Islam - Current Day > Balochistan rebel group luring women and children to be suicide bombers; Italy: Muslim migrant stabs wife and her mom to death; Iran putting 'Fear of God' into protesters

..

How this female ‘suicide bomber’ was apprehended in Pakistan

The woman confesses that she was brainwashed by the banned BLF outfit

Published:  April 13, 2023 19:40

Ashfaq Ahmed, Senior Assistant Editor

Gulf News

Mahal Baloch, who was trained as a suicide bomber' says she was lured and brainwashed

by a banned militant group in Balochistan

Image Credit: Supplied

Dubai: The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in Pakistan has released a report on how a woman was turned into a potential suicide bomber after being brainwashed by a proscribed outfit Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF).

The CTD with the help of intelligence agencies in Pakistan have arrested a woman who was believed to be potential suicide bomber and also recovered a ‘suicide jacket’ from her in Quetta.

The woman, who belonged to BLF, was apprehended in February while she was carrying a bag with a suicide jacket loaded with five kilos of explosives.

A CTD spokesperson said that the ‘suicide bomber’ was planning to attack important installations or security forces in Quetta, but her bid was foiled.

Brainwashing women and children

According to the report released on Wednesday, the intelligence-based operation was carried out after the CTD Balochistan and intelligence agencies had received information that banned terrorist organisations were luring women and children for their nefarious designs. For this purpose, they were not only being brainwashed but also being financially and organisationally supported.

The report further added: “On the basis of this information, on February 17, a woman named Mahal Baloch was arrested with a suicide jacket.

Banned terrorist group

During investigations, she revealed that her husband Bibgar was affiliated to the banned terrorist organisation BLF and was killed along with his brother Baloch Khan in 2016. Later, she, along with her father-in-law and mother-in-law moved to Karachi.

During her stay in Karachi, she was contacted by the BLA operatives who lured her to join the organisation and brainwashed her over her husband’s association with the organisation.

Luring women

Mahal Baloch joined the organisation and moved to Quetta where she was given the task to lure other women and bring them to participate in various protest rallies against the government. The organisation continued to send funds to her family to bear daily living expenses. Mahal Baloch further revealed in a video confession that her cousin Wasim and her in-laws are also part of BLF.

Mahal said that a suicide jacket was given to her by BLF Commander Sharbat Khan only a week before her arrest and she had kept the jacket hidden in her house. Sharbat Khan had told her that this jacket would soon be used for an important attack in Quetta. However, timely action by the CTD foiled her plan to carry out any terrorist activity.

Italy: Muslim migrant stabs his wife and mother-in-law to death

He stabs his wife and mother-in-law to death, arrested:

his 16-year-old son called the police

translated from “Uccide a coltellate la moglie e la suocera, arrestato: il figlio 16enne ha chiamato la Polizia,” 

L’Unione Sarda, April 13, 2023.

Double homicide in the night in Arezzo, where a 50-year-old man stabbed his wife and mother-in-law to death.

The tragedy occurred in the apartment in via Benedetto Varchi where the couple lived with two children, a 16-year-old and a little girl.

The older of the two women died immediately, the other in the hospital where she had been taken in critical condition. The man, of North African origin, was arrested by the police.

At the time of the brutal attack, the two children were also in the house, it was the eldest who called the police. The prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Marco Dioni, also arrived on the spot, together with the head of the mobile team Sergio Leo.

The killer has already been questioned: according to an initial reconstruction, the man grabbed a kitchen knife and lashed out at the two women, both from Arezzo. At the basis of the double murder a quarrel that degenerated into tragedy or a fit of madness.

After the attack, the 50-year-old fled down the stairs, then took refuge in an external square while his 16-year-old son called the police. The officers, who arrived on the spot, blocked the man who, in an evident state of confusion, immediately confessed.

According to the first rumors, it seems that the climate in the house had been tense for some time: the mother of the 50-year-old’s wife would often come to sleep with her daughter to protect her.

APR 14, 2023 1:00 PM 

COMMENTS BY ROBERT SPENCER

Jihad Watch

There is domestic violence in all cultures. So to post this is just “Islamophobic,” right? Wrong: there is domestic violence in all cultures, but only in one does it have divine sanction. Islam doesn’t teach that man may kill his wife, but once you’ve allowed him to beat her, accidents will happen.

The Qur’an teaches that men are superior to women and should beat those from whom they “fear disobedience”: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” — Qur’an 4:34

Muhammad’s child bride, Aisha, says in a hadith that Muhammad “struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: ‘Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you?’” — Sahih Muslim 2127

An another hadith states: “Rifa`a divorced his wife whereupon `AbdurRahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi married her. `Aisha said that the lady (came), wearing a green veil (and complained to her (Aisha) of her husband and showed her a green spot on her skin caused by beating). It was the habit of ladies to support each other, so when Allah’s Messenger came, Aisha said, ‘I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!’” — Sahih Bukhari 7.77.5825

Executions in Iran increased 75% as anti-government protests surged

Government seeks to sow public fear to maintain grip on power, report says

By A.L. Lee

Tehran's hardline government has increased executions in an effort to discourage protests that have

exploded across the country over the past year following the police-custody death of 22-year-old

Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for improperly wearing her hijab. File photo by EPA-EFE

April 14 (UPI) -- Iran's hardline government executed at least 582 people last year in an effort to sow public fear as anti-government protests surged across the country, according to a new human rights report.

The number of Iranians executed in 2022 was the highest since 2015 and marked a 75% increase over the previous year when 333 were put to death, according to the annual report on the Death Penalty in the Islamic Republic -- compiled by Iran Human Rights and a French-based anti-death penalty group known as ECPM.

The government was deliberately using the executions to set an example that was intended to "instill societal fear in order to hold onto power," the report alleges.

Protests have gripped the country for months following the September police-custody death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for improperly wearing her hijab.

The resulting crackdown has netted more than 100 additional protest defendants who face death penalty trials in the coming months.

Another 20 protesters have already been sentenced to death in preliminary trials but were still awaiting their fate, the report says.

The report identified 15 executions had been carried out for nebulous charges related to national security, like "enmity against God" and "corruption on Earth." At least four protesters were among this group, including Mohsen Shekari, who in December became the first demonstrator to be publicly hanged.

The theocratic government has faced increasing pressure from world leaders over the recent executions of political prisoners, which has led to a wave of government-sanctioned deaths for other capital crimes, the report said.

"The international reactions to the death sentences against protesters have made it difficult for the Islamic Republic to proceed with their executions," said Iran Human Rights Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. "To compensate, and in order to spread fear among people, the authorities have intensified the execution for non-political charges."

Mahmood continued to call on the global community to help stop "the Islamic Republic's execution machine" by taking a stronger stance against Tehran.

The report alleges that nearly 90% of executions for crimes like murder, rape and drug trafficking had been carried out without any public knowledge, while just 71 executions, or 12%, were announced by the government.

The report also noted that 16 women were executed throughout 2022 and that three juvenile offenders were also put to death in that time.

In total, more than 4,000 executions have been carried out in the country since 2010 under orders of the Revolutionary Courts, the report says.

Raped Women in North Korea Prison Camps Executed

Some of the gruesome details below seem too horrible to be true.

North Korea is a godless country so spectacular evil is certainly possible.

However, as the USA gears up for a military assault on the paranoid country,

stories of horrific abuse of women and children are almost

certainly likely to increase. The USA needs a moral excuse!

By Elizabeth Shim  

North Korean women in political prison camps are frequent victims of sexual assault and secret executions, according to recent defector testimony. File Photo by How Hwee Young/EPA

UPI -- Women who are raped in North Korean prison camps are executed and prisoners are frequently stoned to death before their families, according to recent testimonies from defectors in South Korea.

The defectors, who provided their statements to South Korea's Unification Media Group, described in graphic detail the torment prisoners face every day while serving sentences for political crimes, South Korean newspaper Donga Ilbo reported Tuesday.

Park Ju-yong, 29, a defector who grew up in a North Korean prison camp for more than two decades, said raped women who become pregnant are taken away and secretly killed by guards.

The women are usually victims of prison guards who frequently abuse their power and sexually assault the women who, in return for sexual favors, are given a lighter workload in the prison camps, Park said.

After giving birth, women are not only executed, their newborn babies are fed to guard dogs.

The guards are ultimately dismissed from the camps as punishment.

Park, who said he was born in "Concentration Camp 21," was transferred to Pukchang concentration camp a year after his birth.

Park was sentenced at a young age because an uncle was charged with a political crime.

The defector said he witnessed public executions where family members were required to stone a relative to death, according to the Donga.

Executions also involved "thousands of stones," or prison-wide involvement with prisoners returning to a line and engaging in repeated stoning.

Prisoners would be threatened with execution if they did not comply.

"People would throw their rocks hard. Each time the rock would hit the victim, their bodies would burst with blood," the defector said in his statement.

"Their flesh would fall off until you could see their bones, and they would die without execution by gun," he added.

Park also said North Korean society became "chaotic" after the death of founder Kim Il Sung.

During former leader Kim Jong Il's period of rule, executions escalated in the camp.

A second defector, Ahn Myeong-cheol, a former North Korean prison guard, confirmed camps have public and secret executions, and women are given "easier jobs" for sexual favors in prisons.

Muslim Life in the Caliphate - No Utopia

Militant Islamist fighters waving flags, travel in vehicles as they take part in
a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province,
 June 30, 2014 © 2014 Reuters

The brutal Paris massacre committed by the Islamic State (ISIS), claiming 130 lives, has shocked the West into confronting the threat that the extremist organization poses. But for the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq, the terror that Paris experienced remains a daily reality.

Fatima, 20, and her cousins Ahmed, 16, and Isa, 19, (not their real names) couldn’t quite believe they had made it safely to the Greek Island of Lesbos last week. As the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and I shared a meal of pizza with them, they and their relatives kept giggling nervously until I asked them what was wrong. Fatima immediately turned serious, and explained that they had been pointing out to one another all of the “offenses” committed by passers-by that would have led to their beheading by the ISIS killers whose domain they had just fled: wearing tight clothes, watching music videos, sharing a meal with members of the opposite sex, drinking beer…the list went on and on.

“If I had been wearing this last week back home,” Fatima said, pointing to her slim jeans and other Western clothes, “my head would have come off.” She was not kidding.

Life under ISIS in Syria and Iraq is barely tolerable for those who are forced to endure its horrific and often arbitrary violence, and the group’s tight control makes it difficult to escape. The self-declared Islamic Caliphate is not filled with ecstatic followers, cheering on its beheadings and the destruction of Syria’s and Iraq’s heritage. Instead, many live in a state of constant terror, trapped in their worst nightmare.

Before the Syrian conflict, Fatima and Ahmed were ordinary teenagers, wearing Western clothes, listening to pop music, going to school, flirting, and trying to stay out of trouble with their parents. All of that ended when the shooting started and bombs began to rain down on their towns. Their schools shut down, and life became a daily struggle for survival. But their lives became even worse once ISIS took over control of their town.

“When the Islamic State came, they told us they were bringing us the true Islam,” Isa recalled, “But immediately, they started killing in the name of Islam. Really, they just came for the money and oil.”  Isa and Ahmed said that many of the ISIS fighters they saw were foreigners from Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, and Chechnya. Many others were French converts to Islam. Isa recited the long list of things ISIS outlawed: “Jeans are prohibited, smoking is prohibited, some foods are prohibited like pizza and mortadella because they come from the ‘land of the unbeliever;’ even sunflower seeds are prohibited!”

Ahmed continued the conversation: “Seeing the beheadings was the worst, and it was compulsory to go watch them. I had to go see them so many times, sometimes even every day. Our neighbor was beheaded by them because he had helped some Free Syrian Army soldiers escape. They found him and beheaded him.” I asked Ahmed, who fled just one week before, how recently he had witnessed an execution, which now happen mostly on Fridays, after the midday prayer. He said it was about two weeks before he fled: “I witnessed the execution of three brothers. They were accused of accidentally killing their sister. So after Friday prayer, they beheaded all three of them.”

Ahmed, just 16 years old, had close brushes with death himself. The first time, a few weeks ago, was when an informant accused him of blasphemy, saying he had overheard Ahmed calling a friend “son of God.” Ahmed was hauled to an ISIS-controlled mosque, where he was threatened with beheading until it became clear that someone else had uttered the offending words—in fact, an ISIS sympathizer, so the case was dismissed.

On another occasion, Ahmed was accused of skipping his prayers, and sentenced to twenty lashes, administered by a Saudi ISIS member using a horsewhip.

Not long afterward, Ahmed, who was working at a pharmacy, went to another pharmacy to see if it had a medicine his pharmacy did not have in stock. He asked an elderly woman who worked there for the medication.  ISIS detained him again, this time for speaking to someone of the opposite sex, and threatened with death. His uncles, fearing for his life, told him to stop going to work, and scrambled to find sufficient money to smuggle him and the other two young relatives out.

Fatima was not much luckier. “All of these ISIS restrictions, they make you hate yourself as a woman,” she said. “They make you wear all black and cover everything, and even tell you what shoes you can wear.” One day, as she was walking in the street with her sister and her sister’s baby, the ISIS religious police decided that the infant’s dress was too short and “un-Islamic.” They took the sisters and the infant to the ISIS court, and then turned their attention to Fatima’s abaya, which was deemed too form-fitting and revealing. Her family was ordered to pay a fine to bail her out. “I was only detained for a few hours, but I will never forget that fear,” she told me. “I was crying for days afterward.”

Why would anyone choose to live under such arbitrary terror and repression, you may be asking. But for many in ISIS-controlled territory, there is no choice. The Islamic State has made it very difficult for anyone to leave its self-declared Islamic Caliphate -- which it markets as a modern-day utopia -- for the Dar al-Kuffar, the lands of the unbelievers.

Until about five months ago, ISIS allowed people to leave the town in Syria that Fatima, Ahmed, and Isa fled. Those who left forfeited all of their property to ISIS, and risked the security of relatives who remained behind. But five months ago, ISIS prohibited anyone from leaving, at the same time insisting that all fighting-age males, who in their view include children, join the ranks of their jihadis.

Ahmed told me: “Now, everyone [male] who is 14 years or older has to do jihad, but we see even younger ones fighting, some as young as 12. Once it became compulsory to do jihad, we [males] didn’t leave the house. For the last month and a half, I have not left the house very much, except for Friday prayer which is compulsory, and the executions they take us to afterward.”

Escaping took an elaborate plan and the use of a costly smuggler. They claimed they were visiting relatives in an area close to the Turkish border, and were then smuggled into Turkey under cover of darkness. But the grasp of ISIS extends far: Fatima, Ahmed, and Isa made me promise not to use their picture, their real names, the name of their town, or any other identifying characteristics that may allow ISIS to punish their relatives. As Fatima explained, “They would execute my relatives just for me talking to you.”

The three all left many relatives behind when they fled. “Just put yourself in our place,” Fatima said, when I asked her what went through her head when she had to say goodbye to her mother and other relatives. “I said goodbye to them as if I was never going to see them again.” With the increased bombing campaign by France and Russia, her fears for her relatives are not just about ISIS. “Just yesterday, there were airstrikes on my neighbourhood, and I can’t even call my mom to find out if everyone is OK,” Fatima sadly added.

As the world decides how to confront ISIS, and how to cope with the influx of Syrian refugees fleeing the country, the countries involved need to be aware that hundreds of thousands of civilians remained trapped in ISIS-controlled areas against their will. Those undertaking attacks on ISIS areas need to keep those trapped civilians in mind, and take measures to avoid civilian deaths and further suffering. And they need to make sure that people who are fleeing ISIS terror can find safety and security in Europe and elsewhere, and don’t need to risk their lives as they try to find safety.