Airstrike on madrasa kills 100s of graduating students - world silent

[AabiruSabeel]

An airstrike on a madrasa in Afghanistan which was conducting a graduation ceremony for children who have completed the memorization of the Holy Qur'an kills hundreds of people. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'oon.

https://www.globalvillagespace.com/i...aliban-leader/

Intriguing media silence over air strike killing Madrassa children in Afghanistan - Global Village Space There are pictures of innocent children with garlands and turbans, apparently the ones present in the madrassa at the time of the strike, being circulated over twitter with the caption, “IamNotTerrorist”. Overall criticism is that had it been...

https://www.carbonated.tv/news/afgha...unduz-province

Afghan Airstrike In Kunduz Province Kills Almost 100 Children - Carbonated.TV Dozens of children, aged between 10 to 12 years, were gathered at a religious school to receive gifts for memorizing the Quran. Most of them were killed....

[AabiruSabeel]

From the news report:

Sadly, according to developing reports, the people who were present at the school were children mostly under the age of 10 and their family members. These children were attending a religious event, known as Dastaar Bandi, where they were supposed to receive gifts and other awards for memorizing the Quran.

"There were children as young as 11 or 12 years old in the ceremony who were to be presented with awards and gifts for the completion of their religious courses," said Mohammed Abdul Haq, an eye witness of the attack.

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From https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-.../29145508.html

eyewitnesses and villagers who survived the attack claim the air strikes in the Taliban-controlled Dasht-i Archi district in Kunduz Province did not target militants, and killed dozens of civilians -- including children -- who had gathered for a religious ceremony.
Residents of Dasht-i Archi claim no members of the Taliban were present as hundreds of people gathered for dastaar bandi, a ceremony marking the graduation of young men who have memorized the Koran, Islam's holy book.


Nasruddin Saadi, the district governor of Dasht-i Archi, said on April 3 that the air strikes hit a mosque and religious school, killing and wounding around 150 people.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the same day that its investigators were in the area looking into "disturbing reports of serious harm" to civilians.


Amanullah, a resident of Dasht-i Archi, located around 80 kilometers from the provincial capital, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan on April 3 that the air strikes hit a ceremony for which hundreds had gathered in the Gojar Akhundzada mosque and nearby fields. He claimed around 50 civilians were killed and scores injured.

"The helicopters first fired artillery and then rockets,” said Amanullah as he stood outside Zone Hospital. “Everything was destroyed. The area was littered with dead bodies and body parts.”


“There was nobody there to help us,” added Amanullah, who only goes by one name. “There were no ambulances. We had to transport the wounded by car to Kunduz city.”

Amanullah claimed there were no Taliban fighters present at the religious ceremony in the district.

“There were only civilians,” he says. “Most were clerics and religious students. It was a graduation ceremony for students."

[سيف الله]

Salaam

How much more torment will these people have to endure? imsad

The government 'response'.

Victims' relatives demand accountability over Kunduz air raids

Family members reject defence ministry claims that no civilians were killed in Kunduz attack targeting Taliban fighters.

Distraught relatives of children killed in a government air raid targeting Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's Kunduz province have rejected official claims that no civilians were killed in the attack as "dishonest".

A religious school in the Dasht-e-Archi district of the northern province was hit late on Monday.

The Afghan government said the raids targeted a Taliban gathering, but witnesses and local officials maintained that at the time of the attack, a Dastaar Bandi ceremony - an event celebrating young men completing the memorisation of the Quran - was taking place at the school.

There are conflicting reports over the number of people killed in the attack, and under which circumstances.

A district official said a total of 70 people - including children and top Taliban commanders - were killed, while witnesses put the death toll to at least 100. Nematullah Temori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said seven civilians were killed in the attack.

But General Mohammad Radmanish, spokesman for the defence ministry, said that according to their intelligence, no civilians were present at the time of the air raid.

He told Al Jazeera that the air raid targeted a Taliban gathering where members of the group were discussing plans to capture Kunduz city.

"The Taliban were gathered in a room planning their next move to take over Kunduz city.

"We have surveillance footage of armed men and pictures of Taliban leaders in the area that was attacked," he said, adding that 18 Taliban commanders were killed in the raid.

Rest here

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/victims-relatives-demand-accountability-kunduz-air-raids-180404072317530.html

This war has to end, just has to stop, has to stop.

[czgibson]

Greetings,

This is a horrifying turn of events and our thoughts should be with the victims and their families.

It has been reported by CBS, BBC, Washington Post, Al Jazeera and others - hardly media silence.

Peace

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[Misbah-Abd]

Greetings,

This is a horrifying turn of events and our thoughts should be with the victims and their families.

It has been reported by CBS, BBC, Washington Post, Al Jazeera and others - hardly media silence.

Peace

But they don't dare call it a terrorist attack. It's not about the exposure. It's about how its portrayed and how they want it to be perceived.

[azc]

Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajioon.

[anatolian]

Is it considered colleteral damage?

May Allah reward the victims with Jannah

[JustTime]

But they don't dare call it a terrorist attack. It's not about the exposure. It's about how its portrayed and how they want it to be perceived.

Not only that but if it even is mentioned, it wouldn't take more than a few seconds, it won't be the topic for days there will be investigations and the worst that will come out of this for the perpetrator will be "You made a mistake be careful next time".

[azc]

Perhaps they think that madarsa students were terrorists.?

[MazharShafiq]

The big enemy creates and fears the children.
sham on the killer of children.

[czgibson]

Greetings,

But they don't dare call it a terrorist attack. It's not about the exposure. It's about how its portrayed and how they want it to be perceived.

The title of the thread says "world silent", which is clearly untrue.

Peace

[AabiruSabeel]

Greetings,



The title of the thread says "world silent", which is clearly untrue.

Peace

Imagine anything similar happening in UK or the US. There would be uproar in the whole world, with UN resolutions and sanctions, and declaration of war, and occupation and annihilation of other countries.

The contrast speaks for itself. No front page headlines, no prolonged discussions going on several weeks. It is already forgotten in the media.

[czgibson]

Greetings,

The contrast speaks for itself.

Yes, that's fair enough. Too many events like this get forgotten too quickly.

Peace

[Search]

:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

Hope you're doing well God-willing. :statisfie

As to your remarks, it is actually more than that. It is not just that events like that are forgotten. It is that the mainstream media is lame as all-get-out. For example, one of the reasons President Donald Trump won the election is because he seemed to the many poor and forgotten middle class Americans a better choice than former Secretary Hillary Clinton. Yet the corporate media, that is major news channels here, not covering stories on the West Virginia and Ohio teacher strikes or the current Disney strike. The question that should be begged is why the heck is this not given coverage in major media channels, and of course the answer lays in the big media protecting corporate interests. It is gross, but that's the reality. It is also why stories like this airstrike is not given airtime by major media outlets, because it would lead to questioning of military incompetence or negligence or what-have-you and current decisions of America doing war interventions in 8 different countries under President Trump currently. Because money talks, and moneyed people have allied interests in keeping the war machine going because selling arms to the military is big business and making arms is even bigger business. It is why any reasonable discussions on restrictions on gun control is even immediately shut down. Because frankly, American politics is extremely corrupt.

Regular Americans don't care or even want to be in different countries, protecting interests of the corporations dealing in arms and laying down their lives for corrupt politicians - so, they're instead sold on the lies of how everybody in the world is evil and hates America for no conceivable reason. That's the narrative. It sucks. But unfortunately, I don't see that changing. American media will cover instead porn star Stormy Daniels' decades-old affair with President Trump, because then they don't have to cover the real issues which haunt Americans: poverty, continuing disappearance of middle class, evaporation of American dream of affording a house, corporations not paying living wages to their workers, unions being pushed out or being unable to be sustained, being at war in 8 different countries which didn't attack the homeland, and corruption from top-down in politics because corporations have lobbyists that buy politicians' votes and favors legally.

So, my personal hope is that Bernie Sanders runs against President Donald Trump in 2020 and wins, so that we begin addressing the issues that really matter to regular Joe as an American and plague Americans generally. And I'm actually tired of non-news like former Secretary Hillary Clinton trying to blame her loss on sexism being covered as well; the truth is while she was a better choice than President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, she was actually too close to Wall Street and had proven herself a corporate shill in many instances. So, her being better than President Trump in the 2016 election is actually a sad commentary on American politics generally. Americans are tired of the same-old, same-old. And it is just too bad that President Trump has, since taking his seat in the Oval Office , taken to proving himself an incompetent buffoon that is too hopelessly narcissistic and ill-informed and corrupt to address the issues he said he would to give the have-nots what they'd wanted out of him. President Trump constantly attacking the corporate media as "fake news" is incorrect in the sense that those media channels are not deliberately giving erroneous information out to the public, but they're "fake" in the sense that they deliberately divert American public's eyes from the real issues that continue to haunt America. And of course, President Trump is right (just as a broken clock is right twice a day) that they do have a liberal slant, but unfortunately it is a slant that is aligned with only corporate interests rather than public interest. It is also disgusting how the media acts as a propaganda arm of the government when it comes to wars that it wants to start; and right now, those countries are North Korea and Iran. I'm 100% disgusted by the mainstream media; I try to not take my news from them because they're so idiotic in their coverage priorities that they're at this point just diversionary agents of powers-that-be.

Greetings,


Yes, that's fair enough. Too many events like this get forgotten too quickly.

Peace

[anatolian]

Imagine anything similar happening in UK or the US. There would be uproar in the whole world, with UN resolutions and sanctions, and declaration of war, and occupation and annihilation of other countries.

The contrast speaks for itself. No front page headlines, no prolonged discussions going on several weeks. It is already forgotten in the media.

Was just going to write the same thing then I saw you have already written. These atacks became as usual in war torn countries like Afghanistan and the world regards it as a general situation of the country. It is not “news” anymore in the eyes of people which is the worst.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

To be fair in the UK, British troops dying or being injured dont get that much coverage. At first yes but as the war dragged on they were given less and less airtime, the shock value wears off after a while.

[Misbah-Abd]

Salaam

To be fair in the UK, British troops dying or being injured dont get that much coverage. At first yes but as the war dragged on they were given less and less airtime, the shock value wears off after a while.

Perhaps they don't report it by orders of the State. And this is how the modern State operates. They don't want to cause dissension among the people.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

imsad

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[AllahIsAl-Malik]

How can they kill children after they memorize the Quran??? What horror. People have lost their basic humanity.

[JustTime]

Salaam

To be fair in the UK, British troops dying or being injured dont get that much coverage. At first yes but as the war dragged on they were given less and less airtime, the shock value wears off after a while.

To be fair take a good look at Malala then these Quran students then you will realize the difference

[Mahir Adnan]

just waiting for Imam Mahadi. we will have our rights back, inshallah

[azc]

Was just going to write the same thing then I saw you have already written. These atacks became as usual in war torn countries like Afghanistan and the world regards it as a general situation of the country. It is not “news” anymore in the eyes of people which is the worst.

Fact is that killing of Muslims isn't crime and terrorism in their eyes

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Perhaps they don't report it by orders of the State. And this is how the modern State operates. They don't want to cause dissension among the people.

That’s actually a good point, there might be other mitigating factors, but I think the point stands once these soldiers have served their purpose to the powers that be they are cast adrift. (This doesn’t excuse what they have done as an occupying force).

To be fair take a good look at Malala then these Quran students then you will realize the difference

I agree that sentence was in poor taste I should have worded it better (or not wrote it at all). The point I’m trying to make is that the media can be callous in representing all sides of a conflict.

[Search]

:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

:sl: (Peace be upon you)

Fact is that killing of Muslims isn't crime and terrorism in their eyes

I think you're right; but that's because throughout history, the powerful have never cared about the plight or killing of the powerless. Why should the powerful care? It doesn't affect them personally or their lives. And to be honest, I'm not even sure many of them believe in a thing like Judgment Day exists to believe they'll have to account for their wrongs; so, for the powerful, this dunya (world) is everything; and living like a god here, deciding who lives and dies, and enjoying this life, is all that matters.

:wa: (And peace be upon you)

Salaam

:wa: (And peace be upon you)

That’s actually a good point, there might be other mitigating factors, but I think the point stands once these soldiers have served their purpose to the powers that be they are cast adrift. (This doesn’t excuse what they have done as an occupying force).

The soldiers are a cog in the wheel. They don't matter in the great scheme of things. If they did, because they'd not cease to exist to the powerful after serving their purpose, but they do; the veterans are given poor medical care and suffer neglect; untold amount of vets are homeless and continuing to suffer from mental illnesses in the U.S. They sacrifice their lives for a concept like the nation-state while the nation-state couldn't, beyond the sloganeering of respecting the flag and singing the national anthem, care an atom about these people. Their life and death is one and the same to the nation-state, because at the end of the day the are just tools of the powerful like chess pieces on a board. And the powerful don't care about people they've used as tools, because they were/are only a means to an end.

I agree that sentence was in poor taste I should have worded it better (or not wrote it at all). The point I’m trying to make is that the media can be callous in representing all sides of a conflict.

The media isn't just callous; it's deliberate and methodical in the agendas it ignores, because the real issues are brushed aside or treated as nonexistent. And as far as conflicts go, the media acts subservient to the state. In some ways, it seems to me that North Korea is just brazen about using the media as a propaganda arm of the government. However, the media in the U.K. or U.S. don't seem any better to me. I'm still wondering why it isn't reported that under President Donald Trump we're fighting war efforts in 8 different countries that didn't attack the U.S. or that we were doing so in 7 countries under the Obama administration, which was a great escalation from the 2 in Bush administration. How can things like that not be news and not considered scandalous and yet decades' old affair of a known faithless man like President Donald Trump be considered news and absolutely scandalous? President Donald Trump, as much as he deserves criticism for the many things he does over the years and is doing and has said and is saying, has never pretended to be a pious man; so, he's not a pious hypocrite. So, why the hoopla over his affair and not the war intervention in 8 different countries? It completely doesn't make any sense until you look at the agenda-maneuvering behind the scenes to benefit the powerful elite and maintain the status quo. The media is a propaganda arm of the government and its neutrality in terms of caring to report on or about government corruption a facade; because the propaganda is engineered at the hands of warmongering corporations dealing in arms and other war equipment, which are either a) inexorably linked with the corporations that own mainstream media or b) the powerful simply care about protecting the other powerful in the game.

:wa: (And peace be upon you)

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Thanks for that sister Search, just to add some American soldiers are quite honest in describing their experiences.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Sorry to bring this up but this is beyond dire on the Generals part :facepalm:

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[Abz2000]

Salaam

Sorry to bring this up but this is beyond dire on the Generals part :facepalm:

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It is Allah who confirms truth and proves falsehood as false, and He has given nearly all of us the critereon and intellect to understand the difference.
It is true that anybody can be an uncontextual mujahid, but the complete truth behind the name label is that mujahideen fee sabeel ALLAH (the creator of truth and justice) will ultimately succeed.

It is also true that those who believe in Allah, and apostasize from kufr of Allah, and then go on to commit kufr of taaghoot and falsehood will win through in the end with truth and justice.


Therefore childish and uncontextual binary manipulation attempts only cast a light on the level of intelligence of a person - or the level of intelligence the person is aiming at, or is assuming the he/she is aiming at.



8. They say, "If we return to Medina, surely the more honourable (element) will expel therefrom the meaner (lowly) ."
And honour belongs to Allah and His Messenger, and to the Believers;
but the Hypocrites know not.

:

[سيف الله]

Salaam

A surprise to no one.

Aussie special ops 'disregarded humanity', committed 'horrendous' acts in Afghanistan – reports


Soldiers from Australia's elite Special Air Service (SAS) allegedly committed war crimes in Afghanistan, according to a leaked military inquiry. The document notes "violence" and a "disregard for human life" by servicemen.

The leaked report, seen by Fairfax Media, includes details of a confidential defense inquiry which was commissioned in 2016 by then-Special Operations Commander Major General Jeff Sengelman and conducted by a defense department consultant.

It cites special forces insiders who stated that soldiers had practiced the "unsanctioned and illegal application of violence on operations" which extend to a "disregard for human life and dignity."

Citing witnesses, the report said there is a "pattern of...cover-ups - real or imagined, and misdemeanors or more serious offenses in the field, as well as a culture of drug and alcohol abuse." It continues to say that at the very least, "there is no doubt that there are major issues of morale or performance..."

In addition to alleged drug and alcohol issues and violence among operations, the report mentions "the perception of a complete lack of accountability at all times."

One person told the inquiry that there were "some horrendous things" that happened over the past 15 years. "Some just disgraceful things happened in Kabul...very bad news, or just inappropriate behavior, but it was pretty much kept under wraps."

The report also states that the Australian government is being faced with "enormous and difficult challenges" to confront behavior that goes "well beyond blowing off steam" and involves "problems deeply embedded in the culture" of the SAS.

Defense Minister Marise Payne has been briefed on the report's contents, according to Fairfax. The media outlet reported on Friday that SAS soldiers have been subjected to intense questioning by a judge over the past two weeks.

It's not the first time the SAS has come under fire for its behavior in Afghanistan. Government documents leaked last year detailed other crimes allegedly committed by servicemen in the country. Those included the unlawful killings of civilians, including a six-year-old girl, and shed more light on the well-known case of an SAS corporal severing the hands of Taliban fighters.

https://www.rt.com/news/429131-australian-soldiers-crimes-afghanistan/

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Good book on this subject

The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam

Blurb

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the United States declared war on terrorism. More than ten years later, the results are decidedly mixed. Here world-renowned author, diplomat, and scholar Akbar Ahmed reveals an important yet largely ignored result of this war: in many nations it has exacerbated the already broken relationship between central governments and the largely rural Muslim tribal societies on the peripheries of both Muslim and non-Muslim nations. The center and the periphery are engaged in a mutually destructive civil war across the globe, a conflict that has been intensified by the war on terror. Conflicts between governments and tribal societies predate the war on terror in many regions, from South Asia to the Middle East to North Africa, pitting those in the centers of power against those who live in the outlying provinces.

Akbar Ahmed's unique study demonstrates that this conflict between the center and the periphery has entered a new and dangerous stage with U.S. involvement after 9/11 and the deployment of drones, in the hunt for al Qaeda, threatening the very existence of many tribal societies. American firepower and its vast anti-terror network have turned the war on terror into a global war on tribal Islam. And too often the victims are innocent children at school, women in their homes, workers simply trying to earn a living, and worshipers in their mosques. Battered by military attacks or drone strikes one day and suicide bombers the next, the tribes bemoan, “Every day is like 9/11 for us.”

In The Thistle and the Drone, the third volume in Ahmed's groundbreaking trilogy examining relations between America and the Muslim world, the author draws on forty case studies representing the global span of Islam to demonstrate how the U.S. has become involved directly or indirectly in each of these societies. The study provides the social and historical context necessary to understand how both central governments and tribal societies have become embroiled in America's war.

Beginning with Waziristan and expanding to societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, Ahmed offers a fresh approach to the conflicts studied and presents an unprecedented paradigm for understanding and winning the war on terror.

Praise for the book

This is a book of genuinely global importance; by offering a fresh and entirely persuasive analysis of what the West habitually and superficially treats as 'religiously motivated' violence or terror, it demands an urgent rethinking of the disastrous strategies that have been used in the last decade to combat the threat of terrorist activity. Professor Ahmed combines a clear professional anthropological expertise with an equally clear, critical and humane moral perspective. This is an unsual and groundbreaking book, which should be compulsory reading for Western governments.'

Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury.