Nigeria: 18 Dead As Suspected Female Bombers Strike Wedding, Funeral, Hospital

So far, 18 deaths have been confirmed, with the dead including children, adults and pregnant women.

Outlook Web Desk
Updated on: 30 June 2024 


Suspected Female Bombers Strike Wedding, Funeral, Hospital In Nigeria | Photo: Vanguard News

A series of bomb attacks in Nigeria's Borno state killed at least 18 people and injured more than 40 on Saturday, according to the local state emergency management agency.

Suspected female suicide bombers separately attacked a wedding, a funeral and a hospital, according to Barkindo Saidu, the director general of the Borno state emergency management agency.

So far, 18 deaths have been confirmed, with the dead including children, adults and pregnant women. Nigeria's Vanguard News, however, reported that the death toll could be higher, close to 30, with more than 100 people wounded.

“The first bomb blast occurred around 3pm in the midst of a wedding ceremony. A few minutes later, another bomb blast occurred at General Hospital Gwoza. In the midst of sorrow, the people in the community gathered for the funeral congregation of the deceased people, (and) another suicide bomber denoted a bomb,” the state emergency management said.

Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), are the main militant groups active in Borno state.

The area has seen frequent attacks and kidnappings in recent years, with women and children often used as bombers.

Some of those carrying out suicide attacks are believed to be among the thousands kidnapped by the group over the years.

The Nigerian military has been battling Boko Haram and ISWAP in the region, but the groups continue to pose a significant threat.

Biden Administration Criticized For Omitting Nigeria From Religious Persecution Watchlist

 June 30, 2024  

By CNA

By Peter Pinedo

Religious freedom activists are criticizing the Biden State Department for continuing to leave Nigeria off its “countries of particular concern” (CPC) watchlist, despite the department’s own report highlighting the violent persecution of Christians in the country.

One expert said that Nigeria’s exclusion reveals a “troubling inconsistency” in the State Department’s policy toward religious freedom.

The 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom, released by the State Department on Wednesday, highlights the religious liberty situation in nearly 200 countries and territories.

Announcing the release of the report, Secretary of State Antony Blinken decried rising religious intolerance across the globe and cast a “vision” for the world in which “everyone is able to choose and practice their beliefs.”

Advocates took issue with the report’s characterization of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria as a series of “intercommunal clashes” and the result of competition for resources rather than radicalized Islamic groups.

Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, told CNA that the report demonstrates a “broader agenda” on the part of the Biden State Department of “not criticizing the attacks on Christians in Nigeria.” 

“These attacks, these horrible Hamas-like bloody assaults, very violent, very brutal, they never seem to be stopped or investigated, or prosecuted by the government,” she said. “The Christians under attack are defenseless, they’re not being protected by their own governments, and [they] don’t have militias of their own. So, they’re extremely vulnerable.” 

What is going on in Nigeria? 

Nigeria is the largest country in Africa by population. About half of the Nigerian population, over 111 million people, are Christian. Despite this, the Nigerian government is dominated by Muslims and many states in the country operate under Sharia law. 

The Christian population has increasingly come under fire in recent years and has been targeted by several Islamic terrorist groups, such as Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, and radical groups of the Fulani ethnic tribe. 

According to the State Department’s report, there were over 4,000 Christians killed, 3,300 abducted, and 100,000 displaced in Nigeria between October 2022 and September 2023. 

The Nigerian government has largely turned a blind eye to these attacks, in many cases refusing to dispatch police or military forces until well after attacks have occurred. 

In addition, Nigeria targets Christians with anti-blasphemy, prosecuting them for speaking in defense of their religion.

The report recognizes the uptick in attacks, killings, and kidnappings, and prosecutions have resulted in what it calls “a climate of fear and displacement” among the Christian population. Yet it also says that “because issues of religion, ethnicity, land, and resource competition, and criminality are often closely linked, it was difficult to categorize many incidents as being solely, or even primarily, based on religious identity.” 

Nigeria left off list with world’s worst abusers

Shea said that because more Christians are killed in Nigeria than in any other country in the world, there is no excuse for it not being on the CPC list, which she explained is an effective “short list of the world’s worst abusers.” 

Countries currently on the list include China, North Korea, Russia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. 

Shea explained that the CPC list helps to effectuate change by exerting U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure. In many instances CPC designation can come with special economic sanctions, something she said would be especially effective in Nigeria’s case since the U.S. sends the country over $1 billion in annual aid. 

“The United States gives a billion dollars in foreign aid to Nigeria every year, and it needs to ensure that that aid is well spent so that it’s not contributing to this, and that the government of Nigeria is actually protecting all its citizens,” she said. 

Meanwhile, Sean Nelson, an attorney with the advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom International, told CNA that the State Department’s report demonstrates an incoherence and inconsistency within the administration’s policy toward Nigeria. 

“The exclusion of Nigeria from the CPC list despite the clear evidence provided by the State Department’s own reporting reveals a deeply troubling inconsistency in the Biden administration’s approach to the fundamental right of religious freedom that undermines the U.S.’s credibility,” Nelson said. 

“A consistent approach,” he went on, “maintains the seriousness with which our nation has always viewed the violation of this fundamental right, while an inconsistent approach relegates the right to religious freedom to second-class status.”

“The first step to addressing these grave issues, even with our friends, is acknowledging them, and words without actions only have a small impact,” he said. “The State Department should follow the evidence to its logical conclusion and use the tools that Congress has given it to make sure that the promotion of international religious freedom remains a U.S. foreign policy priority.”

CNA
The Catholic News Agency (CNA) has been, since 2004, one of the fastest growing Catholic news providers to the English speaking world. The Catholic News Agency takes much of its mission from its sister agency, ACI Prensa, which was founded in Lima, Peru, in 1980 by Fr. Adalbert Marie Mohm (†1986).

YAZIDI

Young women fear return to a broken land of rubble and brutality

By Caroline Hawley, Diplomatic correspondent

BBC

Amar Foundation
Yazidi singers have performed in locations including London and Oxford


It’s 10 years since Islamic State militants tried to wipe out the Yazidi people in the Sinjar region in northern Iraq. They massacred thousands of men, and raped and enslaved girls and women. Now survivors face a new fear as the Iraqi government plans to close down the tented camps where they live, in other parts of the country, to encourage them to return to the areas they fled from.

Several Yazidi women who survived the horrors and live in an affected camp have been in the UK for a series of choral performances, seeking to showcase their cultural heritage and highlight the plight of their community, which is an ancient religious and ethnic minority.

Tears slide silently down Amira’s cheeks as she tells the BBC of the horrific brutality inflicted by the militants when they captured the Yazidis’ ancestral homeland in 2014. A decade has passed, but her pain remains raw.

Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of violence

Amira managed to flee to the mountains as men from her community were shot dead and women and girls were raped and enslaved.

But two of her sisters were among those put to work in the households of Islamic State (IS) fighters, who had declared the Yazidis to be devil-worshippers.

Handout
Amira is one of the Yazidi women in a choir that has been visiting the UK


Unlike many slaves Amira’s sisters weren’t raped, she says, because they were already married.

However, one sister, whose husband had been killed by the militants, was beaten on a daily basis.

And she received an unspeakably cruel threat.

“She had given birth 15 days before she was captured, and they said to her: ‘We will kill your baby and force you to eat his flesh',” Amira says.

Her voice drops to a near-whisper as she describes how her other sister, Delal - who was pregnant when she was captured - lost her baby daughter at the age of five months because she couldn’t produce milk to feed her. Delal tried to kill herself but was stopped by her four-year-old son. “Her child was only four years old,” says Amira. “And he said to her, ‘Mum, please don’t kill us. Let’s get out of here.’”

When she later took a tomato from the fridge to feed him, she and her two surviving children were locked in a room for a week as punishment, with no food and only a small bottle of water and carton of milk.

Reuters
Yazidis fled en masse from Sinjar when IS descended on the town in 2014


The Iraqi government’s plans to close down the camps where tens of thousands of Yazidis have been living since 2014 is a frightening prospect for many of them.

The limited services currently provided within the camps are due to be cut off by the end of July, with grants for them to return to the region of Sinjar, where the massacres took place.

AFP
Ten years after the IS attack on Sinjar, little has been rebuilt


“The situation is very dangerous,” Vian Dakhil, the only Yazidi MP in the Iraqi parliament, told the BBC. “There are a lot of armed groups there and the Iraqi government forces are weak.”

Much of the town of Sinjar is still rubble, she says. “There are no houses, no schools, no hospitals, no anything.”

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has echoed their concerns, saying there should be no forced closure of the camps. “No-one should be made to return to a place where they may be at risk of irreparable harm, or not have access to basics like water, healthcare, housing and jobs to help them resume a decent life,” says Farha Bhoyroo, the agency’s spokesperson in Iraq.

The agency says that it is worried that some of those displaced from Sinjar may end up with no option but to stay in the decommissioned camps

Hadiya, 28, who was also part of the choir visit organised by the Amar Foundation charity, told the BBC that, before 2014, she had “everything – including a very big house”.

Now she and her family live in a tent, just 4m (13ft) long and 3m wide, “like prisoners”. It’s blisteringly hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But at least, there, she feels safe.


Hadiya normally lives in a tent with her family


Hadiya too is still haunted by terrible memories – including what happened to her cousin, Ghazal.

Ghazal was taken captive at the age of eight and, two years later, forced to marry. When she was rescued in 2020, at the age of 14, Hadiya says she was raising two children whom she had to leave behind – and had been brainwashed into thinking the Yazidis were “bad people”.

Ghazal, now 18, remains disturbed and withdrawn. Her older sister – who would now be 19 – is one of hundreds of women and girls who are still missing.

“No-one is asking for them,” Zahra Amra, office manager of the Amar Foundation in Dohuk, complains bitterly. She's also in the UK with the singers, acting as translator.

“No-one is helping us search for our sisters. Too many Isis fighters have been released from prisons. When IS came no-one helped us and now they want us to go back to Sinjar.”


Zahra, left, inside the tent where she lives, in a camp


In August 2014, Zahra lost classmates and friends. Her grandmother was shot dead because she was too frail to make it up Mount Sinjar where tens of thousands of Yazidis fled as IS advanced.

But most of all, she says, she lost the future that she and her friends had been planning, and the collective trauma and sense of abandonment run deep.

“We don’t feel safe,” she says. “And we don’t trust anyone.”

The Yazidi women's peace choir can be heard performing on BBC Radio 3's Music Planet, available on BBC Sounds.

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=YEZIDI

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=YAZIDI

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=YEZEDI

UNESCO finds Islamic State group-era bombs in Mosul mosque walls, years after the defeat of IS

The mosque, famous for its 12th-century leaning minaret, was destroyed by IS in 2017 and has been a focal point of UNESCO's restoration efforts since 2020

AP Baghdad Published 29.06.24

Representational pictureShutterstock

The UN cultural agency has discovered five bombs hidden within the walls of the historic al-Nouri Mosque in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, a remnant of the Islamic State militant group's rule over the area, UNESCO said in a statement on Saturday.

The mosque, famous for its 12th-century leaning minaret, was destroyed by IS in 2017 and has been a focal point of UNESCO's restoration efforts since 2020.

The UN agency said that five large-scale explosive devices, designed for significant destruction, were found inside the southern wall of the Prayer Hall on Tuesday.

“These explosive devices were concealed within a specially rebuilt section of the wall,” the statement said. “Iraqi authorities were promptly notified, secured the area, and the situation is now fully under control.”

It added that “one bomb has been defused and removed, while the remaining four are interconnected and will be safely disposed of in the coming days”.

Iraqi authorities have requested that UNESCO halt all reconstruction operations at al-Nouri mosque and evacuate the entire complex until the devices are disarmed.

IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamic caliphate from the mosque a decade ago on June 29, 2014, leading to its destruction when extremists blew it up during the battle to liberate Mosul in 2017.

The discovery of these bombs underscores ongoing challenges in clearing Mosul of explosives and revitalising its devastated urban areas.

International efforts, supported by the United Nations, focus on mine clearance and aiding in the city's recovery. Despite progress, much of Mosul's old city remains in ruins, marked by minefield warning signs, highlighting the complexity of post-conflict reconstruction.

UNESCO aims to complete the full reconstruction of al-Nouri Mosque by December, “finally erasing the stigma of the Daesh occupation,” the statement said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group's name.

A decade after the Islamic State group declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria, the extremists no longer control any land, have lost many prominent leaders and are mostly out of the world news headlines.

Still, the group continues to recruit members and claim responsibility for deadly attacks around the world, including lethal operations in Iran and Russia earlier this year that left scores dead. Its sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq still carry out attacks against government forces in both countries as well as US-backed Syrian fighters, at a time when Iraq's government is negotiating with Washington over a possible withdrawal of US troops.

 

‘Divine Power’ Versus ‘The Bully’: US, India Join Hands To Prevent China From Imposing Its ‘Puppet’ Over Tibet – OpEd

 June 30, 2024

By Manoranjana Gupta

The timing of the US ‘Resolve Tibet Act’ Bill holds significance not only for the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet but also for India, which has been suffering from China’s bullying for over 70 years because of China’s illegal and colonial presence in Tibet.

Tibet’s exiled leader and the world’s most sought after spiritual personality, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Buddhist monk Tenzin Gyatso, is one of the most gentle, charming, kind and compassionate human beings that walk the planet. I had the good fortune to meet the Dalai Lama, for the first time in 2007, in one of the remotest states of India that borders Bangladesh. With eyes that shine from behind his iconic spectacles,  to the yellow-maroon robe that he dons, the man carries the most disarming smile that can completely bowl anyone over.

The 89-year old octogenarian monk was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, in recognition of his non-violent campaign to end China’s domination of Tibet, his homeland. The peaceful monk has set an example for the world by sustaining a campaign for the last seven decades to advocate for peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect. 

I was meeting him for a television interview and before we formally started, I told him that in the true Indian spirit of accepting someone as a Guru (teacher), we touch their feet and seek their blessings. To my utter surprise as I reached out to touch his feet, he got up and bent down and gave me a hug, looked into my eyes and said “I’m a simple monk. Call all your team members and let me give them all a big hug”. I stood there in deep admiration of the man as he kept speaking while he called out to each one of our crew members and hugged them, getting photographs clicked,while words of wisdom continued to flow from his lips. There was a timelessness about those ten minutes which I have never forgotten. 

A man on whom rests the fate of a nation in exile… A man who is himself in exile thousands of miles away from his homeland… A man who has been fighting for several decades for a cause that has filled up his entire existence…. A man who can infect anyone with that miraculous smile .. 

Yes, the Dalai Lama stepped down in 2011 as the political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile, which Beijing does not recognise and views as a violation of China’s constitution. And yet, China continues to fume at any interaction that the Dalai Lama has with political personalities or even officials of other countries. They keep an eagle’s eye on his activities calling him “a dangerous separatist”.

Currently, this ‘Divine Power’ has China infuriated ! The Chinese are having sleepless nights as US lawmakers are pressing President Joe Biden to sign the bill that will push China to secure a negotiated and peaceful agreement on Tibet. The ‘Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act’, also known as the ‘Resolve Tibet Act’, recently passed the House of Representatives 391-26 and now awaits President Joe Biden for a signature to become law.

China’s restiveness began on June 19, 2024 when a group of US lawmakers met the Dalai Lama and said they would not allow China to influence the choice of his successor. Political analysts say that while so far Washington recognises Tibet as a part of China, the new bill reverses that position. 

Beijing, on its part, has rejected the Act, saying Tibet is part of China and brooks no interference from external forces. China’s foreign ministry has urged President Biden not to sign the ‘bipartisan’ Bill, reiterating that Tibet’s affairs are China’s domestic matters and warning against external interference. 

What exactly is this Act which has set the cat among the pigeons? 

On 12th of June, the US House of Representatives passed the ‘Resolve Tibet Act’ which for the first time clearly stated Washington’s position on Tibet not constituting ‘a part of China since ancient times’. The Act also called for the dispute between Tibet and China to be ‘resolved in accordance with international law, including the UN Charter, by peaceful means, through dialogue, without pre-conditions’ while enhancing bipartisan US support to the Tibetan issue. The Act can be termed ‘historic’ in the sense that the wording clearly posits Tibet and China as two separate entities locked in a long-standing international dispute instead of the former being a part of the latter’s territory and hence the dispute being ‘internal.’ Also noteworthy is the fact that the Act stipulates the US government to counter Beijing’s disinformation of Chinese historical claims over the Tibetan plateau including not just the current Tibet Autonomous Region but also the provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan.

Beijing is further intrigued and infuriated as the Dalai Lama arrived in New York last Sunday, ahead of medical treatment for his knees and was greeted by thousands of cheering supporters. This marked his first visit to the country since 2017. 

Interestingly, Dalai Lama’s US visit comes just days after a group of lawmakers including former US House Speaker Representative Nancy Pelosi met him at his exile home in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India. During the meeting, the American delegation assured the Tibetan leader that the US would not allow China to influence the choice of his successor. Pelosi, during her visit to Dharamsala, criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping and expressed support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause. This visit coincided with the US Congress passing the Act, which urges China to resume negotiations with Tibetan leaders. It is also well known that some of these lawmakers are also trying to push Beijing to restart talks with Tibetan leaders, which have been stalled since 2010. 

In a bid to further tantalize China, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the seven-member US delegation and took stock of their visit to Dharamshala. Modi reiterated his commitment to strengthening bilateral relations for global benefit, recalling his State Visit to the US last year. He asserted that India recognises the Dalai Lama as an “honored guest” and a “religious leader” with a significant following. 

Beijing, however, views the Dalai Lama as a political figure engaged in anti-China separatist activities. The Dalai Lama, regarded as the supreme Tibetan spiritual leader, fled to India in 1959 following a failed revolt against Chinese rule. Based in Dharamsala, his advanced age has raised concerns about the selection of his successor, a potential flashpoint between Beijing and the exiled Tibetan community. 

Veteran journalist, Tibetologist and Chairman, Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies & Engagement Dr Vijay Kranti says that the sequence of events during which the seven-member US Congressional delegation, led by Republican Michael McCaul, met the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, followed it up with a meeting with PM Modi in New Delhi, greeted Modi on his historic third consecutive term as PM and praised the fairness of India’s recent elections … “All this shows that the timing of the visit, the composition of this American delegation and the actual content of these US Bills hold big significance not only for the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet but also for India, which has been suffering from China’s bullying for over 70 years because of China’s illegal and colonial presence in Tibet.”

Dr Kranti, who has been extremely vocal on the Tibet issue for the last three decades and is considered an authority on the subject, said that Tibet used to play as a ‘safety buffer’ between India and China for millennia. Interestingly, the new American laws say everything formally and clearly, which New Delhi wanted to tell Beijing but never had the courage to say in plain words. “It is high time New Delhi grabs this as a God-sent opportunity and joins the proposed ‘International Diplomatic Coalition’. Rather, India can also play an important role in expanding such a coalition to a dozen countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia that are suffering because of China’s “water bullying” on the strength of controlling Tibetan rivers.”

It is a matter of record that a dozen countries in south and southeast Asia, fed by Tibetan rivers since time immemorial, are now feeling the fear of perpetual droughts because of over-exploitation by China. And countries like India and Bangladesh are facing the danger of being bombed with manipulated floods by China from across the Tibetan borders.

Not that India and China have ever enjoyed a cordial relationship, but off late there have been other reasons for India to be upset. Just before the recent general elections, there were reports from the Virginia-based Microsoft Threat Analysis Centre (MTAC) highlighting China’s attempts to use AI-generated content to influence elections in various countries, including India, the US, and South Korea. Similar tactics were reportedly tested during Taiwan’s presidential elections. The Modi government has not taken kindly to this bid by China to manipulate elections in favor of the Congress party. 

Similarly, in the US, China is using fake social media accounts to poll voters on what divides them most so as to sow division and possibly influence the outcome of the US presidential election in its favor. China has also increased its use of AI-generated content to further its goals around the world. North Korea has increased its cryptocurrency heists and supply chain attacks to fund and further its military goals and intelligence collection. It has also begun to use AI to make its operations more effective and efficient.

Among the MTAC – “Same targets, new playbooks : East Asia threat actors employ unique methods”, key findings confirmed that deceptive social media accounts by Chinese Communist Party-affiliated actors have started to pose contentious questions on controversial US domestic issues to better understand the key issues that divide the American voters. This quite obviously was done to gather intelligence and precision on key voting demographics ahead of their presidential election. It is not difficult to imagine how the US would have reacted to these findings indicative of the surreptitious and mischievous role that China is playing.

Not only this, fake social media accounts also made a bid to create deep mistrust in the minds of the US voters by accusing the US administration of purposefully poisoning other countries’ water supplies to maintain “water hegemony”. This was part of a wider multilingual campaign, principally focused on Japan and its government’s decision to dispose of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. The campaign called ‘Storm-1376’ tried to cast doubts on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) scientific assessment that the disposal was safe.

Having borne the brunt of these fake social media campaigns by Chinese organizations, both the US and India have decided to teach China a lesson. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar is already on record stating that India will not let China dictate the play’.

“Previous Indian governments have even put Chinese interests ahead of our own,” Jaishankar said. “I cannot, in the name of an open economy, open up my national security to work with a country which is laying claim to my territory. Both our economic and national security are at stake”.

In his article in The Organiser, Dr Kranti quotes a Tibetan activist and renowned Tibetan intellectual, Tenzin Tsundu, who summed up the significance of this US bill and the visit of the US delegation, saying, “This is the first time in the history of the Tibetan struggle for freedom that any country has come out openly and formally in support of Tibet with clear assertions that Tibet is an occupied country and that Tibet has never been a part of China.

More than anything else, it is the actual text of all these bills of 2002, 2019, and 2024, passed by the US Congress, which reflect the real spirit of American support for Tibet. In short, at least seven major assertions and points underlined in these bills pointedly challenge and blast every single claim and narrative of Xi Jinping on Tibet. Put together, these American assertions on Tibet and China amount to rejecting Xi’s most shouted idea of the ‘One China Policy’. These points also reflect the emergence of an unambiguous American approach towards China.

Photo Tibetan prayer wheels.

Manoranjana Gupta is a Journalist, TV opinion leader, and a Special Advisor for GDKP in India, at the Center for Digital Future, Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism under the University of Southern California.

 

Cross-Border Assassinations As A Tool In The Implementation Of Policy – Analysis

 June 30, 2024  0 Comments

By P. K. Balachandran

For long, the world’s big powers have been using cross-border assassinations to advance their domestic and geopolitical interests. Increasingly, lesser powers are also resorting to it to eliminate dissidents, separatists and terrorists.

Cross-border political assassinations, allegedly carried out by States, are no longer the exclusive preserve of the world’s superpowers. Lesser powers are also resorting to it now, to achieve their domestic goals such as the elimination of critics, dissidents, separatists and terrorists. 

Political assassinations on foreign soil are illegal at the very least and are even considered an act of war. For long, fear of consequences had kept even major powers out of the assassination game. But during the Cold War, the US and the USSR began to use assassinations as a substitute for a hot war.

The Americans tended to reserve murder for leaders of defiant countries. The US tried to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. But following severe criticism in America itself, President Gerald Ford banned political assassinations by executive order in 1976. 

But after the 9/11/2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York by Al Qaida, US restraint about assassinations disappeared and the US Congress sanctioned the use of “all necessary and appropriate force” against those deemed responsible for 9/11. It was under this that Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in May 2011 and military leader Qassem Suleimani in Iraq in 2020.  

The US began to use drones rather than gunmen and justified these overseas killings saying that they were “legitimate use of military force, authorized by the 2001 congressional authorization.

The Soviets resorted to assassinating those who were a danger to the regime and resident abroad. The Soviets limited their killings to Soviet citizens who criticized the regime from their perches abroad. The earliest example of this was the killing of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940 by an agent of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. 

After the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s Vladimir Putin perfected the art of assassination on foreign soil. In 2006 his agents poisoned defector Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive isotope and attempted to poison Sergei Skripal, a former double agent. 

Lesser Powers

Gradually, other countries also subscribed to assassinations. 

Justin Lin in his piece in Foreign Policy dated January 4, 2024 had this to say about this change: “Iran and North Korea have both been accused of brash foreign murders in recent years. Pakistan, a likely target for India’s foreign assassination program, is suspected of carrying out similar murders. Israel, one of the most frequent employers of extraterritorial targeted killings, appears to have renewed its own assassination program to take out senior Hamas leadership. At least three senior figures in the militant group have been killed in recent days.” 

In a landmark case, Saudi Arabia killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Khashoggi was a carping critic of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman (MBS).

Iran was allegedly behind as many as 24 successful killings on foreign soil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Justin Lin says. An Iranian hit squad killed former Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar in Paris in 1991. Bakhtiar was a bitter critic of the Islamic government of Iran. 

However, it was Israel which made assassination abroad a highly efficient tool of foreign policy. From its very founding, it had taken out Palestinian leaders and Nazi war criminals. After the attack on the Israeli Olympic team during the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israel sanctioned the killing of 24 Palestinian militants thought to be directly or indirectly responsible for the Munich attack. These killings occurred in Italy, France, Greece, Cyprus, and even farther afield, Justin Lin says.

Israel also used helicopter gunships to take out leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel assassinated even Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran. According to The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations(2018) written by Ronen Bergman, Mossad had carried out hundreds of targeted killings since 2000. 

In 2017, Kim Jong Nam—half-brother to North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, was attacked with a deadly nerve gas while transiting through Kuala Lumpur airport. But the then US President Donald Trump made friends with North Korea and the assassination ceased to matter. 

Silence enveloped the murder of Khashoggi because the US made up with the Saudis to rope them into the Abraham Accords with Israel.    

In the allegations against it are proved, India will be the latest member of the club which believes in carrying out killings of separatists and trouble makers abroad. In 2023, Canada and the US alleged that Indian intelligence officials were behind the assassination of the Canada-based Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver on June 18, 2023 and the bid to assassinate US-based Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. 

Both Nijjar and Pannun hailed from Punjab in India but were US citizens. Canada and the US argued that India had no right to kill or try to kill their citizens. India reacted saying that Canada had not given any substantive evidence of India’s involvement in the killing of Nijjar and argued that the killing could have been the result of local gang warfare. 

In the case of Pannun, the Indian government said that it was working on the case and that it was reforming its system. The US government, keen to keep India on its side in its quarrel with China, said that India was cooperating.     

Meanwhile, four Indian nationals were arrested in May this year over the fatal shooting of Nijjar in June 18, 2023. They are Amandeep Singh, 22; Kamalpreet Singh, 22; Karan Brar, 22; and Karanpreet Singh, 28.

In the Pannun case, Indian national Nikhil Gupta, suspected of being involved in a plot to kill Sikh separatist, was extradited from the Czech Republic to the US and is being tried in New York. 

According to The Guardian of April 4, 2024, India had allegedly killed almost 20 persons on Pakistani soil since 2020 using unknown gunmen. The allegations also suggested that Sikh separatists in the Khalistan movement were targeted. 

The Guardian quoted two unnamed Indian intelligence officers as saying that the focus shifted to separatists and terrorists living abroad after the Pakistani terrorist attack at Pulwama in Kashmir in 2019. A suicide bomber belonging to the Pakistani terror group Jaish-i-Muhammed, had targeted an Indian convoy killing 40 paramilitary soldiers.  

Sikh separatists of the Khalistan movement were also targeted by Indian agents both in Pakistan and the West. 

“According to Pakistani investigators, these deaths were orchestrated by Indian intelligence sleeper-cells mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates. The rise in killings in 2023 was credited to the increased activity of these cells, which are accused of paying millions of rupees to local criminals or poor Pakistanis to carry out the assassinations. Indian agents also allegedly recruited jihadists to carry out the shootings, making them believe they were killing infidels,” The Guardian said.

The tone for aggressive action against separatists and terrorists was set by the Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh who declared in an interview to a TV channel: “If terrorists run away to Pakistan, we will enter the country to kill them.” 

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesman stated that Pakistan has long been the epicentre of terrorism, organised crime, and illegal transnational activities. ” To blame others for its own misdeeds can neither be a justification nor a solution.”

Pakistan may be equally culpable, Justin Lin alleges. Karima Baloch, a human rights advocate from Balochistan, was found dead in Toronto in December 2020. Canadian police said there was no evidence of foul play, but her family had demanded a more thorough investigation. Advocates pointed out the striking similarities to the death of fellow Pakistani exile Sajid Hussain in Sweden just months earlier.

Justin Lin quotes Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, as saying that if there is no condemnation from the international community, if nobody is prosecuted, such targeted extrajudicial killings will get a lot worse.

 “The fact is that we have almost normalized targeted killings of so-called terrorists, and that it has become a quasi—if not completely—justified means of conducting legitimate war on terror,” Callamard said.

Far from making the world safer, Callamard argues, this kind of killing only contributes to global insecurity.

“The justification that has occurred over the past 20 years for many violations, in the name of terrorism and counterterrorism, has really greatly weakened our capacity to denounce, to condemn in a strong voice,” she asserted. 

P. K. Balachandran is a senior Indian journalist working in Sri Lanka for local and international media and has been writing on South Asian issues for the past 21 year

 

After Dagestani Attacks, Moscow Seen Increasing Repression Of Muslim Dissidents – OpEd

 June 30, 2024  

By Paul Goble

The terrorist attacks in Dagestan, the result of the lack of consolidation among the peoples of Russia and a clear failure by Moscow’s security services, will further “marginalize and endanger Russia’s Muslims, leading to expanded repression of Muslim dissidents, Leyla Latypova says.

And what is especially worrisome, the Moscow Times journalist who writes a new weekly column for that paper on ethnic and regional issues and who is herself a Muslim, many Russian liberals will not stand up for these new victims of Kremlin repression (themoscowtimes.com/2024/06/25/attacks-in-dagestan-will-marginalize-and-endanger-russias-muslims-further-a85511).

Contrary to Kremlin claims, the attacks in Derbent and Makhachkala happened precisely because of “the lack of consolidation among the Russian populace.” Many seem oblivious to the fact that “opposition to the war in Ukraine is not the only source of deep divisions among Russian nationals.” They differ in their assessment of many things including history.

“For some in Russia,” Latypova continues, “Muslims and ethnic minorities are becoming useful scapegoats for channeling frustration and anger fueled by the war in Ukraine, bearing collective responsibility for tragedies that should rather be blamed on the ineffectiveness of the Russian government.”

 Latypova continues: “As an Indigenous Muslim woman, I look at this trend with great worry; but what concerns me most is knowing that Sunday’s attacks will give the Kremlin and Russia’s security services even more freedom to repress Muslim dissidents” and that this expanding form of repression will not be condemned by Russians, “even the most liberal ones.”

Scene of terrorist attack in Daghestan. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency