The Algerian Hostage Crisis And Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
30 January 2013
By
El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
Assalaamu Alaikum
(Greetings of Peace):
This message is coming to
our readers from New Jersey. I begin with a somber
announcement. Yesterday I received a [missed] call
from my sister-in-Islam, Dr. Asha A. Samad - she also
sent me an e-mail with the following message:
Have you heard thatImam
Omar abu Namous died this morning after fajr?
Yesterday his qutba was about death... Alhamdulillah
for long, motivational, exemplary faithful life during
difficult times.
--- Sis. Asha A. Samad
Sheikh Omar abu Namous was
the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York (aka,
the 96 Street Mosque) and a good man. It was indeed
both fitting and instructive that his last jumuah
khutbah (Friday sermon) should be on the topic of
death.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilahi
rajioon(from
ALLAH we come and to Him wemustreturn).
May ALLAH forgive the sins of Sheikh Omar, fortify his
family in this time of emotional challenge, and bless
him with Paradise. Ameen.
Ihave
been in New Jersey since Friday. I was privileged to
deliver the jumuah khutbah at a large Islamic center
in Piscataway - theMuslim
Center of Middlesex County (MCMC).The
message in the afternoon (which centered on the
importance of Muslims in America meeting the
challenges which lay ahead with the power of
faith), and the evening lecture on the plight of our
sister, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, received a warm response (alhamdullilah).
This was the third Friday
in a roll that we've been able to take our
core message on the importance of Muslims doing our
best to enjoin the good and forbid the evil to a
Muslim center, as part of the special three month
drive for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. Insha'Allah, next Friday
we will visitMasjid
Bilal in Richmond, Virginia,
for the jumuah khutbah and evening lecture.
With that said, I want to
now touch upon another telephone conversation I
had during this trip. The evening before last Br.
Abdel Hafid, a brother in New York City with Algerian
roots, informed me about a number of reports (in the
Arabic media overseas) about the hostage crisis which
yesterday came to a tragic end. He stated that
according to reports, the hostage takers were
demanding the release ofDr.
Aafia SiddiquiandSheikh
Umar Abdur-Rahman-
the blind Egyptian cleric that the U.S. government has
had imprisoned under unfortunate conditions, for years
now.
During the conversation he
voiced his disagreement with hostage taking,
and opined that demands for Aafia's release under such
circumstances were not necessarily in her interest;
and also, that the demands being made by the hostage
takers might make things more difficult for Egyptian
President Morsi's efforts to secure the release of
Sheikh Omar as well; and I agreed.
I informed Br. Abdel Hafid
about Aafia's courtroom request that was delivered
during the offensively unjust sentencing hearing for
her in New York City on September 23, 2010. She
specifically implored (those who were present, and
those who would hear the news of her unjust 86 year
sentence later) that there NOT be any violence
committed in her name, as a result of the injustice
that was being done to her!
And
within days of that request, there was an estimated
ONE MILLION people in the streets of Karachi,
Pakistan, protesting the U.S. verdict against Aafia
Siddiqui; and from what I was told there wasn't one
death or serious injury, a truly remarkable occurrence
in that part of the world!
I then informed Br. Abdel
Hafid that I would write a short piece of
commentary to underscore this fact; and he committed
to translating my commentary into Arabic and getting
it out to the overseas media. It was my intention to
write the commentary early the next day, but
unfortunately, things ended as they did. I saw The
Washington Post report below, and I said a silent
prayer for all of the families affected by this
regrettable, man-made tragedy.
Hostages reportedly killed as Algerian desert standoff
ends,By Anthony
Faiola and Michael Birnbaum,
Jan 19, 2013 03:05 PM
EST -The
Washington Post
LONDON — Algerian forces
launched a final assault Saturday against Islamist
militants holding foreign hostages at a desert energy
complex, resulting in the deaths of 11 kidnappers and
their seven remaining captives, according to Algerian
and French news reports...
I found this reader's
response on The Washington Post feedback blog (to the
aforementioned report) interesting and insightful:
Anyone who takes a job at one of the oil compounds in
africa
gets highly paid to work in a place where this could
happen at any time. I'm sure priority number one was
to stop it before they blew the expensive equipment
up. The oil companies operate like feudal war lords in
these regions, with their own mercenary armies to deal
with local war lords. Money and power to do what they
want are their number one priorities. Algeria did the
right thing and I don't care to see any of my tax
dollars wasted supporting the agendas of those greedy
giants and their employees who decide the money is
worth the risk. The oil companies are just as
unethical and armed as the other armed gangs running
around.The
oil companies spout free market capitalism as their
religion and the local gang spouts islam. Neither are
true to the tenants of either.I
fail to see where there are any sides to take here.
Algeria responded with a typical police action and
kept everyone else out, as is their right as a
country.
What now follows is an even more insightful piece of
commentary by my sister-in-Islam (and highly respected
British investigative journalist), Yvonne Ridley.
From Consul To Terrorist: The Only Faction Active oOn The Scene Because Everybody Else Has Left The Arena :: EsinIslam The Muslim World Portal For Islamic News And Opinions
From Consul To Terrorist: The Only Faction Active oOn The Scene Because Everybody Else Has Left The Arena
14 January 2013
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
As soon as I heard the name Iyad Ag Ghaly in relation
to the events in Mali I began to wonder if this could
be the same man from the same country? Could it really
be him? Iyad Ag Ghaly heads up the military operations
of armed terrorist groups in northern Mali; whilst
there was a man with the same name who served as
Mali's consul in Jeddah. I called some friends and
confirmed that Iyad Ag Ghaly is indeed the same man
that I met at Jeddah's Hilton hotel less than three
years ago.
We are facing a truly strange world where those who
are legitimate today could be fugitives tomorrow.
At the time, I knew-from those who had dealt with
Ghaly as a Tuareg tribal chief and diplomatic
consul-that he was the best source to find
intermediaries to negotiate the release of hostages
taken in the Azawad region. Now, he is said to be
commander of the Ansar Dine movement fighting the
Malian army, as well as international French and
African forces.
When I read a profile about him in yesterday's Asharq
al-Awsat newspaper, I was even more confused, for this
stated that he was close to Libyan dictator Muammar
Qadhafi who reportedly sent him to fight in Lebanon.
Yet, Ghaly only recently displayed extremist
tendencies.
This kind of confusion and uncertainty has become
quite common as shown by the emergence of extremists
like Tarek al-Zomor and Mohamed al-Zawahiri on Egypt's
political scene. So how did a man like Iyad Ag Ghaly
turn from being a moderate Sunni Muslim to an
extremist armed fighter? Is it rational to suppose
that a man in his fifties, like Ghaly, should suddenly
become radicalized? This is truly hard to believe. I
sense that this may be some kind of political maneuver
where politicians have pretended to adopt extremist
ideologies in order to recruit impulsive youths. These
politicians provide these youth with funding under the
pretext of ?religious duty?, convincing them to
sacrifice their lives for a false cause in return for
a place in heaven! Since there is a general
international lack of will to fight anywhere in the
world, the French-alongside a few African states-will
fight this war on their own before realizing that
desert wars never end and withdraw. What makes matters
more complicated is that conflicts that involve
religious slogans and tribal powers can last for
decades without any side being defeated.
Our problem with those who are keen on fighting these
extremists, like the French today and the Americans
yesterday in Afghanistan and perhaps tomorrow in
Syria, is their inability to understand the
fundamental nature of the problem. These extremist
groups represent the smallest part of the equation;
rather the greatest and most important challenge is to
confront extremist ideologies. Had the West, as well
as the Arab countries involved and other relevant
parties invested their money and effort in fighting
extremist ideologies, this crisis might have come to
an end. Instead they spent billions of dollars on tens
of thousands of soldiers, advanced weaponry, and
combat drones managing to eliminate a number of Al
Qaeda's leaders; however Al Qaeda's ideology remains
the same and in fact continues to spread like a
disease. Most people find it easier to jump to easy
conclusions by laying the blame on one group or
another like Sunnis, Shi'ites, clerics, or even
religion as a whole; however all these groups were
present prior to this and were never a source of
trouble.
We are living in a different world in which political
powers are establishing and nourishing extremist
ideologies and generations. These politicians have the
project, the expertise, and the will to propagate such
extremist ideology and they are practically immune to
punishment because the wrong parties are always held
accountable. Who could have imagined that Mali would
become an international battlefield after Afghanistan?
The West is repeating the same mistake in Syria by
allowing it to fall prey to extremists who are
emotionally manipulate the general public under the
pretext that they are their only source of salvation
from the tyranny of the Assad regime. In reality, they
are the only faction active on the scene because
everybody else has left the arena.
Al
Rashed is the general manager of Al -Arabiya
television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of
Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly
magazine, Al Majalla. He is also a senior Columnist in
the daily newspapers of Al Madina and Al Bilad. He is
a US post-graduate degree in mass communications. He
has been a guest on many TV current affairs programs.
He is currently based in Dubai.