Day: May 12, 2019
Gunmen storm five-star hotel in Pakistan, killing at least one
Pearl Continental Gwadar
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Pakistan’s southwestern port city of Gwadar on Saturday, killing at least one guard and battling security forces inside, officials and the army said.
Balochistan Home Minister Ziaullah Langove said most guests were evacuated from the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel, which helicopters circled as fighting was under way. Police said that in addition to the guard killed by the attackers, at least two other people were wounded but there was no final casualty total.
The military said at least three gunmen killed a guard at the entrance to the hotel when they entered. Security forces cordoned off the area and cornered the attackers in a staircase leading to the top floor, the military said in a statement.
The Balochistan Liberation Army, a group fighting for greater autonomy in Pakistan’s poorest province whose resources it says are exploited for outside interests, claimed responsibility in an emailed statement that said the attack was aimed at “Chinese and other foreign investors”.
A Twitter account apparently run by the insurgents said the attackers had “achieved all their targets” but there was no official confirmation that the fighting was over and officials said security forces were ensuring no surviving attackers remained concealed.
Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a statement condemning the attack. “Such attempts, especially in Balochistan are an effort to sabotage our economic projects and prosperity,” he said.
Gwadar is a strategic port on the Arabian Sea that is being developed as part of the $60 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is itself part of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project.
The Pearl Continental Hotel, on a hillside near the port, is used by foreign guests, including Chinese project staff, but there were none in the building at the time of the attack, Langove said.
The Chinese embassy in Islamabad condemned the attack and said “the heroic action of Pakistani army and law enforcement agencies is highly appreciated”.
Pakistani officials have said the security forces were on alert for attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began in early May.
Security across most of Pakistan has improved over recent years following a major crackdown after the country’s worst attack, when some 150 people, most of them children, were killed in an assault on a school in the western city of Peshawar in 2014.
But Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province, remains an exception and there have been several attacks this year, with at least 14 people killed last month in an attack on buses traveling between the southern city of Karachi and Gwadar.
The province is rife with ethnic, sectarian and separatist insurgencies, with several militant groups, including the Pakistani Taliban group Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Balochistan Liberation Army and the Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Saturday’s incident follows a bombing this week that targeted police outside a major Sufi shrine in Lahore, in the east of Pakistan, that killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 20, officials said.
Source : Reuters
Latest Sri Lanka arrest throws spotlight on Wahhabism in eastern hotbed
KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Sri Lankan authorities have arrested a Saudi-educated scholar for what they claim are links with Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings, throwing a spotlight on the rising influence of Salafi-Wahhabi Islam on the island’s Muslims.
Mohamed Aliyar, 60, is the founder of the Centre for Islamic Guidance, which boasts a mosque, a religious school and a library in Zahran’s hometown of Kattankudy, a Muslim-dominated city on Sri Lanka’s eastern shores.
“Information has been revealed that the suspect arrested had a close relationship with … Zahran and had been operating financial transactions,” said a police statement late on Friday.
The statement said Aliyar was “involved” with training in the southern town of Hambantota for the group of suicide bombers who attacked hotels and churches on Easter, killing over 250 people.
A police spokesman declined to provide details on the accusations.
Calls to Aliyar and his associates went unanswered. Reuters was unable to find contact details for a lawyer.
The government says Zahran, a radical Tamil-speaking preacher, was a leader of the group.
Two Muslim community sources in Kattankudy told Reuters his hardline views were partly shaped by ultra-conservative Salafi-Wahhabi texts that he picked up at the Centre for Islamic Guidance’s library around 2-3 years ago. The sources are not affiliated with the center.
“I used to always run into him at the center, reading Saudi journals and literature,” said one of the sources.
During that time, Zahran started criticizing the practice of asking God for help, for instance, arguing that such pleas were an affront to pure Islam.
ADVERTISEMENT
“That kind of teaching was not in Sri Lanka in 2016, unless you read it in Salafi literature,” the source added, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions in Kattankudy.
Salafism, a puritanical interpretation of Islam that advocates a return to the values of the first three generations of Muslims and is closely linked to Wahhabism, has often been criticized as the ideology of radical Islamists worldwide.
Wahhabi Islam has its roots in Saudi Arabia and is backed by its rulers, although Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has committed the kingdom to a more moderate form of Islam.
Other than the fact that Zahran visited the center, the sources in Kattankudy said they did not know of any personal ties between him and Aliyar.
Aliyar founded the center in 1990, a year after he graduated from the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, in what one resident said marked a key moment in the spread of Salafi doctrine in Kattankudy. The center was partly funded by Saudi and Kuwaiti donors, according to a plaque outside.
TROUBLEMAKER
Reuters spoke to three members of the center’s board before Aliyar’s arrest. They asked to remain anonymous, citing security concerns amid a backlash against some Muslims.
They said Zahran was a troublemaker and that they had warned authorities about his extremist views. The members said they thought Zahran frequented the library around a decade ago, but had no recollection of him visiting recently and denied that any of its books were to blame for his views.
Funding for the center came from local donations, student fees, and private donors who were classmates of Aliyar’s in Riyadh, the center’s sources said. Reuters was unable to immediately determine further details about the funding of the center.
The Saudi government communications office in Riyadh did not respond to requests for comment on the funding of the center.
Source : Reuters
All YOU LIKE 