Category Archives: arab regimes

May 11, 2019 · 9:45 am

The Zahran Hashim Network and Other Factors behind the 21/4 Carnage in Sri Lanka

Anbarasan Ethirajan, BBC news, 11 May 2019 — with this title “Sri Lanka attacks: The family networks behind the bombings”

For many Sri Lankans, it was a horrific shock to learn that local Muslims could have been behind the suicide attacks that killed more than 250 people last month. How could a smalL group have planned such a devastating wave of bombings undetected? The clues were there in mid-January, when Sri Lankan police stumbled upon 100kg (220lb) of explosives and 100 detonators, hidden in a coconut grove near the Wilpattu national park, which is a remote wilderness in Puttalam district on the west coast of the country.

  Zahran Hashim has been identified as the ringleader of the bombers

FACEBOOK – Inshaf Ibrahim (R) and his father (C) accepted an award in 2016 from a Sri Lankan minister

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May 10, 2019 · 11:02 am

The Geo-Political Power Struggle at Play within Sri Lanka’s Present Conflicts

Jean-Pierre Page …. see bio-note at end, Editor Thuppahi

Here attached is my article in French! Very widely published in France, Italy and Canada. In her book “Hard Choices” Hillary Clinton has clearly said “we have created Daesh (ISIS), we have to negotiate with “the Muslim brothers in Cairo to create a territory, a state in the Sinaï for ISIS.”

That was part of the plan to re organise, rebuild and share a new Middle East. This was not very different to what Washington has done against the Soviet Union with the Talibans in Afghanistan. Have you forgotten what Zbigniew Brzezinski said once:” we have created the Talibans and we succeeded!”

Today in Island there is the first article which raises the real issues. The one by Lasanda Kurukulasuriya in the Island of 6th May [see……………………………. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=203773 Continue reading →

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May 9, 2019 · 3:16 pm

Missing the Boat. How Religio-Political Divisions have Deepened

A Letter from Rohan De Soysa in Colombo to Michael Roberts in Adelaide, 9th May 2019

I’d like to suggest a different angle. We have a Minister for Buddhist religious affairs, another for Hindu religious affairs, yet another for Muslim religious affairs and still another for Christian religious affairs.  Then there are Governors for the various provinces: Eastern Province, Western Province, Northern Province, Southern Province etc.  They have been provided deputy ministers, offices, staff, bodyguards, cell phones and vehicles, etc.

Should they not monitor and observe any untoward teachings and undesirable tendencies in what comes under their purview, namely places of worship and education, catering to their specialized religions? Why did they not do so? Isn’t it about time they did?

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May 8, 2019 · 3:45 pm

Intelligence Network Failures in Sri Lanka

Siri Hewawitharana, in Asian Tribune, May 2019, with this title “SL Death Cult and Political Corruption that created this monster”

I present a few details re the SL state security apparatus during the war period some details about the major work that started after the war with the goal of creating better defenses for the SL state

There were many engineering talents helping SL military with signal, satellite and other cyber warfare work during Eelam War IV. Gotabaya was instrumental in installing a single command structure for all 3 services and the police. In fact, he also asked me to help with the Army Research and Development group by servicing a suitable command structure and product development.

… a caricature that is not Hewa’s but one introduced by The Editor, Thuppahi to attract attention to this article. See note at end

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May 8, 2019 · 9:55 am

Ultimate Loyalties: Sri Lankan Muslims in Lanka but beyond the Nation

Rajeewa Jayaweera in a Comment that responds toa QUERY from Michael O’Leary addressed to Ameer Ali

Michael, If one contributes to the absurd theory, [that] only those who returned from Saudi Arabia make up the radicalized elements in the Muslim community in SL; there is no sensible and meaningful answer to O” Leary’s question.

If however, one can look beyond the theory of “Peace-loving Muslim Community,” it would be easier to understand. Those who went to Saudi Arabia were mostly from the impoverished segment of Muslim society. They worked as housemaids, laborers, etc. and had nil to minimal educational qualifications. Many returned radicalized in a manner of speaking. Women who covered their heads when they left returned covering their faces. Those who did not adhere strictly to praying five times a day earlier would not dream of missing a single prayer session after their return. Watching movies, even musicals became taboo after their return. Continue reading →

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May 6, 2019 · 3:53 pm

How the Jihadi Terror could aid USA’s Power Plays in the Indian Ocean

Lasanda Kurukulasuriya, in Island, 6 May 2019, where the title is “IS terror in Sri Lanka: Govt dissimulates, as West consolidates”

“Even as the US fights Islamic terrorism, it is accused at other times of using IS as an asset. Analyst Saeed Naqvi in a comment on the Easter Sunday attacks published in The Economic Times, refers to a New York Times interview with Barack Obama, where the then US president admitted to having delayed bombing IS when it reared its head in Iraq, so as to put pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to sign a SOFA agreement. “In other words, ISIS was an American asset at that juncture,” Naqvi noted. Continue reading →

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May 5, 2019 · 11:53 am

The Transformation of Muslim Politics in Sri Lanka and the Growth of Wahhabism from the 1980s

Ameer Ali,** courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, where the title is “Anatomy of An Islamist Infamy”

The Easter carnage that consumed the lives of nearly two hundred and fifty innocent worshippers and bystanders including children, opens another chapter in Sri Lanka’s post-colonial bloody history of communalism and majoritarian rule. Unless one is prepared to accept this fundamental flaw in the nation’s political development and remedy it sooner rather than later the future may become even bloodier. Sri Lankan masses, Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims or Burghers, are not to be blamed for this tragic history and they should be kept out of the equation. Instead, the political and religious leadership must bear full responsibility for laying the path of democracy with bloody bricks. 

  a madrassa

The Easter mayhem, is now becoming increasingly clear, as the result of a combined failure of a Muslim leadership which was in a state of denial for decades and a government in a state of paralysis. The first part of this analysis will deal with the Muslim variable. Continue reading →

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May 2, 2019 · 3:56 am

The Dilemma facing Moderate Muslims and the State in Sri Lanka: Incisive Thoughts from Ranga Jayasuriya

Ranga Jayasuriya, in Daily Mirror, 30 April  2019, where the title is “How Wahhabism was fostered until it’s too late”

On Friday, the imam of a Sufi mosque in Saindamarudu was alerted by the locals about a suspicious crowd in a house in the neighbourhood housing scheme called, Bolivia village. That is an exclusively Muslim housing scheme of 400 houses built after the Indian Ocean tsunami. The owner of one of the houses there had given his residence on rent to a man who claims to be a telecom engineer from Kattankudy; since new tenants moved in, he has observed a stream of unusual visitors to his house.

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March 25, 2019 · 4:54 am

Undermining ISIS from within the Dungeons of the Cyberworld

Paul Maley, in The Australian, 25 March 2019, where the title is “How Aussie Spies won Propaganda War against ISIS”

In late-2016, as coalition aircraft pounded Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq, the Australian ­Defence Force’s Commander of Joint Operations, David Johnston, issued a secret order to the Australian Signals Directorate. For the first time, Defence wanted ASD to use its vast cyber capabilities not for intelligence gathering or targeting — the agency’s traditional missions — but to take down and destroy ­Islamic State’s propaganda ­machine. What followed was a two-year campaign in which a small team of offensive cyber operators working out of a squat, grey building in Canberra’s Russell Defence ­precinct, waged war on Islamic State’s information warriors.

In this Nov. 18, 2017 photo, construction workers carry a generator as a bulldozer remove debris from destroyed shops in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq. Along the neighborhood’s gutted roads, a handful of people are beginning to rebuild but the task ahead will take years _ and billions of dollars. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

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February 2, 2019 · 8:35 am

America’s Looming Interference and Dominance in Sri Lanka

Ashley de Vos, in Island, 2 February 2019, where the title is  “Base in the centre of the Shipping lanes”

Henry Kissinger once said: “Globalisation is the Americanisation of the world”and one assumes that most humans have been consumed by the mad rush to join the lifestyle band wagon to keep up with ‘the Joneses’ and get further into debt. It is unforgivable that cultures that have withstood the vicissitudes of change for thousands of years and that have evolved as proud nations are also being forced and encouraged to join or face the wrath of countries that have no cultural matrix as a base to fall back on––except a fine tuned technology for the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.

 

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