Mullen visits Pakistan amid tensions over drones

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen - AFP File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The top US military officer is visiting Pakistan at a time of tensions over America’s role in the region.

The US Embassy says Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will spend Wednesday and Thursday meeting with Pakistani leaders.

Admiral Mike Mullen’s trip follows a visit to Afghanistan a day earlier in which he told reporters he would raise ongoing concerns with Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff website.

Mullen praised cooperation between US and Pakistani troops in working jointly to combat the militant Haqqani network who target NATO forces in the Afghan east, but acknowledged “strain” caused by the insurgents’ ties with ISI.

“Haqqani is having a much more difficult time now,” Mullen told reporters, according to an article on the website.

“All that said, we’re still working through the (Pakistani) military support, the way through the relationships the (Pakistani intelligence agency) has with the Haqqani network, and the strain that creates.” The Haqqani network is an al Qaeda-allied outfit run by Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani and based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal district.

The group has been blamed for some of the deadliest anti-US attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide attack at a US base in Khost in 2009 that killed seven CIA operatives.

The commander of coalition forces for the eastern region of Afghanistan, Major General John Campbell, told reporters during Mullen’s visit that efforts to work with Pakistan to counter the Haqqani threat had improved.

There were complementary operations either side of the border, but he acknowledged: “I don’t know at what level they are tied in to the ISI.”

Mullen is a frequent visitor to Pakistan, and reportedly has a good relationship with Gen. Kayani.

The United States needs Pakistan’s cooperation to help end the war in Afghanistan.

But tensions between the two allies have spiked this year after an American CIA employee shot and killed two Pakistanis he said were trying to rob him.

A March missile strike ostensibly targeting the Taliban also angered Kayani, who said dozens of innocent tribesmen were killed.

Mullen visits Pakistan amid tensions over drones

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen - AFP File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The top US military officer is visiting Pakistan at a time of tensions over America’s role in the region.

The US Embassy says Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will spend Wednesday and Thursday meeting with Pakistani leaders.

Admiral Mike Mullen’s trip follows a visit to Afghanistan a day earlier in which he told reporters he would raise ongoing concerns with Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff website.

Mullen praised cooperation between US and Pakistani troops in working jointly to combat the militant Haqqani network who target NATO forces in the Afghan east, but acknowledged “strain” caused by the insurgents’ ties with ISI.

“Haqqani is having a much more difficult time now,” Mullen told reporters, according to an article on the website.

“All that said, we’re still working through the (Pakistani) military support, the way through the relationships the (Pakistani intelligence agency) has with the Haqqani network, and the strain that creates.” The Haqqani network is an al Qaeda-allied outfit run by Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani and based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal district.

The group has been blamed for some of the deadliest anti-US attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide attack at a US base in Khost in 2009 that killed seven CIA operatives.

The commander of coalition forces for the eastern region of Afghanistan, Major General John Campbell, told reporters during Mullen’s visit that efforts to work with Pakistan to counter the Haqqani threat had improved.

There were complementary operations either side of the border, but he acknowledged: “I don’t know at what level they are tied in to the ISI.”

Mullen is a frequent visitor to Pakistan, and reportedly has a good relationship with Gen. Kayani.

The United States needs Pakistan’s cooperation to help end the war in Afghanistan.

But tensions between the two allies have spiked this year after an American CIA employee shot and killed two Pakistanis he said were trying to rob him.

A March missile strike ostensibly targeting the Taliban also angered Kayani, who said dozens of innocent tribesmen were killed.

American jihad: Facing up to homegrown militancy

In the years after 9/11 the threat to America from Islamist militants seemed to come exclusively from abroad, but recent events have disproved that assumption - and posed the question how to prevent the radicalisation of Muslim immigrants.

 

 

Omar Hammami learned about his Muslim background on a visit to Syria as a teenager

The town of Daphne in the state of Alabama is one of the last places you would associate with violent jihad.

It is a place of ease and comfort, tidy and prosperous. Large houses sit well back from the road, sprawling lazily in the trees in the warm spring sunshine. In front of many homes and shops the Stars and Stripes hangs, barely moving in the late afternoon stillness.

Here Omar Hammami grew up, an all-American boy, baptised and church-going.

Here he discarded his upbringing and religion and turned to an ever more orthodox Islam.

And here he began a journey that has taken him to the wilds of Somalia, and a high profile position in al-Shabab, the brutal Islamist insurgent group.

Syria visit

Few would have predicted it.

"His dad is Syrian, a Sunni Muslim, his mom's a Southern Baptist, from a little tiny town down here. His mom would take him to church and stuff like that," his schoolfriend, James Culveyhouse, explains.

Omar Hammami was popular at school, quick witted and charismatic, elected president of his school year.

Things started to change when Hammami visited Syria as a teenager.

"When he went on vacation he started to realise, I'm not just American, I've got this other side to me. He read more and more and by the time he was 15 he was like, 'I wanna be a Muslim,'" Culveyhouse says.

Over the years Omar Hammami became an adherent of stricter and stricter Islam - turning far more orthodox than his father.

Eventually both Hammami and Culveyhouse moved to Toronto, which has a large Somali community.

There, says Culveyhouse, Omar Hammami's Islam became powerfully politicised.

What happened to Omar Hammami is important because homegrown jihad is becoming a problem for the US.

For years Americans believed themselves isolated from what seemed, in the West, a European problem.

But there have been a number of cases that show this is no longer so:

• Dozens of young men have left the Somali community in Minnesota to wage war in Somalia

• Adam Gadahn grew up in California, converted to Islam and now speaks for al-Qaeda in Pakistan

• Faisal Shahzad lived in the US for a decade before attempting to bomb Times Square in New York City

• And Major Nidal Hassan, born in the state of Virginia, became a doctor and a US soldier - now he stands accused of killing 13 people and wounding 29 others in a shooting spree at Fort Hood in Texas

Muslim diversity

"Al-Qaeda until now used to be a foreign threat," says Peter Neumann, the director of the International Centre for Radicalisation at Kings College London, currently in Washington DC.

James Culveyhouse saw the gradual change in his friend Omar Hammami

"Now that al-Qaeda threat has become more homegrown, it raises questions about how to deal with certain communities. Americans are not used to that."

The experiences of American Muslims - an estimated 1% of the population - are wildly different.

Mia Bloom, a fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State University gives the contrasting examples of Somali refugees and Pakistani immigrants in the US.

Immigrants from Pakistan to New Jersey often join an existing community that helps them to integrate, she explains, whereas "refugees, especially refugees from war-torn areas like Somalia, have a very different kind of assimilation process".

The debate about Muslim immigration and radicalisation has been rumbling for some time now in the US.

The strong reactions to a proposed Islamic centre and mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York City were one manifestation of Americans' concern over Islam within US borders.

More directly the Homeland Security Committee of the House of Representatives has been holding hearings into Islamic radicalisation in America - and, more contentiously, asking whether Muslim leaders are co-operating fully with US law enforcement authorities.

Identity crisis

But not much of the debate so far has directly tackled why, in a society famous for its ability to integrate, some shuck off their American identity with such vigour, and to such a violent end.

James Culveyhouse - who converted to Islam himself - has some ideas about where to start looking for home-grown jihadis.

"It's not first generation immigrants," he says, "they are not going off (to fight)." Nor he says, is it the children of religious immigrants.

Instead he says, look to those who are brought up in secular or non-practising households. An identity crisis comes at some point.

"It's like a rubber band," he says. "You pull far enough in on direction and you've got to let it go sometime."

American jihad: Facing up to homegrown militancy

In the years after 9/11 the threat to America from Islamist militants seemed to come exclusively from abroad, but recent events have disproved that assumption - and posed the question how to prevent the radicalisation of Muslim immigrants.

 

 

Omar Hammami learned about his Muslim background on a visit to Syria as a teenager

The town of Daphne in the state of Alabama is one of the last places you would associate with violent jihad.

It is a place of ease and comfort, tidy and prosperous. Large houses sit well back from the road, sprawling lazily in the trees in the warm spring sunshine. In front of many homes and shops the Stars and Stripes hangs, barely moving in the late afternoon stillness.

Here Omar Hammami grew up, an all-American boy, baptised and church-going.

Here he discarded his upbringing and religion and turned to an ever more orthodox Islam.

And here he began a journey that has taken him to the wilds of Somalia, and a high profile position in al-Shabab, the brutal Islamist insurgent group.

Syria visit

Few would have predicted it.

"His dad is Syrian, a Sunni Muslim, his mom's a Southern Baptist, from a little tiny town down here. His mom would take him to church and stuff like that," his schoolfriend, James Culveyhouse, explains.

Omar Hammami was popular at school, quick witted and charismatic, elected president of his school year.

Things started to change when Hammami visited Syria as a teenager.

"When he went on vacation he started to realise, I'm not just American, I've got this other side to me. He read more and more and by the time he was 15 he was like, 'I wanna be a Muslim,'" Culveyhouse says.

Over the years Omar Hammami became an adherent of stricter and stricter Islam - turning far more orthodox than his father.

Eventually both Hammami and Culveyhouse moved to Toronto, which has a large Somali community.

There, says Culveyhouse, Omar Hammami's Islam became powerfully politicised.

What happened to Omar Hammami is important because homegrown jihad is becoming a problem for the US.

For years Americans believed themselves isolated from what seemed, in the West, a European problem.

But there have been a number of cases that show this is no longer so:

• Dozens of young men have left the Somali community in Minnesota to wage war in Somalia

• Adam Gadahn grew up in California, converted to Islam and now speaks for al-Qaeda in Pakistan

• Faisal Shahzad lived in the US for a decade before attempting to bomb Times Square in New York City

• And Major Nidal Hassan, born in the state of Virginia, became a doctor and a US soldier - now he stands accused of killing 13 people and wounding 29 others in a shooting spree at Fort Hood in Texas

Muslim diversity

"Al-Qaeda until now used to be a foreign threat," says Peter Neumann, the director of the International Centre for Radicalisation at Kings College London, currently in Washington DC.

James Culveyhouse saw the gradual change in his friend Omar Hammami

"Now that al-Qaeda threat has become more homegrown, it raises questions about how to deal with certain communities. Americans are not used to that."

The experiences of American Muslims - an estimated 1% of the population - are wildly different.

Mia Bloom, a fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State University gives the contrasting examples of Somali refugees and Pakistani immigrants in the US.

Immigrants from Pakistan to New Jersey often join an existing community that helps them to integrate, she explains, whereas "refugees, especially refugees from war-torn areas like Somalia, have a very different kind of assimilation process".

The debate about Muslim immigration and radicalisation has been rumbling for some time now in the US.

The strong reactions to a proposed Islamic centre and mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York City were one manifestation of Americans' concern over Islam within US borders.

More directly the Homeland Security Committee of the House of Representatives has been holding hearings into Islamic radicalisation in America - and, more contentiously, asking whether Muslim leaders are co-operating fully with US law enforcement authorities.

Identity crisis

But not much of the debate so far has directly tackled why, in a society famous for its ability to integrate, some shuck off their American identity with such vigour, and to such a violent end.

James Culveyhouse - who converted to Islam himself - has some ideas about where to start looking for home-grown jihadis.

"It's not first generation immigrants," he says, "they are not going off (to fight)." Nor he says, is it the children of religious immigrants.

Instead he says, look to those who are brought up in secular or non-practising households. An identity crisis comes at some point.

"It's like a rubber band," he says. "You pull far enough in on direction and you've got to let it go sometime."

UK officers to be sent to Libya

British military officers will be sent to Libya to advise rebels fighting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces, the UK government has said.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said the group would be deployed to the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

The contingent would be drawn from experienced British military officers, the foreign secretary said.

Pro-Gaddafi forces have been pounding Misrata for days and hundreds of people are thought to have been killed.

UK officers to be sent to Libya

British military officers will be sent to Libya to advise rebels fighting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces, the UK government has said.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said the group would be deployed to the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

The contingent would be drawn from experienced British military officers, the foreign secretary said.

Pro-Gaddafi forces have been pounding Misrata for days and hundreds of people are thought to have been killed.

HEC News

HEC News

SC allows govt to change counsel

 ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has allowed the government to change its counsel in NRO review case. Today, Barrister Kamal Azfar informed the court that he was threatened, Geo News reported.

The court asked the Additional Attorney General KK Agha to consult the government and appear before the court to plead the case.

Kamal Azfar told the Chief Justice that Advocate Abu Bakar Zardari had threatened him through a phone call. The CJ then summoned IG Islamabad Wajid Durrani and ordered him to probe the matter and report back within three days.

On Tuesday SC had rejected the plea of the government to allow Dr Khalid Ranjha to represent the federation in place of Kamal Azfar in the NRO review petition.

A 17-member larger bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry heard the case and adjourned the proceedings until 18th April.

SC allows govt to change counsel

 ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has allowed the government to change its counsel in NRO review case. Today, Barrister Kamal Azfar informed the court that he was threatened, Geo News reported.

The court asked the Additional Attorney General KK Agha to consult the government and appear before the court to plead the case.

Kamal Azfar told the Chief Justice that Advocate Abu Bakar Zardari had threatened him through a phone call. The CJ then summoned IG Islamabad Wajid Durrani and ordered him to probe the matter and report back within three days.

On Tuesday SC had rejected the plea of the government to allow Dr Khalid Ranjha to represent the federation in place of Kamal Azfar in the NRO review petition.

A 17-member larger bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry heard the case and adjourned the proceedings until 18th April.