This is a cross-post by Terry Glavin
The Sound of Pennies Dropping:
1. Pakistan’s main spy agency says homegrown Islamist militants have overtaken the Indian army as the greatest threat to national security, a finding with potential ramifications for relations between the two rival South Asian nations and for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. A recent internal assessment of security by the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s powerful military spy agency, determined that for the first time in 63 years, it expects a majority of threats to come from Islamist militants, according to a senior ISI officer.
2. Much now depends on the ability of the government and its foreign allies to bring relief to flood victims. Tens of thousands of Pakistani troops and virtually the army’s entire helicopter fleet are now involved in the effort. But its resources are way overstretched, and for months to come the army is unlikely to be in a position to even hold the areas along the Afghan border that it has recently won back from the militants, let alone initiate any new campaigns against the Taliban. That means the war in Afghanistan is about to become even more bloody.
One Caliph to rule them all
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Hizb ut-Tahrir; Jamaat-e-Islami; Ikhwan al-Muslimeen and al-Qaeda all have, as a fundamental aim; the establishment of a global dictatorship under the rule of one Caliph, an autocrat, who will impose one interpretation of the Shar’iah over the entire globe. They intend to do this through unifying countries where there already exists Muslim majorities then launch a worldwide international effort at expanding this state through diplomatic and hostile means i.e. warfare.
For them, there is a religious duty (fard) in which there is no dispute, that there must be a single caliphate encompassing the whole globe. There is no room for different interpretations, and anyone differing with them – especially the likes of the Hizb, and al-Qaeda, are upon Kufr – unbelief and apostates from Islam. In fact they would argue that all the Muslim scholars who have abandoned engaging in political activity for the sake of establishing such a super-state are upon misguidance, and Kufr, even if on the whole the Muslim jurists take the position, that there are different opinions on this issue, which are legitimate opinions – Ijtihadaat – and therefore we cannot start accusing others of being on un-Islamic positions for holding different views.