Days after he was caught fleeing Islamabad’s Red Mosque in a burqa, its captured chief cleric gave an incendiary funeral oration at the village burial of his slain brother, predicting the bloodshed would drive Pakistan toward an “Islamic revolution.”
In an apparent backlash to the weeklong army siege that left 108 dead, a suicide bomber attacked the office of a top government official near the Afghan border, while thousands of angry tribesmen mourned three of the fallen militants. The bloodshed at the mosque has given hardliners a rallying point and new martyrs to mourn, and has sparked calls from Al Qaeda and Taliban for revenge attacks. But the crackdown on the radical mosque has raised the standing of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf among moderates and foreign backers worried about rising extremism in Pakistan.
Troops combing the Islamabad mosque and its adjoining seminary for girls found the body of Abdul Rashid Ghazi among the remains of at least 75 people after the 35-hour commando assault ended on Wednesday. His brother, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who was arrested during the eight-day siege while trying to flee disguised as a women, was allowed to attend Ghazi’s burial at his ancestral village in Pujab province. According to custom, prisoners are normally granted permission to attend the funerals of close relatives.
“Whatever happened in the past days is not hidden from anyone. God willing, Pakistan will have an Islamic revolution soon. The blood of martyrs will bear fruit,” Aziz said before leading prayers attend by about 3,000 people.
“We can let our necks be severed but we cannot bow down before oppressive rulers. Our struggle will continue. There are many Ghazis living to be martyred,” he said.
Excerpted
http://www.bahraintribune.com/ArticleDetail.asp?ArticleId=161482&CategoryId=3
Lebanese Army pounds Islamic militants
Thu, Jul. 12, 2007
The Lebanese army pounded a Palestinian refugee camp with artillery fire on Thursday, but the military denied reports that the action was part of a final assault on the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militants barricaded inside. The firing began just before dawn and hours after more than 150 civilians fled on foot from the camp in northern Lebanon, as soldiers ringing the neighborhood moved up tanks and armored vehicles.
The army said two soldiers were killed Thursday, bringing the number of military dead to 88 since fighting began at the Nahr el-Bared camp on May 20. Earlier an armored personnel carrier was seen ferrying at least two wounded soldiers out of the camp. Between five and 10 shells were slamming into the camp every minute. Thick black smoke billowed from deep inside the seaside camp and covered a large area above it. Heavy machine gun fire could be heard.
Excerpted
http://www.kansascity.com/449/story/185421.html
IAEA team heads to North Korea to monitor shutdown of nuclear reactor
July 12, 2007
VIENNA, Austria: A team of U.N. experts left for North Korea on Thursday to supervise the shutdown of the country's plutonium-producing reactor, the key component of the nation's nuclear weapons program.
Their arrival will mark the first time in nearly five years that North Korea will receive a working expert team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency since the hardline communist regime expelled IAEA monitors in late 2002, shutting its nuclear activities from outside view. It exploded a test nuclear bomb in October, four months before agreeing to scrap its nuclear program in exchange for economic and political concessions in a deal with the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.
Excerpted
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/12/europe/EU-GEN-Nuclear-Agency-NKorea.php
Thanks Oorang.
The jihadis using the children is absolutely heartbreaking.
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http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ts&nid=1550
“Media tour to Lal Masjid, written messages on wall ‘I love my parents and they will be proud of me’ Saeed Minhas”
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “ISLAMABAD: Amidst no respite for hundreds of parents looking for their missing loved ones and under-curfew residents of G-6 area in Islamabad, army allowed the media people to observe the devastation and destruction caused at Lal Masjid, adjacent Jamia Hafsa and children’s library as a result of the Operation Silence (now termed as Operation Sun Rise by ISPR) since July 3. The entire compound of the mosque and seminary was riddled with marks of bullets and holes caused by grenades or mortar shells while personal belongings of female students and minors were lying everywhere in female seminary. This scribe came across notes of female students, written presumably during the siege of the mosque or during the last moments of their lives. One of the wooden-box was inscribed with the words, “Only my mother is allowed to open this box, if anyone else does this it will be haram.” Another message was written on the wall of a room which read that “I love my parents and they will be proud of me.””
IAEA team heads to North Korea to monitor shutdown of nuclear reactor
Huge news indeed! Let’s hope the DPRK cooperates.