ایران کے متنازعہ صدارتی انتخاب سے مذہبی طبقے کے مختلف گروپوں کے درمیان اختلافات کُھل کر سامنے آ گئے ہیں۔قدامت پسند مذہبی علما نے صدر محمود احمدی نژاد کے انتخاب کا خیر مقدم کیا ہے جب کہ اصلاح پسند رہنماوں نے انتخاب کےنتائج پر تنقید کی ہے۔
ایران میں قُم کا شہر اسلامی علوم کا مرکز ہے ۔ چنانچہ جب قُم سے علماء کے ایک گروپ نے ایک بیان جاری کیا جس میں ایران کے صدارتی انتخاب کے نتائج اور موجودہ حکومت کی قانونی حِیثیت پر تنقید کی گئی تھی، تو دنیا بھر میں حیرت کا اظہار کیا گیا۔
Vatanka کہتے ہیں کہ احمدی نژاد نے جو مذہبی عالم نہیں ہیں، پالیسی اور مذہب کے معاملے میں مذہبی طبقے کے مخالفت مول لے لی ہے۔انھوں نے مختلف وجوہات کی بنا پرمذہبی طبقے میں اپنے لیے بہت سے دشمن پیدا کر لیے ہیں۔ انھوں نے بعض ممتاز مذہبی شخصیتوں کے خلاف مہم چلائی ہے اور ان پر ناجائز طریقوں سے دولت اکٹھی کرنے کے الزامات عائد کیے ہیں۔ انتخابی مہم کے دوران آپ نے اس کا مشاہدہ کیا ہو گا۔ لیکن علما ء کے طبقے میں کچھ ایسے لوگ بھی ہیں جو خالصتاً مذہبی نقطہ نظر سے احمدی نژاد کے صدر بننے اور ان کے حکومت چلانے کے خلاف ہیں۔
مسٹر احمدی نژاد پہلی بار 2005 میں عوامی حمایت سے صدر منتخب ہوئے تھے ۔ انھوں نے ملک سے بد عنوانی ختم کرنے کا وعدہ کیا تھا۔ تجزیہ کار کہتے ہیں کہ بہت سے ایرانیوں کی نظر میں بر سر اقتدار مذہبی طبقہ مراعات یافتہ اور بد عنوان ہے اور اس نے لوٹ کھسوٹ مچا رکھی ہے ۔ اس وقت اور آج کل بھی مسٹر احمدی نژاد نے سابق صدر اور ممتاز مذہبی شخصیت علی اکبر رفسنجانی کو خاص طور سے تنقید کا نشانہ بنایا تھا۔
2006 میں صدر نے حکم دیا کہ عورتوں کو کھیلوں کے مقابلے دیکھنے کے لیے اسٹیڈیم میں آنے کی اجازت دے دی جائے ۔ اس پر ممتاز مذہبی علماء نے احمدی نژاد پر فحاشی کو فروغ دینے کا الزام لگایا۔ ان کے اس فیصلے کی اتنی زیادہ مخالفت ہوئی کہ انہیں اپنا فیصلہ واپس لینا پڑا۔ اطلاعات کے مطابق بعض علماء کو اس بات پر بھی اعتراض تھا کہ ایران کے صدر نے پوپ Benedict کوجو مسلمان دنیا کے بعض حلقوں میں متنازعہ شخصیت ہیں خط کیوں لکھا ۔
Syracuse University میں مطالعہ مشرق وسطیِ کے ڈائرکٹر Mehrzad Boroujerdi کہتے ہیں کہ مسٹر احمدی نژاد کو رہبر اعلیِ کی حمایت حاصل ہے لیکن انھوں نے کبھی بر سر اقتدار مذہبی طبقے کو ساتھ لے کر چلنے اور اس کے ساتھ رابطے استوار کرنے کی کوشش نہیں کی۔” قُم یا مشہد یا دوسرے اہم مقامات میں رہنے والے علما کے طبقے کے ساتھ مسٹر احمدی نژاد کے تعلقات شروع ہی سے اچھے نہیں تھے ۔ ہاں یہ ٹھیک ہے کہ خامنہ ای کے ساتھ ان کی گاڑی چھنتی ہے ۔ جہاں تک قُم کی ممتاز مذہبی شخصیتوں کا تعلق ہے انھوں نے نہ صرف خود کو ان سے دور رکھا ہے بلکہ ایسی باتیں بھی کہی ہیں جن کی وجہ سے وہ ان سے برگشتہ ہو گئے ہیں “۔
بعض لوگوں کو اس بات پر بھی حیرت ہوتی ہے کہ مسٹر احمدی نژاد بار بار غائب امام کا ذکر کرتے ہیں۔شیعوں کے عقیدے کے مطابق، آخری امام ایک ہزار سال قبل غائب ہو گئے تھے اور وہ دنیا کی رہنمائی اور امن و انصاف کے بول بالے کے لیے واپس آئیں گے ۔ مسٹر احمدی نژاد نے آخری امام یعنی مہدی علیہ السلام کے نزول کا بار بار ذکر کیا ہے ۔ ان کی اقوام متحدہ میں 2005 کی تقریر میں بھی امام مہدی کی آمد کا ذکر تھا۔ 2008 کی ایک تقریر میں انھوں نے کہا کہ دنیا مہدی علیہ السلام کے ہدایات کے مطابق چل رہی ہے اور ہمیں ملک کے معاملات میں ان کا ہاتھ نظر آتا ہے ۔
Mehrzad Boroujerdi کہتے ہیں کہ اس قسم کی باتوں سے بعض قدامت پسند مسلمان عالم ناخوش ہوتے ہیں۔اگر آپ آیت اللہ ہیں تو غائب امام کی آمد کا مطلب یہ ہو گاکہ پھر آپ کی کوئی حیثیت باقی نہیں رہے گی۔آپ کے پاس کرنے کو تو کچھ نہیں بچے گا۔چنانچہ احمدی نژاد کے بار بار مہدی علیہ ا لسلام کا ذکر کرنے سے مذہبی عالم خوش نہیں ہوتے۔
صدر کے روحانی استاد ایک انتہائی قدامت پسند عالم آیت اللہ محمد تقی مصباح یزدی ہیں۔ انتخاب کے تنازعے میں انھوں نے مسٹر احمدی نژاد کی حمایت کی ہے ۔ بعض تجزیہ کاروں کا خیال ہے کہ اگر ایران کوئی نئی راہ اختیار نہیں کرتا ، تو یزدی ایران کے اگلے رہبر اعلی ہوں گے۔
Jul. 13 - Just as Southeast Asia has been lifted by a resurgent China over the years, so have feelings of distrust towards the country, and nowhere more so than India which is still smarting from a border war it fought with China less than a decade after it found it had a new “neighbor.” The 1962 border clashes with China were a direct consequence of the Tibetan problem which had seen the Dalai Lama flee to India. Suddenly, instead of a benign Buddhist nation on along its northern territory, India had communist China, and the Tibetan buffer state was no more. Disputes that had previously been a diplomatic matter between two friendly nations became frayed as China’s take on Tibet’s historic relationship with India took on a darkened tone to that which had preceded it under the Buddhist-led regime.
China’s rise to prominence on the international stage since then has not always been smooth, and its diplomacy has often been seen as regional bullying. China’s recent use of its veto power at the ADB to deny India development funds for its northern state of Arunachal Pradesh coupled with Rio Tinto executives being detained for spying closely following a denial by Australia of China’s desire to acquire some of the countries mineral assets looks more aggressive than peaceful. Indeed, such is the forceful nature of China’s statements these days that the country is in danger of losing the goodwill it built up during the hosting of last year’s Olympics.
Recent events in Tibet and Xinjiang are now starting to spark regional concerns. Indeed, no less a body than the Times of India, publishing an interview with Bharat Verma, editor of the Indian Defense Review, claims that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from “unprecedented” internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country. “China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century.” says Verma
Noting that one of the joys of reading India’s free media – no censorship here – is the inevitable crackpots it throws up. However, China needs to be wary of signals, intentional or otherwise, of the diplomatic, and public relations image that it often portrays. Still wanting to be appreciated, if not loved internationally, China continually throws spanners into its own works with a far too heavy handed diplomatic and militaristic approach. India’s military spending, as a percentage of GDP, is 2.5 percent. Is it really necessary for China to be spending 4.3 percent of its GDP – which again is considerably larger than India’s – on its military?
Verma’s points – a covert operation by Beijing giving North Korea nuclear technology and missiles – are the sort of nonsense one can fairly easily debunk. However, when mixed in with his views on Pakistan, as he points out, long China’s western ally against India, and a Pakistan/US alliance diminishing Pakistan’s reliance upon China, a “nervous” Beijing, able to strike at India becomes just a little more rational. With China apparently hell bent on upsetting other countries via using diplomatic means gained to reward it for its development in a manner that seems more akin to punishing nations it has commercial disputes with, the concerns are writ large on the wall. Government interference in Chinese commerce is steadily growing, and China will take commercial action at a governmental and diplomatic level to get its way. Whether that leads to the apocalyptic scenario that it attacks India seems rather off beam. But Verma, in his article, has drawn a line of concern in the sand.
A 14-year-old boy, Irfan, was crossing the road near his house in Delhi when a Tavera car screeched to a halt near him, he was bundled into the car and pinned down under the heavy feet with pistol kept to his head.
The mother kept searching for the boy. Had it not the car's numberplate and the judiciary's help, the boy may not have been tracked and released in ten days, from a secret Abu Gharaib-like torture cell in faraway Gujarat where he underwent such torture which even the adults can't even dream to endure.
This explosive story by news magazine 'The Week' has caused ripples in administrative circles. After a long time, a news magazine has done such an investigative story that brings to light something which was either not known or just talked about in whispers.
The magazine's journalist has unearthed and located these secret detention camps a la Abu Ghraib in Iraq, which are present in several Indian cities. The Week's managing editor Philip Mathew has written a special full page introduction for the story and the purpose of this extraordinary revelation. He writes:
..The muffled cry will never reach you. Nor the snap of bone. It is a strange silence, as if tranquilised by terror....the cover story is vastly different from Hitlerian terror, what is common though is the sadistic streak that strips a human of his dignity and sometimes his life...
The Week's cover story on secret torture champers comes at a time when mature democracies are pausing to listen to their conscience....many innocents suffer grievously as they were picked up on mere suspicion and had no access to legal help, nor their families know where they had been taken...
The extensive groundwork and the interviews by The Week's senior correspondent Syed Nazakat are a revelation. Yes, terrorists need to be treated differently. But does the organised might of the state need to torture 14-year-old innocent minor by abducting them and keeping them in soundproof cells that don't have windows and where new definitions of torture are scripted every minute?
Many are traumatised for their life and others die in these chambers without anybody's knowledge. Former DGP and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer, Dr KS Subramanian's interview is also an eye-opener. He doesn't deny about such practices and says, "...in terrorist-related cases, the police may feel incentive to describe people as terrorists and kill them for professional reasons and career advancement.'
He mentions how farmers were killed in the name of Naxalites. The exhaustive report also tells about the exact location of these terror cells in Kolkata, Palanpur (Gujarat), Delhi, Mumbai and Guwahati--often in houses faraway from police stations.
The importance of the story lies in the fact that often journalists working on a particular beat get sympathetic and close to the system, rather than the citizens. In turn, they turn their back on such grave abuse of human rights. However, the issue is that we always feel it is 'the other' who suffers, not us and we forget.
When women get gang raped in custody, many feel that such incidents keep happening to Dalits and Tribals or perhaps to that particular class of 'poor'. When innocents get killed in encounters, we remain indifferent. And in process cede our rights and liberties.
The use of drugs through injections, water boardings, attaching electrodes on genitals and other techniques of torture (as described by the magazine) are not something which any civilised state should allow on innocent citizens.
As the Week's editor writes, "...Irfan is not just Tasleema's 14 year old son. He is an Indian citizen with rights, just like your son and mine..... ". Read the story. Link to the editor's introduction and the story 'India's secret torture chambers'. It's chilling and shocking to say the least. Congratulations to the writer and the magazine for their courage.
By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: Was Subhash Bhan Sadh, Officer on Special Duty in the Communalism Control Cell of the UP Home Department, who died by falling from a running train in New Delhi on April 30, 2000, carrying the same missing Babri Masjid files for which the state government last week ordered CBI enquiry? Was Bhan’s death accidental or was he murdered?
His father says his son was murdered, and so he has demanded the UP government and CBI to include enquiry about the reasons of his son’s death in the purview of the missing Babri file investigation. He is sure that if CBI solved the mystery of his son’s death, it will automatically solve the mystery of the missing Babri files.
Late OSD’s father Bir Bhan Sadh has alleged that his son’s was not an accidental death but he was murdered by a conspiracy as he was carrying crucial secret files related to the Babri Masjid case, said a PTI report yesterday. Bir Bhan Sadh has said that when on hearing the news about the accident he reached Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital his son told him about the crucial Babri files in his suitcase which he was carrying and requested him to submit those files to the then Home Secretary of UP. But Sadh senior said he did not find any document in the suitcase given to him by the local police in Delhi.
Last week the UP government has also admitted that the officer was the last to have the Babri files. Appearing before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on July 7, UP Chief Secretary submitted a letter from the Home Secretary stating that the missing files had last been taken by Subhash Bhan Sadh. The OSD was on his way to appear before the Liberhan Commission which was probing the Babri Masjid demolition. After 17 years of investigation, the commission submitted its report – yet to be made public – on this June 30.
From the day one Bir Bhan Sadh never accepted the police version about the incident in which his son was killed. Alleging murder and probe for that he approached the Delhi High Court which ordered the Delhi Police to probe the case. The police submitted a report but it was asked to reinvestigate. Reinvestigation report was not submitted. Then CID was asked to probe. It also did not submit any report. As the CBI has now been asked to probe Babri missing files, Sadh senior has urged the agency to look into his son’s death afresh.
An Indian Express story dated July 9 says: “He (OSD) boarded the Kashi-Vishwanath Express in Lucknow on April 30, 2000 since he had to appear before the Liberhan Commission the next day. Just as the train entered New Delhi’s Tilak Bridge station, he met with an “accident”.
In a petition in the Delhi High Court, his father, Bir Bhan Sadh, said his son was carrying secret files which were never found. He alleged that his son was murdered, pushed from a running train as it slowed down at Tilak Bridge station. He fell in the gap between the platform and the train. Rushed to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Sadh died the next day.
The Delhi High Court asked the Delhi Police to investigate Sadh’s death and file a report by August 22, 2000. Family advocate Randhir Jain said a report was filed and a reinvestigation directed. But the reinvestigation report was never filed, he said. In January 2002, the court asked the CID to investigate. Jain said there was again no progress.”
As CBI has been asked to enquire into the missing files of Babri Masjid, will it affect the court proceeding in the Babri Masjid title suit that the Special Bench of the Allahabad High Court is hearing?
“Case will not be held up for this reason. The court proceeding will continue and we hope verdict in six months,” Advocate Mushtaque Ahmed Siddique told TwoCircles.net. Advocate Siddiqui is assisting Advocate Zafaryab Jilani in the Babri title suit on behalf Muslim parties to the case.
Asked if the missing papers will affect the title suit of Babri Masjid, Advocate Siddiqui said: “These papers were important but not such that they can affect the title of the Masjid. They could have substantiated our point rather strongly and clearly. For example, as for the date of installation of idol in the Babri Masjid, the missing government papers could have determined it, now the court, if papers are never found, will rely on witnesses and other proofs.”
On every Friday hundreds of Muslims from entire Rohini area in North-West Delhi gather for Juma Prayers. After the prayers the management body collects donations from the Namazis. Everyone willingly takes part as per their capacity. “Last Friday Rs 5000 was collected. Today about Rs 8000 has been collected,” says Arman Khan, a namazi who had come from Sector 11 of the Rohini area.
At present people are offering Five Time prayers and Juma Prayer inside a kuccha wall erected some weeks ago to acquire the land. They hope very soon they will start building the mosque. Yesterday was fourth Friday since the namaz established in the mosque in mid-June. There is apparently no tension now in the atmosphere. Since the violent protest four weeks ago by anti-social elements against the namaz here, the mosque has been heavily guarded by the Delhi police.
For first three Fridays since June 15 – when the Delhi Development Authority handed over the piece of land in Rohini’s Sector 16 to the Darsgah Islamia Intezamia Committee – the local Muslims had to face tough resistance from the collaboration of property developers, who had been eyeing the piece of land at the prime location in the area, and affiliates of some Hindutva organizations.
The piece of land has been acquired by the Darsgah Islamia Intezamia Committee, formed years ago to get the land for the mosque, from the DDA through genuine and legal process. Yet, the anti-social elements came on street on June 26 (Friday) and forcibly tried to prevent the faithful from offering the prayer. Several of them were beaten up while on their way to the mosque. Thanks to the timely action of the Delhi police a major communal clash was averted.
Iqtedar Hussain, head of the Darsgah Islamia Intezamia Committee, says it is property developers who spread rumours to arouse communal passion and to prevent Muslims from building the mosque on their legally purchased land.
“Some property developers had spread false propaganda against Muslims that if they were allowed to build the mosque, they will open here meat shop. They are very dirty people and will harm the atmosphere of the area,” says Hussain.
He refutes the point that local Hindus are against the mosque. He says it is property developers who are misguiding them. And as they have seen us offering prayers peacefully for the last one month, so local Hindus are now coming out of the influence of propaganda, he says.
This is the first mosque in entire Rohini of a few lakh people. Muslims are around 10,000 in the area. As they had to go several kilometers away for Juma prayers and for the last eight years they were offering prayers in a park, they had been demanding the government to allot the land for a mosque. Local MLA and MP have also supported our demand, says Hussain.
Arman Khan, originally from Bahraich district in UP and living in Sector 11 of Rohini for last five years, also says that there has never been any communal feeling. He and his maternal uncle Nafees Khan runs a chain of juice shop in Rohini. “More than 95% of our customers are Hindus but we never felt any Hind-Muslim thing,” they say.
They are happy that the mosque will be built in the locality.
Darsgah Islamia Intezamia Committee president Iqtedar Hussain can be contacted on 9312629330.
TURBAT, Pakistan — Three local political leaders were seized from a small legal office here in April, handcuffed, blindfolded and hustled into a waiting pickup truck in front of their lawyer and neighboring shopkeepers. Their bodies, riddled with bullets and badly decomposed in the scorching heat, were found in a date palm grove five days later.
Yousuf Muhammad, right, said he was detained in February, a few months before his brother was abducted and fatally shot.
People in Turbat say nationalist sympathizers are detained.
Local residents are convinced that the killings were the work of the Pakistani intelligence agencies, and the deaths have provided a new spark for revolt across Baluchistan, a vast and restless province in Pakistan’s southwestwhere the government faces yet another insurgency.
Although not on the same scale as the Taliban insurgency in the northwest, the conflict in Baluchistan is steadily gaining ground. Politicians and analysts warn that it presents a distracting second front for the authorities, drawing off resources, like helicopters, that the United States provided Pakistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Baluch nationalists and some Pakistani politicians say the Baluch conflict holds the potential to break the country apart — Baluchistan makes up a third of Pakistan’s territory — unless the government urgently deals with years of pent up grievances and stays the hand of the military and security services.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Baluch were rounded up in a harsh regime of secret detentions and torture under President Pervez Musharraf, who left office last year. Human rights groups and Baluch activists say those abuses have continued under President Asif Ali Zardari, despite promises to heal tensions.
“It’s pretty volatile,” said Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, the governor of Baluchistan. “When you try to forcibly pacify people, you will get a reaction.”
The discovery of the men’s bodies on April 8 set off days of rioting and weeks of strikes, demonstrations and civil resistance. In schools and colleges, students pulled down the Pakistani flag and put up the pale blue, red and green Baluch nationalist flag.
Schoolchildren still refuse to sing the national anthem at assemblies, instead breaking into a nationalist Baluch song championing the armed struggle for independence, teachers and parents said.
For the first time, women, traditionally secluded in Baluch society, have joined street protests against the continuing detentions of nationalist figures. Graffiti daubed on walls around this town call for independence and guerrilla war, which persists in large parts of the province.
The nationalist opposition stems from what it sees as the forcible annexation of Baluchistan by Pakistan 62 years ago at Pakistan’s creation. But much of the popular resentment stems from years of economic and political marginalization, something President Zardari promised to remedy but has done little to actually address.
In interviews, people in and around Turbat said the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies were still doggedly pursuing nationalist sympathizers.
A case in point, they say, is that of the three political figures who were killed: Gul Muhammad, Lala Munir and Sher Muhammad, all prominent in the nationalist movement.
Government officials say the men were being prosecuted for activities against the state but deny any involvement in their deaths. People are not convinced and say that while the men supported independence, they were not involved in the armed struggle.
Mir Kachkol Ali, the men’s lawyer, who witnessed their abduction, said the killings represented a deepening of the campaign by the Pakistani military to crush the Baluch nationalist movement. “Their tactics are not only to torture and detain, but to eliminate,” he said.
The insurgents, who say they are led by the Baluchistan Liberation Army, have escalated their tactics, too. A prominent example was the kidnapping in February of an American citizen, John Solecki, the head of the United Nations refugee organization in the provincial capital, Quetta.
The abduction was carried out by a breakaway group of young radicals who wanted to draw international attention to their cause and to exchange their captive for Baluch being held by the security services.
Mr. Solecki was released in April after the intervention of Baluch leaders, including Gul Muhammad. Baluch leaders speculate that the intelligence agencies may have killed Mr. Muhammad and his colleagues to provoke the kidnappers into murdering the American, which would have branded the Baluch nationalists as terrorists.
Instead, “the killing of these three has centralized the national movement of Baluchistan,” Mr. Ali, the lawyer, said.
He and others said they had no doubt that the intelligence services were responsible.
The three men were in his office on April 3 when a half-dozen armed men seized them, he said.
“They were persons of the agencies,” Mr. Ali said. “They were in plain clothes, but from their hairstyles, their language, we know them.” Mr. Ali has lodged a case with the police against the intelligence agencies for the abduction and murder of the three.
Nisar Ahmed, a shopkeeper and friend of the political leaders, said he saw them pushed into a pickup truck. He also said that the armed men appeared to be intelligence agents and that they were escorted by a second vehicle with 10 more armed men, also in plain clothes, who looked to be from the Frontier Corps paramilitary force.
While the insurgency remains strong in other parts of Baluchistan, the military has largely crushed the resistance around Turbat since March 2007, yet armed men are still in the hills and continue to be rounded up, residents here said.
Yousuf Muhammad, the brother of Gul Muhammad, one of the slain political leaders, said that in February he was hung by his hands from the ceiling for 48 hours in a Pakistani military camp.
“They came to arrest Gul Muhammad but they found me,” he said. Another brother, Obeidullah, said Gul Muhammad had received threats from people in the intelligence agencies warning him to stop his work. The latest came 10 days before his death, he said.
A group of students in the nearby town of Tump said they were rounded up and held in various army camps without charge for seven months in 2007. Some said they were suspended by their hands or their feet until they passed out, were beaten and were held in solitary confinement. Each showed a blackened mark where a toenail had been pulled out.
The arrests and disappearances have hardened attitudes, townspeople said, particularly among the young.
Even the governor, who is the president’s representative in the province, expressed exasperation at the Zardari government’s inaction in addressing the needs of the population. Many Baluch are increasingly cynical about the government’s ability to change things.
Sayed Hassan Shah, the minister for industry and commerce in Baluchistan, said his party was now demanding provincial autonomy.
“This is our last option,” he said. “If we fail, then maybe we have to think of liberation or separation.”
ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.
The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.
Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.
“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.
The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.
Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.
Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.
Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.
Israel has identified three prime targets south of Tehran which are believed to be involved in Iran’s nuclear programme:
Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium enrichment
A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan where, according to a statement by an Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels
A heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future produce enough plutonium for a bomb Israeli officials believe that destroying all three sites would delay Iran’s nuclear programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in fear of a “second Holocaust”.
The Israeli government has warned repeatedly that it will never allow nuclear weapons to be made in Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared that “Israel must be wiped off the map”.
Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, has described military action against Iran as a “last resort”, leading Israeli officials to conclude that it will be left to them to strike. Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three possible routes have been mapped out, including one over Turkey. Air force squadrons based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, have trained to use Israel’s tactical nuclear weapons on the mission. The preparations have been overseen by Major General Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the Israeli air force.
Sources close to the Pentagon said the United States was highly unlikely to give approval for tactical nuclear weapons to be used. One source said Israel would have to seek approval “after the event”, as it did when it crippled Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak with airstrikes in 1981. Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released. The Israelis believe that Iran’s retaliation would be constrained by fear of a second strike if it were to launch its Shehab-3 ballistic missiles at Israel. However, American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West. Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world’s oil.
Some sources in Washington said they doubted if Israel would have the nerve to attack Iran. However, Dr Ephraim Sneh, the deputy Israeli defence minister, said last month: “The time is approaching when Israel and the international community will have to decide whether to take military action against Iran.”
By Mark H. Gaffney
July 07, 2009 "ICH" --- The evidence was crucial because it undermined the official explanation that Hani Hanjour crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at high speed after executing an extremely difficult top gun maneuver. But to understand how all of this played out, let us review the case in bite-size pieces...
In August 2004 when the 9/11 Commission completed its official investigation of the September 11, 2001 attack, the commission transfered custody of its voluminous records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).[1] There, the records remained under lock and key for four and a half years, until last January when NARA released a fraction of the total for public viewing. Each day, more of the released files are scanned and posted on the Internet, making them readily accessible. Although most of the newly-released documents are of little interest, the files I will discuss in this article contain important new information.
As we know, the 9/11 Commission did not begin its work until 2003–––more than a year after the fact. By this time a number of journalists had already done independent research and published articles about various facets of 9/11. Some of this work was of excellent quality. The Washington Post, for example, interviewed aviation experts who stated that the plane allegedly piloted by Hani Hanjour [AA Flight 77] had been flown “with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm.”[2] Yet, strangely, when other journalists investigated Hani Hanjour they found a trail of clues indicating he was a novice pilot, wholly incapable of executing a top gun maneuver and a successful suicide attack in a Boeing 757. By early 2003 this independent research was a matter of public record, which created a serious problem for the 9/11 Commission...
By all accounts Hani Hanjour was a diminutive fellow. He stood barely five feet tall and was slight of build. As a young man in his hometown of Taif, Saudi Arabia, Hanjour cultivated no great dreams of flying airplanes. He was satisfied with a more modest ambition: he wanted to become a flight attendant. That is, until his older brother Abulrahman encouraged him to aim higher. Even so, Hani Hanjour’s aptitude for learning appears to have been rather limited. Although he resided in the US for about 38 months over a ten-year period that ended on 9/11, Hanjour never learned to speak or write English, a telling observation about his capacity for learning. As we will discover, he actually flunked a written test for a driver’s license just weeks before 9/11.
While it is true that Hanjour trained at various flight schools in the US, the evidence shows he was a perpetual novice. Hanjour dropped out of his first school, the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics, located in Oakland, after attending only a few classes. Next, he enrolled at Cockpit Resource Management (CRM), a flight school in Scottsdale, Arizona. But his performance as a student at CRM was less than adequate. Duncan K.M. Hastie, owner of the school, described Hanjour as “a weak student” who was “wasting our resources.”[3]
After several weeks, Hanjour withdrew from the program, then returned in 1997 for another short period of instruction. This on and off pattern of behavior was typical of the man. Hastie says that over the next three years Hanjour called him at least twice a year, and each time wanted to return for more training. By this time, however, it was obvious to Hastie that his erstwhile student had no business in a cockpit. Hastie refused to let Hanjour come back. “I would recognize his voice,” Hastie said. “He was always talking about wanting more training. Yes, he wanted to be an airline pilot. That was his stated goal. That’s why I didn’t allow him to come back. I thought ‘You’re never going to make it’.”[4]
Rejected by CRM, Hanjour enrolled at nearby Sawyer Aviation, also located in the Phoenix area. Wes Fults, a former instructor at Sawyer, later described it as the school of last resort. Said Fults: “it was a commonly held truth that, if you failed anywhere else, go to Sawyer.” Fults remembers training Hanjour, whom he describes as “a neophyte.” He says Hani “got overwhelmed with the instruments” in the school’s flight simulator. “He had only the barest understanding of what the instruments were there to do,” said Fults. “He [Hanjour] used the simulator three or four times, then disappeared like a fog.”[5] I must emphasize to the reader, I am not making this up. Other accounts by Newsday, the New York Times, as well as the FOX network, all confirm that Hani Hanjour was at best a novice pilot.
Evading the Language Requirement
In fact, because fluency in English is required to qualify for a US pilot’s license, Hanjour’s atrocious English should have barred him from ever obtaining a license. But it seems that Hanjour exploited a loophole in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system, which for years has outsourced the pilot certification process. According to a June 2002 story in the Dallas Morning News, Hanjour was certified in April 1999 as an “Airplane Multi-Engine Land/Commercial Pilot” by Daryl Strong, one of the FAA’s 20,000 designated pilot examiners.[6] Although an FAA official later defended the agency’s policy of using private contractors, a critic, Heather Awsumb, took issue with it. Awsumb is a spokesperson for the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) Union, which represents more than 11,000 FAA and Defense Department employees. She pointed out that the FAA does not have anywhere near enough staff to oversee its 20,000 designated inspectors, all of whom have a financial interest in certifying as many pilots as possible. It seems that Hanjour evaded the language requirement by finding an examiner willing to ignore the rule. Said Awsumb: “They receive between $200 and $300 for each flight check. If they get a reputation for being too tough, they won’t get any business.” According to Awsumb, the present system allows “safety to be sold to the lowest bidder.”[7]
Later, Hanjour’s horrible English prompted one flight school, Jet Tech, to question the authenticity of his FAA-approved pilot’s license. Jet Tech was another school in the Phoenix area where Hanjour sought continuing instruction. Peggy Chevrette, operation manager at Jet Tech, later told FOX News: “I couldn’t believe that he had a license of any kind with the skills that he had.”[8] She explained that Hanjour’s English was so bad it took him five hours to complete an oral exam that normally should have taken about two.
But it wasn’t just his poor English that failed to impress. In his evaluation the Jet Tech flight instructor wrote that the “student [Hanjour] made numerous errors during his performance and displayed a lack of understanding of some basic concepts. The same was true during review of systems knowledge….I doubt his ability to pass an FAA [Boeing 737] oral at this time or in the near future.” The 737 instructor concluded his evaluation with a final entry: “He [Hanjour] will need much more experience flying smaller A/C [aircraft] before he is ready to master large jets.”[9] The 9/11 Commission Report fails to discuss or even mention this negative written evaluation, even while presenting Hanjour’s substandard performance in a Boeing 737 simulator as sufficient evidence that Hanjour could fly a Boeing 757, an even larger plane![10] The wording of the final report succeeds in giving this impression, however dubious, even while obscuring the facts: an amazing achievement of propaganda.
Early in 2001, Peggy Chevrette, the operation manager at Jet Tech, contacted the FAA repeatedly to convey her concerns about Hanjour. Eventually John Anthony, a federal inspector, showed up at the school and examined Hanjour’s credentials. But Anthony found them in order and took no further action. The inspector even suggested that Jet Tech provide Hanjour with an interpreter. This surprised Chevrette because it was a violation of FAA rules. “The thing that really concerned me,” she later told FOX News, “Was that John had a conversation in the hallway with Hani and realized what his skills were at that point and his ability to speak English.”[11] Evidently, the inspector also sat in on a class with Hanjour.
FOX News was unable to reach John Anthony for comment, but FAA spokesperson Laura Brown defended the FAA employee. “There was nothing about the pilot’s actions” she said, “to signal criminal intent or that would have caused us to alert law enforcement.”[12] This is true enough. The Jet Tech staff never suspected that Hani Hanjour was a terrorist. According to Marilyn Ladner, vice-president Pan Am International, the company that owned Jet Tech, “It was more of a very typical instructional concern that ‘you really shouldn’t be in the air’.”[13] Although Pan Am dissolved its Jet Tech operation shortly after 9/11, a former employee who knew Hanjour expressed amazement “that he [Hanjour] could have flown into the Pentagon. [because] He could not fly at all.”[14]
The “Scouting” Flights
We know that in the months before the September 11, 2001 attack Hani Hanjour rented planes at several small airports on the outskirts of New York City and Washington DC. The 9/11 Commission Report mentions these local flights and suggests that Hanjour was scouting the terrain: familiarizing himself with possible suicide targets.[15] But the record also shows the same pattern described above. For example, on May 29, 2001 Hanjour rented a plane at a small airport in Teterboro, New Jersey and flew “the Hudson Tour,” accompanied by a flight instructor. However, the next day, when Hanjour returned for a repeat flight the same instructor “would not allow it because of Hanjour’s poor piloting skills.”[16] The 9/11 Commission Report actually cites this incident, but in a context that diminishes its significance.[17]
The pattern played out again on August 16-17, 2001 when Hanjour attempted to rent a plane at Freeway Airport, in Bowie, Maryland, about twenty miles from Washington. Although Hanjour presented his FAA license, according to Newsday the Freeway airport manager insisted that instructors first accompany him on a test flight to evaluate his piloting skills. During three such flights over two days in a single-engine Cessna 172, instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner observed what others had before them. Hanjour had trouble controlling and landing the aircraft. Afterward, Baxter interviewed Hanjour extensively about his flight training and experience, and also reviewed his flight log, which documented 600 hours of flight time. On this basis she and Conner declined to approve a current license rating until Hanjour returned for more training. On their recommendation, Freeway’s chief instructor Marcel Bernard refused to rent Hanjour a plane.[18] Notice, this was less than a month before 9/11. When I reached Bernard by phone he confirmed the details of the story by Newsday.[19] So did Ben Conner when I spoke with him.[20] Conner also emphasized that the issue was not simply Hanjour's poor English. It was everything, i.e., his general ineptitude.
Curiously, The 9/11 Commission Report acknowledges Hanjour’s poor English and sub-standard flying skills. The report even mentions that flight instructors had urged Hanjour to give up trying to become a pilot.[21] Strangely, however, another passage (in a footnote) describes Hanjour as “the [al Qaeda] operation’s most experienced pilot,” suggesting that the commission had a mixed opinion about Hanjour.[22] In the end the official investigation evidently interpreted Hanjour’s FAA license as sufficient proof that he had “persevered” in overcoming his issues.[23] The word “persevered” is straight out of the report.
But why did the commission ignore the multiple open-sourced accounts cited above, all mutually corroborative, indicating that Hanjour would have been lost in the cockpit of a Boeing 757 and was barely qualified to fly a single-engine Cessna? It is notable that The 9/11 Commission Report fails to mention the negative written evaluation by Hanjour’s Jet Tech flight instructor. The omission is serious because a glance at the timeline shows that Hanjour’s 5-6 weeks of training at Jet Tech occurred in February-March 2001, that is, after he had already earned his FAA license. Perseverance obviously was not enough. The instructor’s negative evaluation was based on Hanjour’s actual skill-set at the time, license or no license. Nor does the final report so much as mention Hanjour’s test flight at Freeway airport, or the fact that he failed it. These are telling omissions. Obviously, the commission screened out testimony that conflicted with the official narrative of what happened on that terrible day. However, this is not the full story. As we are about to learn, the recently released 9/11 files have raised disturbing new questions.
The Other Flight Instructor
It turns out that just three days after Hani Hanjour failed a flight evaluation in a Cessna 172 at Freeway airport he showed up at Congressional Air Charters, located down the road at Gaithersburg airport, also in the Washington suburbs. Once again Hanjour attempted to rent a plane, and again he was asked to go up with an instructor for a flight evaluation to confirm his flight skills. The plane was the same: a Cessna 172. Yet, on this occasion Hanjour passed with flying colors and, later, this other instructor gave testimony to the commission that turned out to be crucial. The final report mentions the instructor’s name only once in a brief endnote buried at the back of the report. The note states:
Hanjour successfully conducted a challenging certification flight supervised by an instructor at Congressional Air Charter of Gaithersburg, Maryland, landing at a small airport with a difficult approach. The instructor thought Hanjour may have had training from a military pilot because he used a terrain recognition system for navigation. Eddie Shalev interview. (Apr. 9, 2004)[24]
The note gives a name, Eddie Shalev, but no other information about him. Indeed, his identity remained a mystery until January 2009, when NARA released the 9/11 files.[25] Nonetheless, David Ray Griffin had already identified the key questions in his 2008 book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited. Wrote Griffin: “How could an instructor in Gaithersburg [i.e., Shalev] have had such a radically different view of Hanjour’s abilities from that of all of the other flight instructors who worked with him? Who was this instructor? How could this report be verified?”[26]
These are important questions because the two assessments of Hani Hanjour’s flight skills are so radically different that both cannot be correct. The evaluations, made just days apart, are contradictory, hence, mutually exclusive; which raises the disturbing possibility that someone could be lying.
The FBI File
Fortunately, another newly released document, the FBI file on Hani Hanjour, sheds additional light on the case.[27] The file includes a timeline and evidently was compiled to document the government’s case against Hanjour. I learned about it from a source on the commission, a staffer who insisted to me in an email that it authenticates Hani Hanjour’s flight training. At a glance it appears to do that. However, on closer examination the file is much less impressive and I have to wonder if the staffer actually studied it. As we will see, the document not only falls short of confirming Hanjour’s flight skills, it shows signs of having been “enhanced” to obscure the record.
Crucially, the FBI file includes not a scintilla of evidence that Hani Hanjour ever trained in a Boeing 757. Although Hanjour did some sessions a Boeing 737 simulator, as we have already seen, the press accounts, more importantly, his own instructor’s written evaluation, offer a clear and unambiguous assessment of his actual skills. It is also important to realize that even if Hanjour had mastered the controls of a Boeing 737, this would not have qualified him to execute a high-speed suicide crash in a Boeing 757, a significantly larger and less maneuverable aircraft. Such is the view of commercial pilots who fly these planes every day.[28]
One such pilot, Philip Marshall, who is licensed to fly Boeing 727s, 737s, 747s, as well as 757s and 767s, recently authored a book, False Flag 911, in which he states categorically that the alleged 9/11 hijacker pilots, including Hani Hanjour, could never have flown 767s and 757s into buildings at high speed without advanced training and practice flights in that same aircraft over a period of months. As Marshall put it: “Hitting a 90-foot target [i.e., the Pentagon] with a 757 at 500 mph is extremely difficult -- absolutely impossible for first-time fliers of a heavy airliner. It’s like seeing Tiger Woods hit a 300-yard one-iron and someone telling you he never practiced the shot.”[29] Marshall speculates that the hijackers may have received advanced flight lessons from Arabic-speaking instructors at a secret desert base somewhere in Arizona or Nevada, possibly arranged by complicit Saudi diplomats, or by members of the Saudi royal family.[30] This is why Hanjour’s inability to pass a test flight evaluation at Freeway airport just weeks before 9/11 is so significant: It tends to rule out Marshall’s theory of advanced instruction.
Close inspection of the FBI file also shows that someone padded the record to put the best face on Hanjour’s flight training. This was done in a curious way. Instead of simply informing us that Hanjour took courses “x,” “y” and “z” at such-and-such a flight school between certain dates, the FBI file gives an itemized record of every single day that Hanjour showed up for training at the various schools. The effect creates the appearance of more extensive instruction than actually occurred. Even so, the enhancement is transparently obvious. Imagine the reaction of a potential employer if you or I engaged in this dubious practice in a resume. On closer examination, another reason for padding the record is also obvious. Enhancement tends to obscure Hanjour’s tendency to jump around from school to school and his inability to finish anything he started.
The FBI file also conspicuously fails to mention the Jet Tech instructor’s written evaluation of Hani Hanjour’s flying skills. The omission easily qualifies as suppression of evidence because we know the FBI had the document in its possession. It was made public at the trial of Zacharias Moussaoui when the document was submitted as evidence. This means, of course that the 9/11 Commission also surely had it and similarly suppressed it. (See note #9.)
The FBI file also grossly mischaracterizes what happened at Freeway airport. The file mentions Hanjour’s visits but wrongly indicates that Hanjour received flight instruction. Not true. When I specifically asked Marcel Bernard about this he denied the fact and emphasized that Hanjour’s test flights included no lessons and were strictly for the purpose of evaluation.[31] The FBI should have known as much because after 9/11 Bernard and his two flight instructors notified the FBI about Hanjour’s visit and were subsequently interviewed by FBI agents. The file also conspicuously fails to mention that Hanjour flunked his test flight evaluation! Whether through incompetence or deception, the FBI failed on every point to state the facts correctly.
The FBI file does offer some fresh insights into Hani Hanjour the man. On August 2, 2001, according to the timeline, Hanjour showed up at the Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in Arlington, where he flunked a standard written test for a Virginia driver’s license. The fact is astonishing and ought to make us wonder how Hanjour ever managed to acquire his previous Arizona driver’s license issued in 1991 and his Florida license issued in 1996, let alone master the controls of a Boeing 757.
There is another interesting item. The record indicates that on September 5, 2001, just six days before 9/11, Hanjour showed up at the First Union National Bank in Laurel, Maryland where he made four failed bank transactions. The file cites bank records showing that Hanjour was unable to make balance inquiries and withdraw funds from his account because he failed to enter the correct pin number, which he evidently had forgotten! Two days later, Hanjour returned to the bank, this time accompanied by an unidentified male, and made another unsuccessful attempt to withdraw $4900.
It is astonishing the FBI file was ever touted as authenticating Hanjour’s flight credentials. The document falls short on that score and actually raises new questions. How likely is it that a man who was unable to remember his own pin number, and who just weeks before 9/11 flunked a simple test for a driver’s license, could have executed a top gun maneuver in a commercial airliner? The odds, I would submit, are approximately zero.
The FBI file includes one other curious entry. On August 20, 2001 Hanjour shopped at Travelocity.com for information about September 5, 2001 flights from Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles. This suggests that as of August 20 Hanjour did not yet know the date of the planned attack, either because he had not been briefed or because the date had not yet been selected. By the end of the month, however, the die was cast. On August 31 Hanjour and another “middle-eastern male” purchased one-way tickets for AA Flight 77 from a New Jersey travel agent. The date of departure: September 11, 2001. Yet, given Hanjour’s level of skill, one has to wonder what the waif from Taif believed was supposed to happen on that fateful morning.
So, Who is Eddie Shalev?
The record compiled by the FBI for the purpose of to authenticating Hani Hanjour‘s flight skills fails to provide convincing substantiation. Notice, for this reason it also fails to support the testimony of the other flight instructor, Eddie Shalev, who certified Hanjour to rent a Cessna 172 from Congressional Air Charters just three days after Marcel Bernard, the chief instructor at Freeway, refused to rent Hanjour the very same plane. The 9/11 Commission Report makes no mention of the incident at Freeway airport, nor does it discuss Eddie Shalev, other than alluding to Hanjour’s certification flight in a brief endnote. This is curious, since it now appears that Shalev’s testimony was crucial. By telling the commission what it was predisposed to hear, Shalev gave the official investigation an excuse to ignore the preponderance of evidence, which pointed to the unthinkable.
So, who is Eddie Shalev? His identity remained unknown for more than seven years, but was finally revealed in one of the files released in January 2009 by the National Archives. The document, labelled a “Memorandum for the Record,” is a summary of the April 2004 interview with Eddie Shalev conducted by commission staffer Quinn John Tamm.[32] The document confirms that Shalev went on record: “Mr Shalev stated that based on his observations Hanjour was a ‘good’ pilot.” It is noteworthy that Tamm also spoke with Freeway instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, as revealed by yet another recently-released document.[33] Although I was unable to reach Tamm or Baxter for comment, I did talk with Conner, who confirmed the conversation.[34] Conner says he fully expected to testify before the commission. Perhaps not surprisingly, the call never came.
But the shocker is the revelation that Eddie Shalev is an Israeli and served in the Israeli army. The file states that “Mr. Shalev served in the Israeli Defense Forces in a paratroop regiment. He was a jumpmaster on a Boeing C-130. Mr. Shalev moved to the Gaithersburg area in April 2001 and was sponsored for employment by Congressional Air Charters...[which] has subsequently gone out of business.”
The memorandum raises disturbing questions. Consider the staffer’s strange choice of words in describing Shalev’s employment. What did Quinn John Tamm mean when he wrote that Shalev “was sponsored for employment”? Did the commission bother to investigate Congressional Air Charters? It is curious that the charter service subsequently went out of business. But the most important question is: just how thoroughly, if at all, did the commission vet Eddie Shalev?Does his military record include service in the Israeli intelligence community?
Real people have known addresses. But the whereabouts of Eddie Shalev has been unknown for years. As reported by David Griffin, a 2007 search of the national telephone directory, plus Google searches by research librarian Elizabeth Woodworth, turned up no trace of him. A LexisNexis search by Matthew Everett also came up dry.[35] Recent searches by Woodworth and myself indicate that an "Eddy Shalev" resided in Rockville, Maryland as recently as 2007. However, the associated phone number is no longer in service. The 9/11 memorandum raises the possibility that Shalev may have returned to Israel. Clearly, the man needs to be found, subpoenaed and made to testify under oath before a new investigation, even if this necessitates extradition. Quinn John Tamm and the two Freeway instructors, Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, should also be subpoenaed. All are key witnesses and obvious starting points for a new 9/11 investigation.
Mark Gaffney is the author of The 9/11 Mystery Plane (2008). For more details check out Mark's web site www.the911mysteryplane.com Mark can be reached for comment at markhgaffney@earthlink.net
Posts
All Comments
