Al-Qaeda's Next Target: The Dalai Lama

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Justin24

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21493416-2703,00.html

Terror group's threat raises Dalai Lama alert
Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent
April 03, 2007

SECURITY surrounding the Dalai Lama has been tightened after reports of an attempt by the al-Qa'ida-linked terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba to assassinate the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
A three-tier security ring has been thrown around the 72-year-old Buddhist head, who lives at Dharamsala, in the Himalayan foothills, Indian police spokesman Prem Lal said.
All those approaching the exiled Tibetan chief will be closely watched by highly trained Tibetan security guards as well as heavily armed deployments of Indian police.

Visitors are being body-searched before being allowed to approach him.

The Dalai Lama is scheduled to make a widely anticipated 11-day visit to cities and regional centres across Australia in early June, making both free and ticketed appearances at public lectures, blessings and teaching sessions. Before that, he will visit the US.

Superintendent Lal said police had been alerted by central intelligence agencies to the reported plot by Lashkar-e-Toiba to kill the Dalai Lama "on the directions of a foreign organisation", which he declined to name, but is assumed to be al-Qa'ida.

In a recent document, Osama bin Laden denounced "pagan Buddhism" as part of his general attack on anything not Islamic.

The assassination threat picked up by Indian authorities is thought to be based on bin Laden's denunciation and the extremist jihadi movement's hatred for anything and anyone that is not Muslim.

Lashkar-e-Toiba is believed to be al-Qa'ida's agent in South Asia and has been involved in virtually every major terrorist attack in India.

Indian authorities recently heightened the security surrounding India's political leader, Sonia Gandhi, and members of her high-profile family following intelligence reports that they were on the extremist movement's hit list. Mrs Gandhi now travels the country in armed motorcades similar to those that carry the country's head of state, President Abdul Kalam.

The heavy security cordon thrown around the Dalai Lama at the Dharamsala exile where he has lived since fleeing Tibet is in sharp contrast to the normally relaxed atmosphere that pervades the town and is testimony of the extent to which Islamic terrorism is affecting even remote parts of the world.

As police disclosed the threat to the Dalai Lama, Indian officials drafted a strong declaration on terrorism in South Asia for leaders attending the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation summit beginning in New Delhi today.

Indian foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon said the draft declaration would discuss "not only about implementing what we have already agreed to, but to see what further action we, in thesub-region, can take against terrorism".

There are suggestions that leaders at the eight-nation summit will consider extending throughout Asia the joint mechanism to deal with terrorism recently established between India and Pakistan.

The mechanism involves close co-operation on all matters relating to terrorism and a regular exchange of intelligence.

Sri Lanka is particularly keen to see an integrated strategy that would assist it in its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers. Colombo wants SAARC members to work with it to defeat the Tigers.

Similarly, India wants all eight SAARC nations to help it defeat the Lashkar-e-Toiba group and to pursue a campaign against the terrorist movement. But many Pakistanis see LeT fighters as heroes.
 
Justin24 said:
In a recent document, Osama bin Laden denounced "pagan Buddhism" as part of his general attack on anything not Islamic.

The assassination threat picked up by Indian authorities is thought to be based on bin Laden's denunciation and the extremist jihadi movement's hatred for anything and anyone that is not Muslim.

:|

I want to know what exactly is in the Quran that makes some muslims so extremist in nature. I've only seen a few clips of those madrassas or classrooms where muslim kids study and almost every time the classes look so fired up to the point that a casual observer could think that the kids are being brainwashed. I don't mean any offence to muslim kids but from what I've noticed, Islam is a pretty intense religion. And I'd like to know where exactly that shift occurs from having a normal childhood with good education to growing up into a hardcore extremist.

Of course, extremists exist in every religion. But I just can't begin to comprehend the conscience (or lack of) of an extremist. I thought we were all taught right from childhood to love one another, to live and let live, to be tolerant, polite etc. I get the feeling extremists are trained badly right from the time they're born. Because it is unfathomable to me how one could get basic education of being tolerant and living in society and then go on to become a fundamentalist.
 
Re: Re: Al-Qaeda's Next Target: The Dalai Lama

Zootlesque said:


Because it is unfathomable to me how one could get basic education of being tolerant and living in society and then go on to become a fundamentalist.

Not everywhere in the world you get basic education and taught to tolerate and respect each other.

It's a good question, but very hard to answer since there is no one reason to say how one can become a fundamentalist.

It sometimes starts in childhood, and then the basic education is that your religion is superior and that you have to fight for the spread of this religion.
Relifious texts can be interpreted as they fit best, that's the case with the Bible, and that's the case with the Quran.

Others become fundamentalists because of oppression. Some of them are not exactly fundamentalist, but rather join those terror groups because they lost their houses or family.

Bin Laden for example only became a fundamental Muslim in his twenties when he met people like Mullah Omar (hope the name is correct) that had a great influence on him.

But there is no one answer or reason why a person becomes a fundamentalist and starts to kill the "non-believers".

It really is brainwashing what they do in these schools, and they knowingly interpret and teach the Quran very wrongly in their desperate strive for power and influence.

But it's not the religion itself that is evil, as some like to argue.
 
Hmmm, well I haven't seen that many stories in the Indian press about this, but my impression is the threat on the Dalai Lama is still considered quite speculative, and Police Superintendent Lal (quoted in the article) has given completely contradictory statements to the media as to how clearly defined and current this threat is considered to be by intelligence agencies. A few local papers in Himachal Pradesh (where the Dalai Lama lives) fingered al-Qaeda as the likely 'foreign organisation' involved, while others fingered the Chinese government, and it was in fact posters of Chinese President Hu Jintao, not Osama bin Laden, which were burnt by angry pro-Tibetan demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh yesterday upon news of the alleged threat on the Dalai Lama's life. (This is the not the first time they've accused China of arming or otherwise supporting militant separatists in the Himalayan region.)

Lashkar-e-Toiba, like many other militant Islamist groups active in the region, grew out of the Afghan mujahideen who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 80s. After that war was over, they moved into Pakistan and from there became active in Kashmir. Kashmir remains their main focus of activity although they're widely believed to retain extensive connections to other terrorist groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and elsewhere (including al-Qaeda, primarily through the Taliban connection). They have decades of experience fighting powerful and well-equipped occupying armies (first the Soviets, then the Indians) and have developed formidable organizational skills, as well as a reputation for brutality towards civilians. Like al-Qaeda they do have a 'pan-Islamist' ideology although in practice they don't have anything like that organization's international scale of operations.

While imperialism is certainly part of Islamic history as it is of Christian history, it's interesting to speculate how the Cold War in particular may have influenced these groups' sense of mission. It may be a rather facile observation but Kashmir is not the ideal environment for anyone to learn how to be tolerant and to 'live and let live'. Home-grown insurgencies which started out with quite strictly local concerns; expanded through networking with otherwise unrelated groups who shared a common military enemy with a wide reach; and evolved into diffuse but sophisticated terrorist organizations whose ideologies are if anything more imperialistic, and obsessed with never again being humiliated, than those of the armies they started out fighting is a pattern you see over and over.

Admittedly it's a bit hard to tie threats against the Dalai Lama to all that, although it's probably relevant that he's not simply an admired and highly visible leader of a 'pagan religion' (remember the Taliban's bizarre about-face which led to the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan, supposedly due to Mullah Omar's disgust with 'foreign experts' who seemed more concerned with fixing the statues' eroding facades than providing food aid for Afghans)--he's also a leader in exile of an occupied country who's used his spiritual cachet adroitly to attract international sympathy for their cause, determinedly nonviolent though his approach may be.
 
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Re: Re: Re: Al-Qaeda's Next Target: The Dalai Lama

Vincent Vega said:


Not everywhere in the world you get basic education and taught to tolerate and respect each other.

It's a good question, but very hard to answer since there is no one reason to say how one can become a fundamentalist.

It sometimes starts in childhood, and then the basic education is that your religion is superior and that you have to fight for the spread of this religion.
Relifious texts can be interpreted as they fit best, that's the case with the Bible, and that's the case with the Quran.

Others become fundamentalists because of oppression. Some of them are not exactly fundamentalist, but rather join those terror groups because they lost their houses or family.

Bin Laden for example only became a fundamental Muslim in his twenties when he met people like Mullah Omar (hope the name is correct) that had a great influence on him.

But there is no one answer or reason why a person becomes a fundamentalist and starts to kill the "non-believers".

It really is brainwashing what they do in these schools, and they knowingly interpret and teach the Quran very wrongly in their desperate strive for power and influence.

But it's not the religion itself that is evil, as some like to argue.

Very nicely put.

I would also add that desperation leads people to do terribly violent things. However, the idea that the American people have not allowed their government to engage in violence has settled in due to the state-centered view we tend to have in the West. Just as its objectionable if Middle Eastern governments fund Al Qaeda type groups, the American government should be held accountable for funding Israel's arsenal in killing over a thousand innocent Lebanese last year and for occupying Palestinians.

While I, too, as a Muslim, am disturbed by those Muslims in the West who harbor such a nationalistic and colonial view of the world that they only care about Muslims and automatically suspect a Western society that has welcomed them, I also cannot understand the millions of fundamentalist Christians who follow the Christian Coalition in backing Israel because they want the second coming of Christ and have such racist views of Muslims and Arabs or even how such people can preach the faith of "family values" while blaming the plight of poor blacks in America on immorality. Just because they don't plant bombs themselves doesn't mean they don't pressure the American state to engage in aggressive behavior outside and hypocritical negligence toward the responsibility of us all to help solve the legacy of slavery and discrimination in America.
 
The Disciple said:
These f***ers.
Agreed. I hate everything about the intolerance of Al Qaeda type groups. Like many nationalist groups, they are up in arms when a non-Muslim group does something (Israel, the US, etc), but don't give a damn about Muslim individuals, let alone those of others. They don't care about the many in other nations who fight for fair treatment. They don't care about the rights of Iraqis to stability and schooling or about the Red Cross' attempts to help people and attack its members. I just want to be clear that I object to Islamic fundamentalism and its political perpetrators.
 
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