Pakistan Helps Iran's Nuclear Agenda (Daniel 8)

Pakistan′s indirect role in North Korea′s nuclear program
Asia | DW | 14.09.2017
DW: To what extent North Korea owes its nuclear technology to Pakistan?
Pervez Hoodbhoy: Pakistan did transfer centrifuge technology to North Korea. It did not, however, directly contribute to the program because North Korean nuclear program is essentially based on the extraction of plutonium rather than the uranium centrifugation process.
When did Pakistan's "nuclear transfer" to North Korea begin, and when did it end?
It ended in 2003 when Pakistani scientist A Q Khan was caught in the transfer of nuclear technology and subsequently all nuclear transfer came to an end. It is unclear when it began, but it is possible that it started shortly after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto came to power in 1989, so in the years after that it must have begun at some point.

The Pakistani and Iranian Horns Unify (Daniel 8)

Pakistan welcomes Ayatollah Khamenei’s stance on Kashmir – Daily Pakistan

ISLAMABAD – Foreign Office (FO) Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said on Thursday Pakistan welcomes Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement on Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).

Reacting to Ayatollah Khamenei’s on Monday in which he urged his country’s judiciary to extend support to the “oppressed” Muslims of Kashmir, Zakaria said the Muslim Ummah is worried about the human rights violations in IOK by Indian forces, adding that the secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has also denounced atrocities in IOK.
The FO spokesperson termed the recent inclusion of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin in the Global Terrorist Watchlist by the US government an ‘unjustified’ action.
He also dubbed US Senator John McCain’s recent visit to Pakistan as positive, saying the Republican senator, who heads the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, “praised Pakistan’s efforts to combat terrorism, Taliban and other militant networks”.
Nafees Zakria claimed that Pakistan was smashing out militants while the remaining Taliban have escaped to Afghanistan.
He claimed that the ‘Haqqani Network’ operates out of Afghanistan, not Pakistan and that many leaders of the group have been killed in Afghanistan.

Pakistan and Iran Align ( Daniel 8)

Pakistan welcomes Khamenei’ stance on occupied Kashmir | Pakistan

Web Desk

July 6, 2017

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has welcomed recent statement of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, on Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK), Foreign Office (FO) Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said.
Addressing a weekly media briefing here Thursday, Zakaria said the Muslim Ummah is worried about the human rights violations by Indian troops in occupied Kashmir. The secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has also denounced atrocities in IoK.
Earlier this week, Iranian Supreme Leader called upon the Judiciary of his country to pursue issues like occupied Kashmir legally and adopt official position on such international issues.
Ayatollah Khamenei made these remarks at a meeting with high ranking members of Iran’s judiciary including Chief Justice, Sadeq Amoli Larijani.
The spokesman also termed the recent inclusion of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin in the Global Terrorist Watchlist by the US government as ‘unjustified’.
Zakaria also termed US Senator John McCain’s recent visit to Pakistan as positive, saying the republican senator, who heads the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, “praised Pakistan’s efforts to combat terrorism, Taliban and other militant networks”.
He emphatically stated that there is no organized presence of any terror outfit including TTP, Jamaat-ul Ahrar, Daesh and Al-Qaeda on Pakistani land.
He claimed that as result of effective counter terrorism operations the remaining Taliban have escaped to Afghanistan, adding that the ‘Haqqani Network’ operates out of Afghanistan, not Pakistan and that many leaders of the group have been killed in Afghanistan.
He said the allegations about presence of Haqqani network in tribal areas are mere rhetoric.

Khamenei Calls for Jihad in Pakistan

Iran’s Khamenei names Kashmir, calls for jihad

Written by Manish Tewari | Updated: June 29, 2017 8:10 pm

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks to the audience in Tehran, Iran May 17, 2017. (Source: Reuters)Even before the holy month of Ramzan could conclude and Eid spread its munificent blessings over the vale of Kashmir, a deputy superintendent of the Jammu & Kashmir police was stripped, brutally assaulted and killed on the premises of the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar. Just as the faithful had gathered to mark the Shab-e-Qadr or the Night of Power, Mohammed Ayub Pandith’s body was dragged out of the mosque and dumped in a drain.
Only six weeks ago, on May 10, Lt Ummer Fayaz was abducted by militants and killed in Shopian district. Even as the pall-bearers carried the dead body of the slain soldier to a nearby orchard, the mourners talked in whispers about the marks of torture on Ummer’s back, his broken jaw, broken ankles, his missing teeth, and the bruises and cuts on his body.
The lynching and the gruesome murder of both these officers made the nation recoil in horror. Justified outrage and calls for retribution filled the airwaves.
Growing up on the front lines of another battle against terror, this time in Punjab in the 1980s, and having lost a parent to the depredations of that ghastly violence, the ongoing violence in Jammu & Kashmir is but a sickeningly familiar story of the brutalization and dehumanization of society’s psyche brought about by the cycle of violence.
Perhaps, we should try and imagine the mindset of a child who was born in 1990 in Kashmir and is today 27 years old. All that he has seen in his life are curfews, cordon and search operations, stone pelting, enforced disappearances, and torture and fake/real encounter killings. For him, violence is the new normal. The face of the Indian state is someone clad in olive green or khaki carrying an AK-47, kicking the front door down. This is the dominant narrative in any militancy-prone, terror-infested, freedom-struggle area –- give it the label of your choice.
In such an environment of fear, terror, intimidation, coercion and death lurking around the next corner, it is easy for the likes of Burhan Wani to become folk heroes and legends. As the ‘Washington Post’ said about him “Burhan Wani was just 22 when he died, but he was already a folk hero to many in Indian-administered Kashmir. The telegenic insurgent — a leader of a group designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the State Department — played his social media persona to the hilt, mugging for pictures with automatic weapons and posting videos on WhatsApp and Facebook exhorting other men to join the separatist cause. He also threatened attacks on police convoys and military housing.”
There were others after him. Sabzar Ahmad renowned as ‘SAB DON’, became the new poster boy of terror in the Kashmir Valley. Taking forward the cult of Wani, Ahmad guided Hizbul terrorists until the security forces neutralised him in an encounter on May 27. More such poster children will, unfortunately, emerge, the reason for which is not difficult to discern.
Some months ago about 40-odd young people from various districts of Kashmir, under the aegis of an organisation called Jammu Kashmir People’s Alliance that has an interesting tagline, “We serve, We settle,” came to meet a Concerned Citizens Group in Delhi. This is led by former finance and external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha, who led two highly visible and successful outreach efforts to estranged sections in the Kashmir valley.
During the interaction these young boys and girls told us a very disturbing story. Apparently among the most wanted stone pelters in the valley is a gentleman called “DK” and he is all of SEVEN years old. If the average age of stone-pelters is between 7-17 years, irrespective of who is paying them, the Indian state is sitting on a volcano that is belching lava but has not really exploded. When and if it does, a lot of people entrusted with the remit of handling Kashmir both in the Centre and the state, will not have the time to say goodbye.
Then there is an international dimension to the Kashmir situation that has suddenly manifested itself. It has everything to do with the turmoil that US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia has plunged the Islamic/ Arab world into. The calling out of Qatar for its links with Iran and subsequent developments has further divided the already fractured polity of the Middle East.
On Eid, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran gave a very chilling address in Teheran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly called for Jihad. “According to Islamic jurisprudence, when an enemy takes over Muslim lands, jihad in any possible form becomes everyone’s duty,” he said. “Palestine is the number one issue of the Islamic world, but some Islamic countries are acting in such a way as if the Palestinian case had been ignored and forgotten,” he added.
Then came the coup de grace. “Muslims the world over should also openly support the people of Bahrain, Kashmir and Yemen and repudiate oppressors and tyrants who attacked people in Ramadan,” Khamenei said.
Though Iran has earlier voted against India on the issue of Kashmir in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), this is the first time the situation in the Valley has been given a religious colour by Iran’s Supreme leader. Even those who are fighting against the Indian establishment in some districts of J&K have refrained from labelling their movement as “Islamic,” much less “jihadi.”
It is only one or two Hizbul Mujahideen “activists,” Zakir Rashid Bhatt among them, who have tried to give militancy an Islamic colour. In a video that went viral, he said, “When we pick up stones or guns it should not be with this intention that we are fighting for Kashmir (as a nation). The sole motive should be for the supremacy of Islam so that Shariah is established here.”
But Zakir Bhat was quickly denounced by the other separatist leaders.
However, the fact that a Shia religious leader of Iran has clubbed Kashmir, a predominantly Sunni area with causes like Yemen and Bahrain should worry New Delhi, because Iran backs up its rhetoric with logistical support, be it to the Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or the Houthis in Yemen, to name but a few.
This support from Iran coincidentally comes at a time when the predominantly Sunni ISIS, or Daesh, is trying to strike roots in Jammu & Kashmir.
On his forthcoming visit to Israel, Prime Minister Modi would be well advised to ask his interlocutors about the activities of General Qasem Soleimani, the once reclusive head of the Revolutionary Guards and its elite Quds Force. General Soleimani has suddenly surfaced from an era in the dark leading clandestine processes overseas, to attain virtually iconic prominence in Iran. He and the Quds Force have successfully converted erstwhile territorial struggles into religious battles. One can only hope that Kashmir is not their next frontline.
The government should abandon its excessive reliance on hard power in J&K. Hard power should only be used to soften the recalcitrant so that soft power can take over. Jammu & Kashmir is crying out for the healing touch. All the leaders of the state cutting across the political divide, including chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, are urging the Central government to initiate an outreach to the alienated.
The Prime Minister will ignore their sage advice at his own peril. Terms like “final solution” do not help, as that may mean very differently from what the Central government has in mind.

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Iran To Unify With Pakistan (Daniel 8)

After seven years, Iran’s Khamenei rakes up Kashmir again

27 Jun 2017 | By Gogona Saikia

In a surprising development, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei asked Muslims around the world to support people of Kashmir and other places against “oppressors” who attacked people in Ramzan.
He compared the situation in Kashmir to that of the “oppressed nations” of Yemen and Bahrain.
The last time Khamenei raked up the Kashmir issue was seven years earlier. India had then lodged a protest.

Khamenei’s official website carried a transcription of his Eid address. He said Islamic nations are covered in “wounds”, and that Muslims should raise their voices in support of their brothers.
“Our people can back this great movement within the World of Islam,” he said.
In both Yemen and Bahrain, Iran is accused of backing the Houthis and Shia activists against the governments.

In September 2010, the Iranian Foreign Ministry criticized the Indian government for firing on Kashmiri activists protesting the burning of a Quran in US. Later in November, Khamenei compared Kashmir to Gaza and Afghanistan, calling for support for the “struggle”.
India had then summoned the Iranian ambassador to lodge a protest.
Two years later, the then PM Manmohan Singh met Khamenei on relatively friendly-terms.

The difference this time is that “we are in a post-deal environment where India is working very hard (with Iran) to bring strategic projects like Chabahar to fruition, despite the US president’s moves to undermine the nuclear deal”, says foreign affairs specialist Sumitha N. Kutty.

The timing is significant: it came on the day PM Narendra Modi was scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump, who views the Hassan Rouhani government as “opposed to US interests”.
There’s also speculation about concerns in Tehran about India’s growing friendship with Saudi Arabia.
Raking up the issue could simply be an attempt to draw international and Islamic attention to the Kashmir situation.

The Pakistan And Iran Horns Grow (Daniel 8:8)

 

Pakistan, Iran pledge expanded economic cooperation

13 Aug, 2015, 1727 hrs IST, PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Iran today agreed to deepen their economic ties in various fields, including the stalled pipeline project to fetch gas to the energy-starved country, as Tehran looked for ways to exploit its potential following a historic nuclear deal with world powers.

“We agreed that enhancing bilateral collaboration in the energy sector was one of the major areas of mutually beneficial cooperation,” Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz told a joint press conference with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif here.

Zarif earlier today held talks with Aziz which focused on economic cooperation and regional security.
Aziz said they discussed the progress on the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, with Islamabad expressing resolve to start work on the construction of the project at the earliest.

Pakistan and Iran have been negotiating the revival of the stalled project connecting Iran to energy-starved Pakistan, following last month’s historic nuclear deal between Tehran and the so-called P5+1 world powers.

Iran completed its part of the project in 2013, but work was put on hold by Pakistan because of sanctions by US and Europe on Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme.

Aziz said economic integration and connectivity within the region should be improved in order to achieve better economic and commercial activity.

He welcomed Iran’s nuclear agreement signed last month, hoping that it will lead to peace on an international level.

Zarif said Iran was committed to expand its economic ties with Pakistan, besides increasing this cooperation on regional level.

The Iranian foreign minister said, during the talks, both sides discussed extremism and Iran urged Pakistan to play its role in eliminating extremism, sectarianism and militancy from the region.
Zarif, who met Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said they discussed economic cooperation and security issues.

“PM Nawaz and I discussed to increase cooperation between the two countries in sectors ranging from oil to gas, energy, transportation and others,” he said.

He said violence, insecurity and terrorism in the region, the Middle East and in general, needs to be dealt with.

Iran fully supports dialogue between Taliban and Afghan government with the assistance of Pakistan and hoped a very positive outcome which will help bring peace and security in the region, Zarif said.
This was Zarif’s second visit to Pakistan this year.

“It is a great pleasure and honour to be back in Pakistan within a time span of four to five months,” he said.