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As I have mentioned several times on this blog, the only way to handle radicalized Muslims is to segregate them completely from the rest of society. That would require new laws to be passed in most countries, but no-one is even talking about it yet.
‘All avenues for his detention were exhausted’: Details leading up to
ISIS-inspired knife rampage in New Zealand released
4 Sep, 2021 11:54 / Updated 7 hours ago
Three people injured in an Auckland shopping mall by an offender tailed by surveillance officers remain in critical condition, authorities have announced, also shedding more light on circumstances that led to the bloody attack.
On Saturday, a High Court judge lifted a ban on the attacker’s identity disclosure and his name was made public. The assailant was Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, born in Sri Lanka. There had been plans to deport him, local media reported, saying that immigration officials have sought to revoke his status, but he appealed.
A total of seven people were wounded in the supermarket stabbing spree on Friday, three of whom are in critical condition. One victim is in serious condition and another in moderate condition, Reuters reported on Saturday citing an ambulance service. The remaining two are recovering at home, officials said, while also releasing the ages of the people who suffered from the attacker: three men aged 53, 57 and 77 and four women, 29, 43, 60 and 66 years old. While it was initially believed that the attacker managed to physically hurt six people, police later learned of one more person who had received a minor injury and hadn’t been hospitalized.
Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Police Commissioner Andrew Coster tried to explain how the 32-year old man under heavy surveillance managed to get hold of a deadly weapon and launch his attack before being shot dead by police who had been closely following him for nearly two months.
“This was a highly motivated individual who used a supermarket visit as a shield for an attack,” Ardern said, adding that the incident was “an incredibly tough set of circumstances.”
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster (R) listens to New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a press conference on September 4, 2021. © Mark Mitchell / POOL / AFP
Dubbing the attack “despicable” and “hateful,” the prime minister said only the “lone wolf” man was responsible for it, warning against a backlash aimed at the Muslim community. “It was carried out by an individual, not a faith,” she said.
His intention was to further Islam and to please Mohammed and Allah. You can't say Islam has no part in this. That's absurd.
The government had “utilized every legal surveillance power available to us to try and keep people safe from this individual,” Arden alleged, saying that “all avenues to continue his detention had been exhausted.”
Consequently, you need new tools to work with - segregation of radicals.
Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen arrived in New Zealand 10 years ago on a student visa and spent three years behind bars in his new country after authorities twice caught him with hunting knives and found out he owned and shared extremist propaganda content inspired by the Islamic State group. In a warning court report, the man was described as having a sense of entitlement, extreme attitudes and an isolated lifestyle.
He should have been deported right then!
However, earlier this year, a judge ruled his IS videos were not of the worst kind of illicit material and ordered that he be released and put under supervision instead. He lived at an Auckland mosque, from where he took a train and traveled to the Countdown supermarket, tailed by police at a distance.
Good decision, Judge. How do you feel about that now?
The attacker’s every move had been monitored around the clock for 53 days from July, the police commissioner told the media on Saturday, saying that some 30 officers had been involved in the operation. The man was “highly paranoid,” used counter-surveillance measures and on some occasions confronted members of the public who he thought were on his tail, Coster claimed.
On Friday, police officers in charge of the attacker were unable to follow him too closely in the supermarket as they could have disclosed themselves. Due to coronavirus restrictions, not many people were at the shop, so police waited near the entrance instead.
“The surveillance team following him observed him taking a trolley at the supermarket and begin shopping as we had observed him doing on previous occasions,” Coster explained, adding, “He was shopping as normal for approximately 10 minutes before the attack started.” The man, who grabbed his weapon from the supermarket shelf, was “very clever in the way he planned it,” or just “opportunistic and did it at short notice,” the police official concluded.
Countdown said on Saturday that all knives and scissors had been removed from its shops, for people “to feel safe,” and the supermarket group is considering whether to continue selling the items in the future. Other supermarkets followed suit, local media reported.
The attacker, who in 2017 was headed for Syria, presumably to join IS terrorists, but got arrested at Auckland Airport, had been known to multiple New Zealand agencies and the prime minister herself was personally aware of him before the Friday attack. “This was someone who was known to our national security agencies and was of concern and was being monitored constantly,” Ardern said, adding, “There are very few that fall into this category.”
She vowed that immediate changes would be made to anti-terrorism laws, with experts suggesting New Zealand officials are currently not able to adequately deal with such plots. “I am committing that as soon as parliament resumes, we will complete that work,” Ardern said, promising action “no later than by the end of this month.”
And that I don't doubt one bit. But will they do what they have to do to get these lunatics off the streets?
Taliban orders commanders to disarm & arrest fighters for
celebratory gunfire, says practice kills and maims civilians
5 Sep, 2021 10:58
A Taliban militant in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 4, 2021. © WANA/Reuters
The Taliban has issued strict guidelines against its members who shoot in the skies at weddings and victory celebrations. The order came after reports that people were hurt in Kabul, Afghanistan by celebratory gunfire.
Firing weapons in the air by militants during weddings and other celebrations leads to deaths and injuries and spreads fear among civilians, according to an instruction tweeted out by Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid on Sunday.
Military commanders in Kabul and other cities were told to immediately disarm and arrest anyone who fires in the air. Police chiefs and intelligence officials were instructed to identify and punish offenders.
The new rule was apparently meant to address reports in Afghan media that several people were killed and sustained gunshot wounds after Taliban members fired celebratory gunshots into the sky over Kabul on Friday night. The fighters were reacting to news of a major victory against their opponents in the northeastern Panjshir Province, a stronghold of the anti-Taliban resistance.
Mujahid warned on Saturday against wasting ammunition and endangering civilians with celebratory gunfire.
The Taliban, a hardline Islamist group, captured the majority of Afghanistan by August 15. The sweeping offensive ran concurrently with the final stage of the withdrawal of US troops, which was completed on August 30.
The celebratory gunfire Friday night was premature at best. The resistance in the Panjshir Valley is still fighting.
Leader of Afghanistan's ‘resistance’ group says he's ready to talk
with Taliban as they claim reaching Panjshir province capital
5 Sep, 2021 18:31
Ahmad Massoud says he is ready to talk with the Taliban if it withdraws from Panjshir valley. The Taliban, meanwhile, claimed its forces have reached the capital of the province.
The call for talks was issued by the head of the self-styled Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) on Sunday in a Facebook post. The son of the late mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud expressed readiness to end hostilities and talk with the Taliban, urging it to withdraw from the Panjshir valley, located north of Kabul.
“The NRF in principle agrees to solve the current problems and put an immediate end to the fighting and continue negotiations,” Massoud stated.
“To reach a lasting peace, the NRF is ready to stop fighting on condition that the Taliban also stop their attacks and military movements on Panjshir and Andarab,” he added, referring to a district located in the neighboring province of Baghlan. After such ceasefire is reached, a large meeting of Muslim scholars should be held to settle the differences between the warring sides, Massoud suggested.
In recent weeks, the Taliban has established control over most of the Afghan territory, seizing the capital city of Kabul. The fall of Kabul resulted in the disintegration of the late Afghan government and sent President Ashraf Ghani fleeing abroad.
Few areas, including the Panjshir valley, remained out of the Taliban’s control. The Taliban and the NRF forces have been engaged in open fighting over the past few days, with both sides claiming victories over each other.
While the Taliban said it established control over multiple districts of the province, the NRF said it captured hundreds of Taliban militants, including foreign nationals. Neither side, however, has managed to produce any public evidence to back up their claims.
Massoud’s call comes after the Taliban forces claimed they had reached the provincial capital town of Bazarak, securing neighboring districts. Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi said the group’s fighters had captured a large cache of weaponry and ammunition from the NRF forces.
At the time of this article's publication, the Taliban has not responded to Massoud’s statement. The opposing sides have made several attempts in talks already, with the negotiations ultimately flopping and both sides blaming each other for it.
It's not clear what the incentive would be for the Taliban to negotiate. They could eventually surround the Panjshir Valley and prevent military supplies from getting in and the NRF would have to surrender. It's hard to see why they would want to deal with Panjshir as a separate state.
Panjshir Valley, AFG
Iraq: Man guns down wife with Kalashnikov
Domestic violence surges in Iraq as country grapples with COVID-19
Published: September 05, 2021 21:09
Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent
Husband Murders Wife
Cairo: An Iraqi man had shot dead his wife with a Kalashnikov rifle near the capital Baghdad, a local news portal reported.
The suspect had fired shots Saturday at the woman in their house in the district of Al Wahda, south of Baghdad, after an unspecified dispute, Al Sumaria News added, quoting a security source.
“The killer was arrested and kept in custody. He frankly admitted to having committed the crime,” the source added, without specifying the motive for the murder. The ages of the couple were not revealed.
Another Brother Murders Sister
In recent months, Iraq has seen a series of incidents of family violence.
Last month, a 20-year-old Iraqi woman was stabbed to death near a bridge in Baghdad in a crime that sparked an outcry in the country as a chilling reminder of rising violence against females.
Later, police arrested her brother, accusing him of being the murderer due to a family row.
In May, an Iraqi doctor shot dead his wife during a dispute in the northern governorate of Kirkuk.
Experts blame a perceived upsurge in domestic violence in Iraq on economic woes compounded by an outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic after years of a devastating fight against Daesh terrorists in the country.
I have a different idea. This is what happens when men treat women as property rather than equals.
New Pakistan report says violence against women and children downplayed
Published: September 05, 2021 18:44
Zubair Qureshi, Correspondent
Islamabad: A new report in Pakistan has thrown the spotlight on the plight of women and children while highlighting the everyday risks of safety, security and rights violations being faced by them.
Women and children in Pakistan continue to face harassment and violence while the Pakistani media has failed to highlight these acts of torture, says a report titled ‘Tracking Numbers: State of violence against women and children.’
Issued by Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO), the report states that as many as 6,754 women were kidnapped and 1,890 raped during the first six months of the current year.
In Punjab alone, 3,721 cases of violence against women were registered during the said period, however, the media reported fewer cases in this regard, the report claims.
Giving details, it says, in Islamabad 34 rape cases were registered while in Punjab 752 cases of child abuse were registered. However, according to the SSDO only 27 cases were highlighted in the media.
The report further says out of 163 cases registered in Islamabad about kidnapping of women only 26 cases were reported in the media.
The report pointed out that Lahore was a hotspot district in Punjab and has the highest number of cases of rape, violence against women, kidnapping, domestic violence and child abuse followed by Faisalabad and Gujranwala.
Right to information
The report is based on information provided by mainstream English and Urdu print media and through access to official registered cases by using Right to Information (RTI) laws.
For collection of information under this research report, a set of eight indicators were developed; which were relatively easy to update periodically.
Out of these eight indicators, three indicators such as child abuse, child labour and child marriages relate to children. The other five indicators were domestic violence, violence against women, harassment of women at workplace, rape of women and kidnapping of women.
According to SSDO Director Shahid Jatoi, while violence against women and children was rampant in Punjab, the lack of proper space in the media over the subject was a more alarming trend.
Unless you are a woman or child!
“Lesser space in media compared to official data”
The less reporting in the media compared to the official data suggests lack of attention over such issues by the media over the alarming situation of human rights violations of women and children in Punjab and ICT, Jatoi added.
The report also stresses the need for all stakeholders including the government, politicians, law enforcement agencies, relevant departments, judiciary, media and civil society to come forward, develop joint action to spread awareness, implement laws to curb violence against women and children in the country.
This is one of the reasons why Pakistanis think their country is above reproach and incapable of being a world leader in women and child sexual abuse. In fact, while the numbers are dreadful they are woefully inadequate. The great majority of sexual abuse cases of women or children never gets reported to the police. So, while only one in 29 abuse cases make it into the newspapers, the real number is probably several times that - maybe one in 100.
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