Headlines:
- Yemen Calls for Intervention with Ground Troops
- US Arms Pakistan with 14 Combat Aircrafts, 59 Trainer Jets, 374 Armoured Carriers
- China is Forcing Muslim Shop Owners to Sell Alcohol and Cigarettes to Weaken Islam
Yemen Calls for Intervention with Ground Troops
Yemen’s mission to the United Nations has called for a ground intervention to push back a Houthi rebel offensive in the south of a country where conditions are deteriorating after weeks of war. “We urge the international community to quickly intervene by land forces to save Yemen, especially Aden and Taiz,” Khaled Alyemany, Yemen’s Ambassador to the UN, said in a letter to the Security Council on Wednesday. The letter obtained by Al Jazeera also called on the international human rights organisations to document “barbaric violations against a defenceless population”. The letter was addressed to the ambassador of Lithuania, which is holding the presidency of the Security Council for May, but was not yet released publicly. “Clearly this letter is reverberating through the halls of the UN,” Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, who is reporting from New York, said. “This letter leaves nothing to doubt about what according to the Yemeni government needs to be done.” Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen accused the Houthis of committing “genocide” and called on the international community to file charges against the armed group. The Arab Coalition began air strikes in Yemen on March 26 against Iran-allied Houthi fighters, backed by forces loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who seized control of parts of the country, including the capital Sanaa. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry has called for the lull in the fighting, while expressing his concern about the worsening humanitarian situation in Yemen.” The situation is getting more dire by the day and we are concerned about that,” Kerry told a news conference during a visit to Djibouti, the first secretary of state to visit the Horn of Africa nation. [Source: Al-Jazeera]
The Yemeni government in exile is setting the stage for a ground invasion, after the strikes led by Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries have failed to halt the Houthis and their allies. The situation is rapidly moving in the direction where Muslim blood will be spilt to protect the interest of the colonial powers like America and the EU.
US Arms Pakistan with 14 Combat Aircrafts, 59 Trainer Jets, 374 Armoured Carriers
The US has handed over to Pakistan 14 combat aircraft, 59 military trainer jets and 374 armoured personnel carriers, which were earlier used by American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the US withdraws its forces from neighbouring Afghanistan, the major defence articles have been transferred to Pakistan under its ‘Excessive Defence Article’ category, an internal Congressional report has said. According to the internal report prepared by Congressional Research Service (CRS)– an independent research wing of the Congress– Pakistan has either made full payment or will make payments from its national funds towards the purchase of 18 new F-16C/D Block 52 Fighting Falcon BSE -5.00 % combat aircraft worth $ 1.43 billion. This include F-16 armaments including 500 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles; 1,450 2,000-pound bombs; 500 JDAM Tail Kits for gravity bombs; and 1,600 Enhanced Paveway laser-guided kits. Pakistan has also paid $ 298 million for 100 harpoon anti-ship missiles, 500 sidewinder air-to-air missiles ($ 95 million); and seven Phalanx Close-In Weapons System naval guns ($80 million). Under Coalition Support Funds (in the Pentagon budget), Pakistan received 26 Bell 412EP utility helicopters, along with related parts and maintenance, valued at $ 235 million. Pakistan is also receiving military equipment with a mix of its national funds and America’s foreign military funding. These include 60 Mid-Life Update kits for F-16A/B combat aircraft (valued at $ 891 million, with $477 million of this in FMF). Pakistan has purchased 45 such kits, with all upgrades completed to date. This include 115 M-109 self-propelled howitzers ($87 million, with $ 53 million in FMF). Under Frontier Corps, and Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund authorities, US has provided 4 Mi-17 multirole helicopters (another 6 were provided temporarily at no cost), four King Air 350 surveillance aircraft, and 450 vehicles. [Source: Economic Times]
Despite the overwhelming evidence that America is Pakistan’s chief nemesis, the Pakistani military continues to increase its dependency on American arms and money. This is the same army leadership that has vehemently complained to the Americans about the failure of the coalition forces to stop cross border attacks against Pakistani targets, unauthorized US drone strikes, repeated violation of Pakistani territory such as the Abbottabad operation, only to receive more weapons and money from the American war machine. Has the Pakistani military leadership gone mad? Cannot it no longer distinguish between enemy and friend?
China is Forcing Muslim Shop Owners to Sell Alcohol and Cigarettes to Weaken Islam
Chinese authorities have ordered Muslim shopkeepers and restaurant owners in a village in its troubled Xinjiang region to sell alcohol and cigarettes, and promote them in “eye-catching displays,” in an attempt to undermine Islam’s hold on local residents, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported. Establishments that failed to comply were threatened with closure and their owners with prosecution. Facing widespread discontent over its repressive rule in the mainly Muslim province of Xinjiang, and mounting violence in the past two years, China has launched a series of “strike hard” campaigns to weaken the hold of Islam in the western region. Government employees and children have been barred from attending mosques or observing the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. In many places, women have been barred from wearing face-covering veils, and men discouraged from growing long beards. In the village of Aktash in southern Xinjiang, Communist Party official Adil Sulayman, told RFA that many local shopkeepers had stopped selling alcohol and cigarettes from 2012 “because they fear public scorn,” while many locals had decided to abstain from drinking and smoking. The Quran calls the use of “intoxicants” sinful, while some Muslim religious leaders have also forbidden smoking. Sulayman said authorities in Xinjiang viewed ethnic Uighurs who did not smoke as adhering to “a form of religious extremism.” They issued the order to counter growing religious sentiment that was “affecting stability,” he said.James Leibold, an expert on China’s ethnic policies at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, said Chinese officials were “often flailing around in the dark” when tackling extremism. An acute lack of understanding leads them to focus on visible, but imprecise, perceptions of radicalism such as long beards, veils and sobriety, he said. The result is often “crude forms of ethno-cultural profiling,” Leibold said. “These sorts of mechanistic and reactive policies only serve to inflame ethno-national tension without addressing the root causes of religious extremism, while further alienating the mainstream Uighur community, making them feel increasingly unwelcome within a hostile, Han-dominated society,” he wrote in an e-mail. [Source: The Independent].
Undeterred by the lack of criticism from Islamic countries, the Chinese government continues to introduce harsh measures to suppress its Muslim population. What makes the matter worse is that Islamic countries like Pakistan and the GCC are eager to do business with China, and do not say anything about the treatment of Uighurs. The irony is that for Muslims seeking to do business with China, the Chinese government goes out of its way to ensure that halal food, prayer facilities, and alcohol free meetings are provided; whereas its own Muslim population are routinely subjected to non-Islamic measures.