Category Archives: Terrorism

News comes of the death of Amir Tarar, the “godfather of the Taliban” aka “Colonel Imam”. A clear case of hoist and petard – he was killed at the hands of the extremists he trained.

A former Pakistani intelligence official who has been dubbed “the godfather of the Taliban” for his alleged training of the Islamist group in Afghanistan in the 1980s has died in the hands of extremist fighters, according to news reports.

News of Brig. Gen. Sultan Amir Tarar’s death in Pakistan’s North Waziristan began to reach media over the weekend, but reports still remain unclear over the exact nature and the date. Regional media sources have reported that Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, official Tarar, popularly known as “Colonel Imam,” was killed by his Pakistani Taliban captors because a ransom was not paid.

This is a cross-post by Alan A

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From the 7/7 Inquest:

A survivor of the 7/7 bus bombing has told how a friend persuaded her to get on the packed Number 30, only to be killed minutes later in the blast.

Emma Plunkett told the inquests she suggested to Shahara Islam that they wait until the queues for buses at London’s Euston station had died down.

But Ms Islam, 20, insisted they “push” to get on, and found herself sitting next to suicide bomber Hasib Hussain.

She was one of 13 people killed when he detonated his device.

She was a British-Bangla girl who worked for the Co-Op Bank in Islington.

This is a cross post by Houriya Ahmed from Prospect

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Yesterday’s arrests over an alleged Christmas ‘bomb plot’ remind us that al Qaeda-inspired terrorism remains a dangerous threat, both in Britain and abroad. It was no surprise to hear that Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, the Swedish suicide bomber, may have been radicalised during his time in Britain. This country is one of the biggest exporters of Islamist violence. Yet prominent politicians, community leaders and activists obfuscate the problem. “If it wasn’t for Bush and Blair’s illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, then people wouldn’t want to kill us,” so the cliché goes.

Some believe that Western governments deliberately exaggerate or even invent terror plots as part of a grand scheme to discredit Muslims. For example, British journalist Fiona Bawdon and jury foreman Lawrence Archer recently wrote an exposé of the trial of Kamal Bourgass—the man convicted in 2005 for planning a terrorist attack using the chemical ricin. Bawdon and Archer argue that the British government exaggerated the threat posed by Bourgass in order to look tough on terrorism. Similarly, Azzam Tamimi, the director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought, “wonders” whether governments’ claims to have foiled terror plots are an attempt to “smear the image of Islam and the Muslims.”