Taliban murder couple for allegedly committing adultery

This video is very graphic and obviously disturbing. I've included it to demonstrate how brutal the Taliban is. There is no mercy or justice in their society. Justice is what they want it to be at that particular moment in time. What's very bizarre is the fact that they behave as if they're still in the middle ages, yet they're recording this savage behaviour using a cell phone.
Rees




Taliban gunmen have been filmed executing a surprised couple whom they repeatedly shot for the alleged crime of adultery

Their deaths were squalid, riddled with bullets in a field near their home by Taliban gunmen as the execution was captured on a mobile telephone.

In footage which is being watched with horror by Pakistanis, the couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen. But a gunman casually shoots the man and then the woman in the back with a burst of gunfire, leaving them bleeding in the dirt.

Moments later, when others in the execution party shout out that they are still alive, he returns to coldly finish them with a few more rounds.

Their "crime" was an alleged affair in their remote mountain village controlled by militants in an area that was only recently under the government's sway. It was the kind of barbarity that has become increasingly familiar across Pakistan as the Taliban tide has spread.

But this time, with black-turbaned gunmen almost at the gates of Islamabad, the rare footage has shown urban Pakistanis what could now await them.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned that Islamic extremists could take over the nation.

In the past few days the footage has circulated among Pakistanis who usually show little interest in the rough ways of the distant frontier regions.

They have now started to wake up to the fear that al-Qaeda-linked rebels from the frontier could take over their nation.

The killings happened in Hangu district, in North West Frontier Province, about two hours drive from the regional capital Peshawar. The punishment was administered by a local group of the Pakistani Taliban, the Islamic militia which has swept across the NWFP towards the capital Islamabad.

Last week, the Taliban had reached within 60 miles of Islamabad, in Buner district. Their takeover sparked panic in the West, which was already appalled by a peace deal that the government had signed this month with Taliban in adjacent the Swat valley.

In an extraordinary move, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called on the people of Pakistan to defy their government, saying they "need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents".

The Taliban had agreed a withdrawal, in the last couple of days, to their stronghold of Swat. That will scarcely make the government and elite in the capital Islamabad feel much safer, as Swat is only 100 miles from them.

"The Taliban are steady and confident, the government is weak and faltering," said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University and one of Pakistan's leading intellectuals.

"A Taliban victory will enslave our women, destroy Pakistan's rich historical and cultural heritage, make education and science impossible, and make the lives of its citizens impossibly difficult. Some are already contemplating an exodus."

Pakistan today stands on a knife-edge, threatened with anarchy. The desperate deal signed with the Taliban in Swat looks set to fall apart. The result will almost certainly be violence. An army convoy heading into Swat on Saturday morning was stopped by the Taliban and forced to turn back, in a naked display of their power.

They seem to have been only emboldened by the peace agreement. Many believe that a bloody military operation now looks inevitable,

For those in areas falling under Taliban control, their harsh rule is terrifying.

An SOS text message sent out on Friday by a terrified local resident, in an area of Swat called Bahrain, says that the Taliban have established total control. Asking not be named for fear of reprisal, he said that they have set up check posts at the entrance to Bahrain, from where they kidnap those they want, including young women.

"They've even warned the local schools to close the girl classes or face dire consequences. Yet the government says its writ is in Swat."

Another Swat resident said: "Every day I see armed Taliban move around freely. At the time of prayer, if they see anyone in his shop or walking about, they whip him with a stick."

The Pakistani Taliban, a copy of the Afghan extremist movement, have long controlled the tribal area along the Afghan border, which is a sanctuary for militants, including al-Qaeda. But it is their march into the heart of the country that has horrified ordinary Pakistanis, and the wider world. And the threat comes not just from the Taliban to the west. Islamic extremists, who are not part of the Taliban, are already entrenched in Islamabad and across the Punjab, the most populous province, seemingly ready to surface when their moment comes.

Islamabad's defences are being hurriedly fortified, with paramilitary troops stationed on the Margalla Hills, which overlook the city from the West. In the capital, there are thousands of followers of the radical Red Mosque, where there are now open calls for Islamic revolution at the weekly Friday prayers.

"The Taliban will not stop at Swat. They will come towards Islamabad," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a military analyst based in Lahore. "If the army is to take action against them, it is going to be a really bloody battle. And then civil government will be knocked out."

"Extremist groups based in Islamabad will move from within and they (Taliban) will build pressure from outside."

The footage Pakistanis have been watching shows them what they could expect.

A local journalist was invited to witness the execution, who filmed it with his mobile phone for a Pakistani channel, Dawn News. The Sunday Telegraph is showing the footage in the West for the first time.

There were no names for the two victims.

"Using the media is part of their (the Taliban's) psychological warfare," said Imtiaz Gul, chairman of Centre for Research and Security Studies, an independent think tank in Islamabad. "This way, they inject fear into the minds of people who might oppose them, keeping the majority silent."

After the couple were shot, the family were told to take their bodies away for burial. The punishment was administered by a local group of the Pakistani Taliban linked to warlord Baitullah Mehsud.
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Pakistan could collapse within six months: US expert

6 Apr 2009

from The Times of India

NEW YORK : Pakistan could collapse within six months in the face of snowballing insurgency, according to a top expert on guerrilla warfare.

Such dire prediction was given by David Kilcullen, a former adviser to top US military commander General David H. Petraeus.

Petraeus also echoed the same thought when he told a Congressional testimony last week that insurgency was one which could "take down" Pakistan, which is home to nuclear arms and al-Qaida.

Kilcullen's comments come as Pakistan is witnessing an unprecedented upswing in terrorists strikes and now some analysts in Pakistan and Washington are putting forward apocalyptic timetables for the country.

In an analysis piece, the New York Times cast doubts about the success of President Barack Obama's strategy offering Pakistan a partnership to defeat insurgency, but the Pakistanis still consider India enemy number one.

Officially, Pakistan's government welcomed Obama's strategy, with its hefty infusions of American money, hailing it as a "positive change", the paper said.

But as the Obama administration tries to bring Pakistanis to its side, large parts of the public, political class and the military have brushed off the plan, rebuffing the idea that the threat from al-Qaida and the Taliban, which Washington calls a common enemy, is so urgent, it added.

Some, including the Pak army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and President Asif Ali Zardari may be coming around but for the military, at least, India remains priority No. 1, as it has for the 61 years of Pakistan's existence, the paper said.

How to shift that focus in time for Pakistan to defeat a fast-expanding Islamic insurgency that threatens to devour the country is the challenge facing Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, and Richard C Holbrooke, the special envoy to the region, as they arrive in Pakistan for talks later this week, the Times emphasised.

Strengthening Pakistan's weak civilian institutions, updating political parties rooted in feudal loyalties and recasting a military "fixated on yesterday's enemy", and stuck in the traditions of conventional warfare, are generational challenges, the paper said, warning that Pakistan may not have the luxury of the long term to meet them.

Even before the insurgency has been fully engaged, however, many Pakistanis have concluded that reaching an accommodation with the militants is preferable to fighting them. Some, including mid-ranking soldiers, choose to see the militants not as the enemy, but as fellow Muslims who are deserving of greater sympathy than are the American aims, the paper added.

It is problematic whether the backing of Zardari, and the Obama administration's promise of USD 1.5 billion in aid for each of the next five years, can change the mood in the country, former interior minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao, who visited Washington last fall to meet some of the people who are now officials in the new administration, was quoted as saying.

Fighting the insurgency is commonly seen in Pakistan as an American cause, not a Pakistani one, he said.

There are questions, too, of whether the Obama's offer of nearly USD 3 billion in counterinsurgency aid can quickly convert the Pakistani military from a force trained to fight India on the plains of Punjab into an outfit that can conquer the mountains of the tribal areas, where the militants operate, the Times said.

"After such a long time of being with the Americans, the country has been through such stress and strain and nothing good has come of it," Sherpao told the paper. "A cross-section of people is dead set against the Americans. Another section is not happy but not vocal. About 1 to 2 per cent would say this policy of America should continue."

The distrust, the Times points out, has been heightened by charges from American officials, including General Petraeus and Holbrooke, that Pakistan's spy agency ISI is still supporting the Islamic militants who pour over the border to fight American troops in Afghanistan.

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Christian extremist kills 48 at Pakistan mosque -- no, wait...It was actually a Muslim

More Muslims Killing Muslims
from Jihad Watch.com
"A government official accused Islamist militants of carrying out the bombing in revenge for a recent offensive aimed in part at protecting the major supply route for NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan that passes in front of the mosque."

Remember this one the next time you hear a story about Muslims outraged over Americans, or Israelis returning fire from a mosque, or over alleged desecration of a Qur'an, etc.

by Riaz Khan
from Associated Press
March 27, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomber demolished a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers attending Friday prayers close to the Afghan border, killing at least 48 people and injuring scores more, officials said.

The attack in the Khyber region was the bloodiest in Pakistan this year and came hours before President Barack Obama was due to unveil a revised strategy expected to emphasize the need to eradicate militant havens along the Pakistan-Afghan frontier.

A government official accused Islamist militants of carrying out the bombing in revenge for a recent offensive aimed in part at protecting the major supply route for NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan that passes in front of the mosque.

"Residents of this area had cooperated and helped us a lot. These infidels had warned that they will take revenge," said Tariq Hayat, the top administrator of the Khyber tribal region. "They are the enemy of Pakistan. They are the enemy of Islam."

Rising violence in Pakistan is fueling doubts about the pro-Western government's ability to counter Taliban and al-Qaida militants also blamed for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.

The bomber hit the mosque, a popular stop for travelers motoring between Pakistan and Afghanistan, when about 250 people were attending Friday prayers, said Hayat....
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