Articles

A spate of recent events highlights the urgency with which the Americans are trying to reshape Islam in their own image and interests. Since mid-August, for example, reports in several Egyptian newspapers have told of dozens of mosque imams and khateebs being sent to America secretly in what are called "cultural exchanges".

The UN’s announcement on September 27 that it is withdrawing its international staff from Iraq for security reasons came as a massive blow to the country’s US occupation authorities, who have been desperately trying to convince the world that they have full control over Iraq and are succeeding in introducing freedom and democracy to a grateful population.

Eighty-three Muslim worshippers were martyred by the bomb that exploded outside the mosque at the Imam Ali mausoleum in Najaf immediately after juma prayers on August 29, but there was little doubt that its main target was Ayatullah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, leader of Majlis al-Aala l’il-Thawra al- Islami f’il-Iraq (The Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq).

Hamas leader Shaikh Ahmad Yassin said on September 24 that Hamas, Palestine’s leading Islamic movement and the most popular political group among Palestinians, would not accept any suggestion that it should disarm or declare a truce.

The Bush administration, apparently unable or unwilling to learn any lessons from its recent foreign policy debacles, is making the same charges against Syria as it used to justify the invasion of Iraq, which have been shown to be not merely exaggerated but patently false.

Muslim regimes have developed ingenious ways to convince the Bush administration of their commitment to the ‘war on terrorism’ . The latest is the ‘numbers game’ of arrested Muslim activists – the more people hauled in, the more unlikely it is that one will suffer the Saddam fate (or so they hope).

Even two years after the Taliban’s removal from power, the hapless Afghans continue to suffer under a reign of terror; the perpetrators are none other than the US-backed warlords ensconced as ministers or wearing pompous titles such as commander. Rape, robbery, and murder and the bloody-mindedness of the US occupation forces have turned almost every Afghan into an anti-American fighter.

In view of the US’s disastrous entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would be logical to expect that Washington would be a little more circumspect in picking fights elsewhere. If logic prevailed in Washington that would be a reasonable hope, but US policy today is in the control of hardcore warriors who are being goaded by a zionist cabal. These men have advanced such demonic notions as "perpetual war" and "pre-emptive strikes." So Washington’s mad dogs and their zionist allies are now barking at Iran over its peaceful nuclear programme.

"Twin explosions in India’s commercial capital": even the headlines after the bomb blasts in Mumbai on August 25 were eerily familiar. Investigations (if any are even being conducted) to date are yet to find the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, or even determine who they really were. But the result of those fateful events has been havoc for Muslims everywhere. In the post-9/11 world, the "war on terror" (really a war on Islam) is the universal agenda. But India, with its amazing ‘consciousness’ of terrorism, has been trying to achieve a "vital breakthrough" by unequivocally declaring that Pakistan is an "epicenter of international terrorism".

The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was formed in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh state, in April 1977. Its founding president was Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, now professor of journalism and public relations at the University of Western Illinois. SIMI originally emerged as a student wing of the Jamaat-e Islami Hind (JIH).