. The first time that the country heard of this outfit was during the Uttar Pradesh court blasts in November last year.
The Indian Mujahideen had in an email claimed responsibility for the UP blasts. Though investigating agencies probed into the antecedents of this new outfit, finally they came to the conclusion that the blasts were undertaken by HuJI.
Sources in the Intelligence Bureau told rediff.com that the Indian Mujahideen is a creation of the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihadi and the rejuvenated banned outfit, SIMI.
When the HuJI roped in SIMI to carry out logistic work for it in India, it was also decided that they would use two pseudo names to claim responsibility after the attack. While Indian Mujahideen was one of the names, the other was Guru Alhindi.
Investigators looking into the Hyderabad and the UP blasts which are similar in nature told rediff.com that though the Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility, they have not found any traces of this outfit. None of the material had mentioned the name of Indian Mujahideen.
It was during the interrogations that took place in Karnataka where seven suspected terrorists were arrested did the name Indian Mujahideen figure for the first time. These persons were questioned about the outfit and they reportedly told the police that it was a pseudonym used by SIMI activists to divert the police. It was also revealed that for every person in the force, it was mandatory to have five different names.
This is a relatively new ploy by HuJI and SIMI in order to keep their identity concealed. After the UP blasts, a mail had been sent in the name of Mohammad Shameem, claiming that the Indian Mujahideen had carried out the attack.
Investigations in the case only revealed that Shameem was a HuJI operative involved in the recruitment of youth in the North. The IB also says that by concealing their identity, they also avoid international pressure which has stepped up the war on terror. Hence by floating pseudo names, not only do they distract the police from the main line of investigation, but keep the heat low on themselves.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/may/15rajblast9.htm
Odd. Usually these muslim idiots cant wait to take credit for their evil
Gujarat is a sensitive state. The current Indian government dismantled a series of anti-terror laws the previous government had enacted. They’ll be under tremendous pressure to reverse their decision.
These blasts were caused by detonators planted in different areas of both cities. If they wanted to make something much more massive, they would have used explosives like RDX, etc. I suspect and fear this was a taunt and a hint to something larger than this.
Gujarat is known for violent revenge against Muslims.
That is because it is full of muslims.
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/terroristoutfits/simi.htm
The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), proscribed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, is an Islamist fundamentalist organization, which advocates the ‘liberation of India’ by converting it to an Islamic land. The SIMI, an organisation of young extremist students has declared Jihad against India, the aim of which is to establish Dar-ul-Islam (land of Islam) by either forcefully converting everyone to Islam or by violence.
Formation
The SIMI was formed at Aligarh in the State of Uttar Pradesh on April 25, 1977. Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Professor of Journalism and Public Relations at the Western Illinois University Macomb, Illinois, was the founding President of the outfit. It originally emerged as an offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind.
Objectives and Ideology
SIMI also attempts to utilize the youth in the propagation of Islam and also to mobilize support for Jihad and establish a Shariat-based Islamic rule through "Islami Inqulab". As the organization does not believe in a nation-state, it does not believe in the Indian Constitution or the secular order. SIMI also regards idol worship as a sin and considers it to be a holy duty to terminate idol worship.
SIMI is widely believed to be against Hinduism, western beliefs and ideals, as well as other ‘anti-Islamic cultures’. Among its various objectives, the SIMI aims to counter what it believes is the increasing moral degeneration, sexual anarchy in the Indian society as also the ‘insensitiveness’ of a ‘decadent’ west. Ideologically, SIMI maintains that the concepts of secularism, democracy and nationalism, keystones of the Indian Constitution, are antithetical to Islam. Parallel to its rejection of secularism, democracy and nationalism is its oft-repeated objective of restoration of the 'khilafat', emphasis on 'ummah' (Muslim brotherhood), and the need for a Jehad to establish the supremacy of Islam.
The outfit is known to have adopted an extremist and militant posture on various issues of concern to the Muslim community.
According to the SIMI, Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is an outstanding example of a true Mujahid, who has undertaken Jihad on behalf of the 'ummah'.
SIMI's interpretation of Islam is influenced to a great extent by the writings of Syed Abul A'ala Maududi, founder of the Jamaat-e Islami.
According to the scholar Yoginder Sikand, Nationalism, for SIMI, is seen as a false idol, and one devised by the non-Muslim 'enemies of the faith' to divide the Muslims and thereby weaken them. All non-Muslims are branded by the SIMI as 'kafirs', and no distinction is made among them. Because the 'enemies of God' are expected to show stiff resistance to Islam, violent Jihad is to be waged.
Leadership
Dr Shahid Badar Falah functioned as the national president and Safdar Nagori as the secretary-general till the organization was proscribed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002. The Delhi Police arrested Falah on September 28, 2001, from its office in the Zakir Nagar area of Delhi and he has subsequently been charged with sedition and inciting communal disharmony in the State of Uttar Pradesh.
Currently, the outfit is reported to be operating underground under the leadership of Nagori. Nagori has been named in a First Information Report (FIR) under Section 3 of the Unlawful Activities Act, registered at the New Friends Colony Police station in South Delhi. Nagori, declared a Proclaimed Offender in the case, has been absconding since September 27, 2001. He is alleged to have established links with the operatives of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, and other Islamist fundamentalist leaders in a bid to revive SIMI cadres under the umbrella of a different outfit.
Mohammad Aamir, the chief of SIMI's Uttar Pradesh State unit and the prime accused in the Kanpur riots of March 16, surrendered before a metropolitan magistrate on April 25, 2006.
Linkages and Areas of Operation
SIMI reportedly secures generous financial assistance from the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), Riyadh, and also maintains close links with the International Islamic Federation of Students' Organizations (IIFSO) in Kuwait. It also receives generous funds from contacts in Pakistan.
The Chicago-based Consultative Committee of Indian Muslims is also reported to have supported SIMI morally and financially.
The SIMI has links with the Jamaat-e-Islam (JeI) units in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. It also has a close working relationship with the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), the students’ wing of the JeI in Bangladesh. The SIMI is also alleged to have close links with the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), and the ISI. Certain SIMI leaders are reported to have close links with Pakistan-based terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed. SIMI activists, over the years, have also become a vital part of the LeT's grand plans for destabilisation in India.
SIMI also maintains ties with the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B).
SIMI is also reportedly involved in a continuous recruitment drive for the HuJI-B in Uttar Pradesh's Jaunpur, Allahabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ambedkar Nagar, Aligarh, Azamgarh, Sonauli, Ferozabad and Hathras areas. Further, SIMI cadres, sources indicate, are involved in the safe transportation of explosives and creation of channels for funds and securing safe houses for the HuJI-B cadres.
Groups of SIMI sympathizers reportedly exist in several places in the Gulf States. Jamayyatul Ansar, an organisation of SIMI activists comprising expatriate Indian Muslims, reportedly operates in Saudi Arabia.
Several Islamist fundamentalist organisations in India are allegedly controlled by former SIMI cadres. Prominent among them are the Kerala-based National Democratic Front and Islamic Youth Centre (IYC), and the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK) in Tamil Nadu.
According to official sources, in the year 1993 following the arrest of a Sikh terrorist, it was revealed that SIMI cadres, Sikh and Kashmiri terrorists, had been brought together by the ISI through the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan to carry out subversive activities.
The outfit is currently regarded as having a national presence with strong bases in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra (Aurangabad, Malegaon, Jalgaon and Thane), Andhra Pradesh and Assam. It reportedly has a strong base in various universities in these States. SIMI is also believed to enjoy the support of a large section of the Muslim populace in cities such as Kanpur, Rampur, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Lucknow and Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. Official sources are reported to have identified nine districts in Uttar Pradesh, where the SIMI is suspected of engaging in subversive activities-Lucknow, Kanpur, Aligarh, Agra, Faizabad, Bahraich, Barabanki, Lakhimpur Kheri and Azamgarh. The SIMI is also being utilised by various terrorist outfits because it has a well-knit network in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.
In Kerala, SIMI operates under the cover of some 12 front organisations, at least two of which are based in the capital, Thiruvananthapuram, and a third in the port city of Kochi. Kondotty in the Malappuram District has also emerged as a hot-bed of SIMI activities. An official declaration submitted on June 1, 2006, by the Kerala Government before the tribunal examining the legality of the ban on SIMI, indicated that the outfit's cadres had ‘lately' developed links with the LeT. Reports from various agencies, including the State Police Special Branch, further indicate that SIMI is operating under the cover of religious study centres, rural development and research centres. Some of these front organisations were spreading "extremist religious ideals" among sections of youth in Kerala by acting under the guise of "counselling and guidance centres working for behavioural change". SIMI is also reported to have established a women's wing in Kerala. Generous funds for such activities flow in from contacts in Kuwait and Pakistan.
In the western State of Maharashtra, areas such as Aurangabad, Malegaon, Jalgaon and Thane have remained strongholds of the SIMI. Intelligence agencies indicate that Madrassas (seminaries) in the Districts of Jalgaon, Nashik, Thane, Sholapur, Kolhapur, Gadchiroli, Nanded, Aurangabad, Malegaon and Pune have been brought under the scanner for SIMI activities. There are more than 3,000 Madrassas in the State, with about 200,000 students. As many as 500 seminaries are located in the State capital, Mumbai. Sources indicate that many of these seminaries are potential breeding grounds for SIMI's activities.
SIMI's activities have also continued in Assam and West Bengal, where the organisation has infiltrated Madrassas, Muslim clubs, libraries, and other cultural bodies for covert mobilisation of Islamist forces. In 2003, SIMI activists have operated from the platform of ‘Islamic Siksha Shivirs' (Islamic Educational Camps) in Mograhat in the North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. A two-day ‘workshop' organised in the District between August 31 and September 1 had, in fact, finalised the outfit's infiltration plans. Sources indicate that in August 2003, one Jamaluddin Chaudhory of the ICS had taken seven SIMI activists from Assam and West Bengal to residential Madrassas in Chittagong, Rangpur and Dhaka for ‘higher Islamic studies'. Additionally, some hardcore SIMI activists from Malda and South 24 Parganas had crossed over to Bangladesh for higher studies in Islamic theology at a Saudi-funded private institution in Chittagong. In the 2004 general elections, SIMI had backed the newly floated ‘Indian National League (INL)', which put up candidates in six constituencies of Jangipur, Murshidabad, Diamond Harbour, Basirhat, Jadavpur and Kolkata North-West. Senior SIMI leader Hasan Saidullah Ashrafi contested the Basirhat seat from the INL platform and finished seventh among eight candidates polling just 4,780 valid votes.
In the State of Madhya Pradesh, “While SIMI activities were confined to Indore, Ujjain, Khandwa and Bhopal before the ban on it in 2001, they have spread to Burhanpur, Guna, Neemuch and Shajapur as well now,” an unnamed police official was quoted as saying in Hindustan Times on August 16, 2006. Before the ban, 33 cases were registered against SIMI activists in various districts for spreading religious discord. Since then, however, 49 cases have been filed against the group. SIMI national general secretary Safdar Nagori, an Ujjain resident in his 40s, has been absconding since the ban. “He has cases against him of spreading religious discord since 1997-98,” Ajay Kumar Sharma, a Deputy Inspector General of Police, said. Since the ban, 180 SIMI activists have been arrested from across the State. And since April 2006, five SIMI members, including two women, have been taken into custody in Khandwa, four in Burhanpur and one each in Jabalpur and Ujjain.
Membership, Influence and Activities
Opposed to democracy, secularism and nationalism, SIMI has been advocating among its followers - some 400 ansars (full-time cadres) and the 20,000 ordinary members - the need to oppose "man-made" institutions and work for the Ummah.
Students up to the age of 30 years are eligible to be its members and after completing this age-limit they retire from the organization.
SIMI cadres consider Osama bin Laden as a ‘true believer of Islam’ and regard him as an epitome of ‘Islamic Hero’. According to Safdar Nagori, a prominent SIMI leader, bin Laden is "not a terrorist" and neither is Jammu and Kashmir an "integral part of India." At its congregations, messages and recorded speeches have been relayed from the Palestinian Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yasin and Qazi Hussein Ahmed, chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan.
Official sources have indicated that the SIMI has established links with terrorist outfits and is also supporting extremism/militancy in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere. The outfit is reported to have published objectionable posters and literature, which are intended to incite communal feelings and which question the territorial integrity of India.
Shaheen Force, the outfit’s wing for schoolchildren, seeks to "protect the children from present-day misguidance and vices" and keeps them "under the shade of Islamic culture". The outfit also has a wing that aims to channelise the talent of girls for the Islamist cause.
SIMI reportedly operates many special programmes for students of Arabic colleges and Islamic universities. Students receive training and other assistance in the study of languages and Islamic sciences. According to the SIMI, renaissance of the Ummah depends on Islamic scholars because the community can attain its glory only when it will be led and guided by sincere Ulema (scholars).
According to the SIMI, Israelis were responsible for the 9/11 attacks in New York. According to a press release issued by its secretary-general Safdar Nagori after 9/11, "there are strong reasons to believe that the recent attacks may be a conspiracy of the Zionist Israel, which is rapidly losing world support because of its inhuman and terrorist activities in Palestine."
Publications
SIMI publishes several magazines in various languages, including Vivekam in Malayalam, Sedhi Madal in Tamil, Rupantar in Bengali, Iqraa in Gujarati, Tahreek in Hindi, Al Harkah in Urdu and the Shaheen Times.
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/terroristoutfits/simi.htm
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