I wrote the title for this blog post even before I read any of the news items on the topic. Just scanning through the headlines told me enough: I saw Al Qaeda fingerprints. They did not attack any ordinary mosque, but a rather historic one, so it would resonate among Muslims across India and beyond. They did not attack a temple. They attacked a mosque. They want the Muslims angry, and on their side.
To be fair, to be Muslim in India is to be African American in America. All the major socio-economic indicators indicate the Muslims in India lag behind. But religious riots and terrorism are a whole different ballgame. India has a Muslim president. The Hindi film industry has many top Muslim artists. Some of the top entrepreneurs in India are Muslim. India is a vibrant democracy. When the Muslims get angry at you, they vote against you to humble you, they don't fantasize about joining some terrorist organization. And they recently did in the largest Indian state of Utter Pradesh. They humbled the incumbent Chief Minister.
It is super important to make sure both the Hindus and the Muslims understand what the motive was behind this particular attack. If the result of this attack is some kind of a Hindu-Muslim riot, small or big, the Al Qaeda has won, and India has lost. The India Muslims are a smart bunch, but they do need to be fed the right information, the accurate information, the full-fledged information.
This incident also tells us how sick of an organization the Al Qaeda is. It kills Muslims. They kill people they claim to fight for. They did that in Iraq. Blasting Shia mosques would anger the Shia. So they did it. Is that their version of Islam? Go destroy mosques? Kill Muslims?
Indian Muslims instead will teach democracy to the Muslims across the world.
At least 13 killed in mosque bombing, riots in southern India International Herald Tribune, France killing 13 people — 11 in the blast and two in subsequent clashes between angry Muslim worshippers and ..... wounded 35 .... fears of wider Hindu-Muslim violence in the city, long been plagued by communal tensions — and occasional spasms of inter-religious bloodletting. .... 17th-century Mecca Masjid .... About 10,000 people usually attend Friday prayers at the mosque, and the blast sparked a panic. ...... a huge deafening blast sending bodies into the air .... People were bleeding, running around in a very bad condition ..... Muslims later clashed with security forces in at least three parts of Hyderabad city ..... Police fired live ammunition and tear gas to quell the riots ..... Authorities across India were told to be alert for any signs of Hindu-Muslim fighting, and top officials called for calm. ..... the city's police chief, Balwinder Singh, said the death toll could rise. ..... Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Andhra Pradesh's chief minister, appealed for calm between Hindus and Muslims. .... Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "has condemned the bomb blast in Hyderabad and has urged members of all communities to maintain peace and communal harmony" ..... one bomb went off about 1:30 p.m., and police found and defused two others afterward. ..... The explosion immediately drew comparisons to a Sept. 8 bombing of a mosque during a Muslim festival in Malegaon, a city in western India, that killed 31 people. ..... an estimated 130 million Muslims among India's 1.1 billion people. ..... India's worst religious violence in recent years was in 2002, in western Gujarat state. More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in Hindu mob revenge attacks after a train fire killed 60 Hindus returning from a religious pilgrimage. Muslims were blamed for the train fire. ....... A series of terrorist attacks have hit India in the past year, including the July bombings of seven Mumbai commuter trains that killed more than 200 people. Most of the bombings have been blamed on Muslim militants based in neighboring Pakistan, India's longtime rival. 11 killed in bombing of historic mosque in India MSNBC Attack bears stamp of LeT Economic Times, India In what appears to be a frame-by-frame repeat of last year’s Jama Masjid blasts in New Delhi and Malegaon explosions in Maharashtra, jehadi outfits and their local links struck terror by exploding a low-intensity IED during Friday prayers at the historical Mecca mosque in Charminar area of Hyderabad. Though the IEDs were not very powerful, the explosion killed 12 and injured 50 as the congregation was quite large on Friday. ....... intelligence agencies feel the attack bears a stamp of the LeT-Simi network, also suspected behind the Malegaon blasts. This is evident both from the nature of the explosives suspected to have been used — ammonium nitrate with an attached timer device — and the motive of fomenting communal trouble by targeting members of a particular community. ..... the bombs were planted at the site where ablutions are performed before offering prayers. The explosives used were low-intensity just like those used in Malegaon, establishing that the central purpose was not to cause high casualties, but to create a scare as well as drive a communal wedge by pitching one community against the other. ........ The jehadis nearly seem to have succeeded on Friday as the blasts were followed by protests and stone-pelting by Muslims both in Hyderabad as well as in other parts of the country. .... fits into the pattern of jehadi groups like LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad attacking religious places in collusion with local outfits like Simi. ..... The earlier attacks have targeted key Hindu religious places including Raghunath temple in Jammu, Akshardham in Ahmedabad, Ram Lalla temple at Ayodhya and Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi. It is when none of these attacks were followed by communal riots that the jehadi outfits turned their attention to mosques. Mosque Explosion in India Kills 11 Arab News, Saudi Arabia India mosque bomb kills 13 Sydney Morning Herald, Australia 12 dead after bomb blast in Indian mosque NEWS.com.au, Australia 13 Die in Explosion, Clashes in India San Francisco Chronicle, CA 13 die in explosion, clashes in India San Jose Mercury News, CA 13 Die In Explosion, Clashes In India Guardian Unlimited, UK High alert in Delhi following Andhra mosque blast Hindustan Times, India 13 die in explosion, clashes in India Houston Chronicle, TX Mosque bombing kills 13 amid riots Ireland Online, Ireland Nine killed in Hyderabad mosque blast, 3 die in protests Reuters India, India Nine killed in India mosque bomb NEWS.com.au, Australia Five killed, 16 injured in blast at Hyderabad mosque Hindustan Times, India Explosion at historic mosque in southern India kills 7, wounds dozens San Diego Union Tribune, CA Seven killed in Hyderabad mosque bomb blast Reuters India, India Mecca Masjid has witnessed protests before, but never a blast Hindustan Times, India 6 killed, many hurt as bombs go off in Hyderabad mosque Times of India, India Delhi on high alert after Hyderabad blast Economic Times, India Five killed in bomb attack at historic Indian mosque Belfast Telegraph, UK
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Michelle Obama Adds New Role to Balancing Act New York Times a woman who has said she dislikes politics is assuming a starring role in her husband’s campaign ....... kneeling next to two little boys and their sister to inquire, “Which one of you is the troublemaker?” ....... “I’m sure this guy is weird,” she said, describing her initial reaction to her husband’s name. ....... She has a propensity for bluntness and a fierce competitive drive. ...... Nancy Reagan (regarded as too adoring of her husband) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (too eager to share his job), to say nothing of spouses of losing candidates, like Judith Steinberg Dean (too absent) and Teresa Heinz Kerry (too outspoken). ...... Mrs. Obama, 43, is trying a fresh approach: running as everywoman, a wife, professional, mother, volunteer. ...... Hawaiian-Indonesian-African-Midwestern sensation ...... her natural frankness ...... Daughter of a Chicago city pump operator who had multiple sclerosis, she graduated from Princeton and Harvard and juggles her job as a hospital executive with motherhood and civic work. ...... dislikes politics, friends and family confirmed, but not as much as she dislikes losing ........ brainy and warm.... also a force to be reckoned with. ...... she threw herself into her husband’s campaign from the start, asking to meet with aides running every aspect of it. Friends says she is decisive and pragmatic, perhaps more so than the candidate. ....... At a black church in Cincinnati last week, the audience mmm-hmmm-ed approval throughout her speech. ...... “I wake up every morning wondering how on the earth I am going to pull off that next minor miracle of getting through the day” ....... dinner-together-every-night childhood ..... 4:30 a.m. treadmill sessions and meals prepared at lightning speed. ....... To help out, Mrs. Obama’s mother will retire this summer from her job as a bank secretary and care for the girls more frequently. ..... now she is ceding her career to his, reducing her time at the hospital to a 20 percent commitment (and her paycheck to $42,436 from $212,180) ...... the hospital, where colleagues say she excels at tackling thorny problems Obama Disputes Claim of Sharing Clinton’s Stance on War New York Times a fundamental question of judgment was at issue. ...... we had a fundamentally different opinion on the wisdom of this war ..... until yesterday, Mr. Obama had not been so direct in contesting Mr. Clinton’s claims that there was little difference between the two hopefuls. .... she unequivocally supported the plan to end war financing next spring.
